Shipped With Creature Comfort in Mind

Classical music played soothingly as Riley the golden retriever was whisked by private limo (OK, van) to LAX for his Air New Zealand flight to Auckland. From there, it would be on to Christchurch where, after 30 days in quarantine, he will join owner Ann Weatherford in their new home.

Riley’s travel agent? Kennel Club LAX, one of the pet transport specialists nationwide who each year try to make the skies a little friendlier for the estimated 60,000 animals--dogs, cats, reptiles, birds, fish and assorted others--that fly domestically, as well as internationally, each month.

Agencies with names such as Jet-A-Pet, Paws Around the World and Happy Tails Travel are in business to handle ticketing and paperwork, and generally minimize stress for pet owners dealing with the double trauma of moving and shipping their beloveds as cargo.

Pet transport professionals, while not always able to calm anxious pet lovers, do help the situation by making flight arrangements, schlepping the animal to a vet for its checkup, getting permits for international travel and making quarantine facility reservations where necessary. Most will pick the pet up, deliver it to the airport and, at the other end, to the owner’s new residence.

“It’s a no-worry situation,” says James O’Brien of Burlingame-based O’Brien Animal Transportation Services and president of the Independent Pet and Animal Transportation Assn., whose 100-plus member companies are involved in the handling, boarding and moving of small animals. “A lot of people don’t know how to do this, a lot don’t have time. Say they’re relocating and they have two or three children, a bird, a cat and a dog and they’re moving their furniture. They turn the pets over to a professional shipper and they know the animal will be cared for.”

So what does convenience cost? There is a coordination fee plus the per-pound charges levied by airlines. There is a fee for boarding the pet overnight, which often is recommended to help calm preflight jitters and acclimate him to his traveling crate. O’Brien offers “guesstimates” for a dog being shipped across country “with all the trimmings”: $800 to $1,500 for a large dog, $800 for a medium-size dog and $500 to $600 for a small dog.

Price is determined not only by the size and weight of the animal and crate, but by how many services are provided and how far the animal is traveling. “I’ve seen tickets that are $3,000 and tickets that are $100, like for sending a cat to Arizona,” says Shoshana Weissman, general manager of Kennel Club LAX.

For the pet born with a silver bone in his mouth, there are other options. San Francisco-based Lasco Intl.’s air charter division recently sent a pair of Irish setters--and their handler--from San Francisco to Honolulu in a Learjet. The flight, during which the dogs roamed freely in the cabin and lounged on leather seats covered with a fur rug, set the owner back about $30,000.

“Some people think more of their pet than they do of their children,” says Lasco founder Jack Maita. “We had one client who was going to Europe and wanted her dog brought over. That was about $80,000.” The company has Learjets or Gulfstreams but, Maita says, “If you want a 747, we’ll provide it.”

Maita, whose clients include celebrities and Fortune 500 types, isn’t surprised that clients will pay from $1,300 to $7,500 an hour to charter a pet jet. “You see how badly we [humans] are treated upstairs” in a commercial plane, he observes.

For those not breathing such rarified air, just a little TLC--and someone else to handle the logistics--is the lure. When writer David Mixner was relocating recently from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., his trio of cats were among his main concerns. “You hear the horror tales of cats getting loose in the bodies of airplanes.”

On his vet’s suggestion, he contacted Kennel Club LAX. “It saved my life,” he says. “This was such a relief, to have that stress lifted from me.” Yates, Geraldine and Uganda were picked up at his home, boarded in the Kennel Club’s designer kitty cottages, met at the airport in Washington and delivered to Mixner’s new apartment.

“Yates is diabetic,” he adds, “and they gave him his shots twice a day, regulating it so when he was flying it wasn’t too bad. They shipped his insulin and needles with him. The cats were traumatized by the move, but they arrived in great condition.”

Some pet transporters such as Kennel Club LAX, which also offers long-term boarding, will coddle its short-term boarders preflight with perks ranging from pedicures to massages.

Weatherford, who owns Riley the retriever, admits she was “in worse shape than he was” when she put Riley on a Denver to L.A. flight on the first leg of his voyage to New Zealand. “The people who need the sedation are the owners. I’ve never taken Valium, but all of a sudden I wished I’d had one.” She cried as he was boarded, even though the airline was “very lovey-dovey and didn’t treat him like a box.”

