Comments on Pet travel: Your Dog and Cat Can Fly!

This was an extremely helpful post, what with the recent holiday travel season. Thank you for sharing. I'd also like to add that airlines are not very forthcoming about their pet policies (you'll see what I mean: https://www [dot] dogsonplanes.com/airlines/), so it takes a bit of work to figure out exactly what you need to do. Once that's over with, you can fly safely! Thank you for sharing.

Hi! I found this blog only yesterday and I am already fascinated by the way how open you speak your truth!! I love it! I only recently found out that my dog has quite a few allergies and I am quite convinced that his vaccinations played a leading role. I am flying to Europe once a year and I am so so interested how to return to the US without an active rabies vaccine. Vaccinations are no longer an option for me nor my pooch! Unfortunately I could not find your part 2 on this series. Is it there and I am not seeing it or was it never posted? Thank you so so much for the amazing work you do!!! Have a blessed new year!

Our 5lb Chi's are emotional support animals for me and my husband. (we have no kids) One of our girls almost died and required 2 blood transfusions after suffering Vaccine-associated immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA) shortly after being vaccinated when we adopted her 2 years ago. Since then, we have declined all vaccinations both both our girls, yet have flown with them with a Vet's note with no problem.
NOW, starting March 2018, Delta and other airlines are REQUIRING proof of current vaccinations in order to fly.... Does anyone have any suggestions on this?

Hello Dr. Falconer - I am traveling to Japan with my dog as an ESA on Delta. Delta requires a veterinary form with date of rabies (which I have current due to Japan requirements) and date of distemper vaccine. My dog has only been titered for distemper after receiving it as a puppy. The form and their site doesn't state any specifics if distemper has to be current. My dog is 10 years old and we are going to Japan for her to get heart surgery. Have you known anyone to travel abroad and submit a form with an old distemper vaccine date?

I have two cats. My oldest is 15 has a little problem with kidneys already and whose rabies vaccine expires mid August this year. The other cat is 14 and his rabies expired last December. He has so many allergies his eyes are bad and his skin is inflamed. Both have had a LIFETIME of those damn rabies vaccines and I'm not about to renew them with the cats in this condition and about to suffer the stress of a move to St. Croix, USVI. STX like Hawaii is not a rabies endemic state but they don't quarantine. They consider themselves to be like any other U.S. state and just require a health cert not USDA and rabies cert. BUT, I also know there is NO ONE at the airport checking any of it there. And as for American Airlines, the rule that pets have to fit under the seat goes right out the window on the flight from Miami to STX. People have dogs laying right in their laps on the flight. When you land it's on the tarmac with maybe one airline person at the bottom of the steps to assist invalids. Period. You walk off and get your car. I have a pet parrot and two mice I'm taking on board Delta. I had to get a poultry permit for my bird from USVI and also one for the mice. STX USDA permits pets more easily than farm animals. Once I have that permit, there will be no one checking those animals when I get off in STX either. If you know the island, you know they aren't extremely worried like Hawaii because horses, goats, cats, mongoose, iguanas, chickens, deer, peacocks, and whatever else runs LOOSE on the island! Unlike Hawaii that is trying to keep mosquito born diseases out or down, the islands in the Caribbean already have them. Efforts there are towards managing mosquito populations instead. I'm going to have both my old cats examined. I'm going to have my vet put down the expired rabies dates. I'm also going to ask that he right on the health cert that further vaccination would greatly compromise their health. I've kept every rabies cert and date for each cat. I'll have a list of all of them is stopped. To ask that they be given more is absurd if you see what your pets have had in their lifetime. They're going to live indoors now in a condo anyway. I had a cat that got horrible sarcoma from a feline leuk shot. 3 operations later the poor thing died of a bad heart. Never going to happen again. These older cats I have now got those feline leuk shots only twice when younger. Never again.

Curious how this would apply if you are flying to Canada? We would like to avoid vaccinating our new puppy but with our last dog customs ALWAYS pulled us aside to check our rabies certificate and they do notice if it is close to expiry.

