On Shipping a Dog Back to the States

Glad you are home.  Really this has zero to do with the DR and everything to do with the airlines and shipping requirements!  Why blame the country for the airlines requirements!

Flying with animals has changed - and won't likely ever come back
US airlines especially

Too much abuse by the public.

Sad, but true......

Interesting...when we made our reservation to transport our dog in December, AA Cargo gave us all the requirements on the phone (international health certificate within 10 days, AA breed restriction form signed by vet, crate dimensions per dog size, feeding requirements before dropping off, fees to be paid at drop off, fees to be paid at pick up, etc.), then they referred us to their website to find the forms and all that same information. I received at least 2 emails from them that reiterated the requirements.

We'll never go through it again! We knew it would be stressful, and I think it proved more stressful (needlessly!) for me than for our dog! If we weren't sure we'd be here permanently, we wouldn't have brought him down.

Apologies for not initially providing more context.

The primary CF was from ***the Dominican*** shipping company.  It went like this:

1) They sent a checklist with which I complied, providing all requested paperwork days ahead of time as specified.

2) Company acknowledged receipt and emailed saying that all was in order and to bring Jarf (my dog) a day ahead of time at 9 am to their facility to measure crate, etc.  This I also did.

3) I was asked to wait and after about an hour was told that paperwork was insufficient that I now needed new sign offs - in spite of having been told days earlier that all was in order.

4) Get a taxi and off to find a vet.  Incidentally, all of these 'new' requirements had been in place for more than six months.  This took until about 3 pm, returned to shipper.

5) Was told all paperwork was now in perfect order.  Waited two more hours to be told that additional paperwork was required.  Previous vet was now closed.

6) Second unnecessary trip via taxi this time to the vet manning the quarantine station at the airport to pay for our third vet visit.  Returned to shipper, waited another hour or so.

7) Now only thing was to snag some sleep and get dog to shipper at 2 am the next morning to go into crate for flight leaving at 9 am.

Dominican agent, Dominican company.  A day burned and hundreds of dollar wasted with all of the stress wondering if we'd be able to get on our flight at all.

End of story.

Again that is not the fault of this country.

It may or may not have been the fault of that company.   

It could have been any combination of things.

While I am sorry you had to deal with that, it's likely nothing will change any time soon. The reality is normal things can be confusing frustrating and time consuming.