More of us than ever refuse to go on holiday without the dog. But the rules on taking a pet abroad are a maze, and a growing number of travellers are paying an expert to guide them through it.
For years, a Los Angeles actor took every holiday without his golden retriever. At 29kg, he assumed the dog would have to fly in the hold, or not at all.
What he didn't know was that on some airlines and charter flights, larger dogs can fly in the cabin beside their owners. He found out only when he came to Pet Holiday Club.
"I didn't know Pet Holiday Club could make it possible for me and my dog to travel together in the cabin on an international flight," he says. "It was always about having the right documents. I just didn't know that before."
It is a story Pet Holiday Club hears more often than you might think.
Taking a pet abroad is not like booking a seat. Every country writes its own rules, and they rarely match the rules of the airline you are flying with.
In the EU, a dog's microchip has to go in before its rabies jab, and the jab then needs 21 days before the animal can travel. The US asks that every dog arriving is at least six months old, microchipped and accompanied by a receipt for an online CDC Dog Import Form. Some countries ask for a blood test and a wait of several months after it. Others want a tapeworm treatment given within a few days of arrival. A health certificate signed a day too early can be worthless.
None of this is hidden. But it is scattered across government websites, airline small print and vets who, understandably, are not specialists in the import laws of every country on earth.
Most owners only find out what they got wrong when someone at an airport tells them.
One French bulldog owner had already checked in, with her dog, Flower, at her feet. She had not yet heard of Pet Holiday Club. The boarding passes were printed. Then the woman at the desk looked at the dog's paperwork, looked up, and shook her head.
"They told me I was missing a document and they couldn't board my pet," she says.
What followed took hours. Staff called a vet, then called other people to check. She grew more and more stressed, and so did Flower. In the end, one missing document was enough. They went home.
The second attempt went differently. By then she had become a Pet Holiday Club customer, and a pet travel expert had helped her prepare every document Flower needed. Before she even reached the airport, she knew they were both cleared to fly.
"I was so anxious the second time I tried to travel with my dog," she says. "But it went so smoothly that every dollar I paid for expert help was worth it. I'll never travel without a pet travel expert again."
For others, the problem is knowing where to begin. When one dog owner decided to move from Atlanta to Milan, he had never taken his dog, Milo, outside the US.
"I spent days searching for how to take my dog with me, and all I found were pet transport companies charging huge prices," he says. "Then I found out I could actually do it myself, with Pet Holiday Club's help."
And then there are the regulars. One Ottawa-based traveller flies with her pet, Coco, all over the world, mostly to the US and Mexico, but also to Europe and Asia. Before she found Pet Holiday Club, she says, every trip meant weeks of worry.
"Now I know I'll have no issues when I travel," she says. "I travel stress-free with my pet."
What these travellers have in common is that, in the end, they stopped trying to work it all out alone.
Pet Holiday Club set up its pet travel expert consultation for exactly this reason. For $149 per trip, one pet owner gets one named specialist for their route, on email and WhatsApp.
The specialist builds a dated plan that works backwards from the flight, so that nothing expires too early or arrives too late. They check the documents against the destination's rules, help with the airline's forms and write a short brief for the vet, setting out which certificate, which wording and which dates. Seventy-two hours before departure, they go through everything one last time.
Before anyone pays, Pet Holiday Club confirms in writing that the route can be done. If it can't be done in time, the team says so, and the owner pays nothing.
It is not the cheapest part of a holiday. But set against a cancelled flight, a pet stuck at a border or a trip taken alone, it is a small price for the one part of the trip that cannot be allowed to go wrong.
For travellers who measure luxury in time and peace of mind, that may be the best money they spend on the whole trip.
The earlier you ask, the more choice you have. Some routes can be ready in a few weeks. Others need months.
If you are still daydreaming, Pet Holiday Club's pet travel map shows where a pet can go, and whether it would travel in the cabin, in the hold or not at all. Once the paperwork is sorted, the company also lists pet-friendly hotels, with each one's rules on size, numbers and fees set out clearly.
As for the actor in Los Angeles, he has no plans to leave his golden retriever at home again.
"If only I'd known before, we could have had so many more trips together," he says. "But it's not too late. I'm planning to show my dog as much of the world as I can. Showing my 29kg dog the ocean is already planned."
