transatlantic flight

[mochalily2020]

Hi @mochalily2020 !

We're planning on travelling with Seaweed (our pig) and our rabbit (a bit later) to Vancouver from Glasgow UK! I was wondering if I could pick your brain a bit?

How was it once you got to the Canada side? Did the transport company handle all the documents there?

It seems guinea pigs are much easier than rabbits, I'm just wondering if it's worth all the money the transport company are adding for the Canada side (an extra £440) or if it's something we could manage ourselves

Glad to see you all got there safe and sound!

James

Hey James of course feel free to ask whatever you need I know the process can be quite daunting !

So Petair wanted to charge us quite a bit to hire an agent on the Canadian side to handle the paperwork for us so we decided just to do it ourselves. It was quite straight forward we had to go to the location where the pets were and pick up a document and then go back to customs which was where we landed and get the paper signed and then go back to the pets to be able to get them 'released'. The two places were not far apart in total it probably added about 45 mins or so extra. However, this was in Montreal and it was also during the peak of Covid so the airport was completely empty and moving back and forth was therefore quite easy. I'm not sure about the distances in the Vancouver airport but perhaps you could call and just see if it is manageable ?

The paperwork side is easy but if the distances are big the back and forth might be quite tiring.

I'm not sure about travel with a rabbit but our guineas and dog all reacted quite well to the flight and the move in general which is great I think they are tougher than we think !

If I can help with anything else just let me know

Please keep us posted on your move

 

[mochalily2020]

@mochalily2020 hey! Welcome to Canada

I’m a brit who moved to Montreal in 2016 and then Ottawa in 2018. If you need any advice or information then please feel free to reach out! Either about living over here or piggy supplies.

Biscuit and Teacake would like to welcome your piggies to their native land <3

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Hey! thank you for your kind wishes ! I was wondering if you have any website you use for guinea pig treats/hay here in Canada ? For the time being I use Amazon and a pet store called Safari

 

[JamesH]

Hey James of course feel free to ask whatever you need I know the process can be quite daunting !

So Petair wanted to charge us quite a bit to hire an agent on the Canadian side to handle the paperwork for us so we decided just to do it ourselves. It was quite straight forward we had to go to the location where the pets were and pick up a document and then go back to customs which was where we landed and get the paper signed and then go back to the pets to be able to get them 'released'. The two places were not far apart in total it probably added about 45 mins or so extra. However, this was in Montreal and it was also during the peak of Covid so the airport was completely empty and moving back and forth was therefore quite easy. I'm not sure about the distances in the Vancouver airport but perhaps you could call and just see if it is manageable ?

The paperwork side is easy but if the distances are big the back and forth might be quite tiring.

I'm not sure about travel with a rabbit but our guineas and dog all reacted quite well to the flight and the move in general which is great I think they are tougher than we think !

If I can help with anything else just let me know

Please keep us posted on your move

Thanks so much for your reply!

It does help for sure. I feel the same, they are asking for an extra £900 (£450 each) to handle the paper work on the Vancouver side and I noticed it was optional which makes me wonder if it's worth it really.

Did you have to fill out any paper work before you left for you pigs? I noticed it says they dont require a permit, but I'm not entirely sure of everything I need on the UK/Canada side for them.

Bunny is a whole other can of worms ha!

 

[mochalily2020]

Thanks so much for your reply!

It does help for sure. I feel the same, they are asking for an extra £900 (£450 each) to handle the paper work on the Vancouver side and I noticed it was optional which makes me wonder if it's worth it really.

Did you have to fill out any paper work before you left for you pigs? I noticed it says they dont require a permit, but I'm not entirely sure of everything I need on the UK/Canada side for them.

Bunny is a whole other can of worms ha!

Hey James

Canada doesn't require any paperwork for the guinea pigs but there are some requirements for the airline. But if you are doing the UK side of things with a company they handle all of that, petair took care of that for us because we were a little stressed out. I think you need a vet to say that the pet is ok and healthy for travel and perhaps another document is needed as well but if you want to do it yourself it would be best to contact your airline and your vet to see what is needed to not leave anything out. If you are hiring a company to help you though they will take care of the whole UK side of the process and in Canada nothing was needed for the guinea pigs which was excellent.