Hmmm. Regardless of what "Dr Whitecoat" writes on the travel certificate... Whenever I fly with a dog (or two), the airline requires to see their CURRENT rabies certificate as well. When they have flown as excess baggage in that special cargo area (pressurized & climate controlled), their, again current, rabies certificate was required to be attached to their kennel along with the original travel paper from the vet.
With the amount of dogs now flying, the airlines are knuckling down and requiring that proof of current rabies vaccination.
It's even illegal to travel out of state without a current rabies. Just get an aware officer on a traffic stop who will impound your dogs for not having current rabies. You then have to pay impound and for the dog to be examined & vaccinated PLUS a ticket for them (and the traffic ticket too!) to get them back. That very instance made a friend miss their destination for a couple of days... Traveling on a Friday evening, the vet has the weekend off from the animal control facility apparently! And my friend had to pay their "bail" for their by-the-day stay too, along with their tickets and a record on their head.
I've seen plenty of people get turned away at the airline gate having a health certificate/travel paper and no rabies certificate - fly without the dog, or don't fly at all is the choice.
Maybe someone got lucky and got over on some new employee awhile back... But that's not the normal to fly. Sorry

When I flew my cat to Canada I had to get her a Rabies vaccine, and the airline did take the paperwork. Driving my dog across the border they didn't ask to see anything on him.

Hi Dr. Will! Got to this post by way of your new article on Rescue Remedy and Bach Walnut for stress during flying. No place to post comments there, so....do I have to mix the two in the dropper bottle with brandy, or can I just put the individual essences in my water bottle separately? Not flying the dogs, just me!!! Thank you!

Dr. Will your repertoire is excellent! I would appreciate a review on how to prepare your hound for "Air Travel". ( Cabin pressure can cause the ears to block,) as such people need to equalise as in diving. What is a dog to do? Surely this may cause discomfort? Are there possibilities for permanent damage to the ear drums? How to prepare the animal for flight? Homeopathic remedies that help the process: boarding, in flight, possible turbulence, temperature fluctuation, landing, and then readjustment to a different environment, in the host country?
I would appreciate it if you could advise us on Vital Animal, in regards to the above mentioned factors. This is the reason I have a pet sitter while away. Each time we are away we miss our hounds - I'm very sceptical of the Airlines, and would likely be sitting in the crate with my wolfhound should I decide to transport him down south with us for vacation:)
Proud 2-B a member of this Vital Animal Pack :)

Hurry quick, Dr. Falconer! I need part two on international travel before January.

Wow, am I happy I found this site.
Do you happen to know of any friendly vets in Illinois or Indiana?
Our handsome black lab companion, Gus has had many health issues over the last few years. We found him through a lab rescue where they vaccinated him beyond belief. He's been ill from the very start. I wasn't totally privy to the damages that vaccines can cause, but I had suspicions because of our youngest son being ill most of his life. Gus has had seizures, ear infections, skin infections, thyroid issues and candida overgrowth and I can't possibly have him vaccinated again. I thought I had found a holistic vet in Bloomington, Illinois - he gave me all the right answers - but then pushed vaccines once Gus was established as a patient.
I'm going to be traveling to the west coast later this fall with my boys (we have a yellow lab too. He also has gut damage from the vaccines) and want to be sure I have a proper "background" if you will, to fend off any inquiries. I'm thinking it would be wise to have the Health Certificate on hand.
So, I'm looking for someone else to help me maneuver through all of this. If you could recommend anyone nearby, it would be greatly appreciated.

I have travelled with several dogs to France from the UK. On the way out there are no checks at all and now I travel in a closed van nobody can see the dogs. On the way back we are required to check our own dogs chip at the terminal and hand the scanner back for checking on the database. The operator never even saw my 3 dogs, I could have had 10 in there!
Even worse on the UK side I was stopped by a Defra official who wanted to see my paper work, I asked her if she wanted to see the dogs but she wasn't interested. It seems to make a mockery of the laws.
I started raw feeding 4 years ago and stopped vaccinating at the same time so I don't go any more.

Make sure you check with the airline you are flying, many don't even require health certificates anymore for pets traveling in cabin!
I've flown Texas-Michigan and back multiple times with different pets in cabin over the past 5 years, and have never had to present a health certificate!

Dr. Falconer- We currently have a vacation home on the Island of Kauai and have traveled with our 10 year old Shih-Tzu more then 50 times utilizing the 5 day or less quarantine method. My challenge is that her rabies vaccine has expired; however her rabies titers are still testing within acceptable levels for the state of Hawaii.
I'm being told by Oahu quarantine that she can no longer enter the state unless I inject her with another unnecessary rabies vaccine. Any suggestions?
Mahalo!

Dr. Falconer: I am sorry but I need to ask this page had comments before. Where have they gone? For a while you could not find this page and then when it came back all comments are gone.