A window designer, she is moving to Christchurch for a few years to join her fiance--and there was no way she was leaving Riley behind. In L.A., he stayed overnight at Kennel Club LAX and the next day was delivered to the airport by driver Wayne Ashlock in one of the club’s whimsically decorated white vans. Once he turned on the classical music, Ashlock says, Riley “just lay down and closed his eyes,” content in his crate with one of Weatherford’s T-shirts, some chew toys and a favorite ball.

Those in the business have seen it all. Says Rosemary Filippelli of Worldwide Pet Transport in New York, “I was just speaking with a woman who has a whole slew of things--uromastyx, which are dragony things, a king snake, four rats, a pet chameleon, 10 dragons, a cockatiel and two Scotties” being moved from Atlanta to Seattle.

Just how do you ship a snake? “They go in a pet carrier. We put them in pillowcases or burlap bags that they can breathe through. They will usually just curl around” and stay put.

“We do everything from aardvarks to zebras,” O’Brien says. Has he shipped either? Well, no--make that “fins, feathers, fur or fangs.” He has shipped elephants to zoos. (A 747 can accommodate two). “We generally turn down animals we consider dangerous or vicious.”

“I’ve moved animals that I wouldn’t touch myself,” says Millie Woolf, owner of Tampa-based Air Animal. She mentions tarantulas and iguanas. Since she founded the pet transport association in 1979, Woolf says, the industry has changed, shifting away from people traveling with pets to those relocating. And, as laws have changed and airlines have become more vigilant about pets, “It has become harder and harder to just hop on a plane with a dog or cat.”

Since Sept. 11, “There are a lot more inspections” under the auspices of the federal Transportation Security Administration, Filippelli says. “They want to make sure there’s no bombs or anything in the containers.”

Not all airlines accept pets from individuals and, even with those that do, it’s not as simple as walking up to the counter the day of the flight and saying, “Here’s Fido.” If a pet is traveling abroad, some countries require that the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture sign off on the paperwork and seal the crate the day the animal is shipped. Once sealed in, the pet is not allowed out until reaching its destination. Even if the pet is traveling in the passenger cabin--some airlines permit it and some don’t--a health certificate, issued no more than 10 days before departure, is required. If the pet is going cargo, things are a bit more complicated. Airline regulations differ, but on average pets must be booked at least 10 days before the flight. And, they must have airline-approved crates.

With summer coming, “One of the issues is weather restrictions,” Weissman says. Although the cargo area of a plane is temperature controlled, the mercury can soar on the tarmac while a crated pet waits to be loaded. Federal regulations prohibit leaving an animal for more than 45 minutes on a tarmac where the temperature is above 85 degrees. That may mean booking an outrageously late or early flight if the pet’s bound for, say, Texas or Arizona.

Janice Cipparrone has accommodated clients by cooking special preflight pet meals and she recently shipped two tortoises to Switzerland “with a container of deli fruit salad. They loved the strawberries.”

On one thing everyone in the business seems agreed: No tranquilizers. “They can have an adverse effect at high altitude,” explains Filippelli, “like if you have a few drinks on a plane, you get more of a buzz than you do on the ground.” A tranquilized pet may suffer stress-induced respiratory problems, become dehydrated from excessive drooling, suffer balance problems in case of air turbulence and is at risk of choking should it vomit because of impaired gag reflex.

No one touts flying as a pleasant experience for the pet, even though airlines require that shipping crates be large enough to permit pets to stand and turn. Says Filippelli, “I think cats probably can stay in a container longer, but both cats and dogs want to get out as quickly as possible--and I certainly don’t blame them.”

Although cargo holds are pressurized and temperature controlled, the Humane Society recommends transporting a pet by air only when “absolutely necessary.” It cites statistics from the Air Transport Assn.: More than 5,000 animals die, are injured or lost on commercial flights each year as a result of temperature extremes, poor ventilation, oxygen deprivation and rough handling. But some people have no choice--neither Amtrak nor Greyhound ships pets.

Says Cipparrone: “Personally, I feel that five hours in an airplane across country is probably better than five days in a car, going into five different hotels, with the chance of the animal getting lost--especially cats. That’s not to say it isn’t stressful. Takeoff and landing is stressful for animals, just as it is for people.”