Flying dogs

September 28th, 2009 by dogopolis Leave a reply »

This weekend, we had a brilliant idea on taking Obi to fly with us for a short airplane trip. It had come to our attention that pets are welcome aboard by airlines such as Southwest and JetBlue. We were pretty excited about it until we looked online and realized that there are plenty of rules and regulations that you must follow.

Obi trying to fly with his ears

Obi trying to fly with his ears

I won’t post the policy details here, if you would like to learn more … go here for Southwest’s pet policy and here for JetBlue’s

One of the rules from JetBlue states that a dog must fit inside a 17″L x 12.5″ W x 8″ H carrier and your pet must be able to stand up and move around the carrier with ease.

As much as we were excited to bring Obi on board with us, we’re not sure how he would feel about being stuffed inside a small crate. He is probably just a tad too big for a crate that size. It sounds to me that the airlines only allows small dogs that are under 11 lbs.

Would we bring Obi on board the airplane? Probably not right now
Why? Because his weight and size probably wouldn’t allow him to be comfortable inside the crate and we’re still unsure about how other passengers feel with dogs aboard.

Thoughts and comments on flying with your dogs are welcome

Posted in Dog Services, Travel

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  • Andra (steedal)
    I have flewn with doxies several times. Get the sherpa bag. Once I had to stuff an 18lb doxie into the sherpa bag. She was a rescue I was picking up and bringing home with me. Man, did she get heavy when changing planes! They do fine and no one on the plane seemed to care. Get the health certificate and sherpa bag and then take the little man on some trips!!
  • Ana
    i've mentioned it before, but we take rupert and enzo on the plane and they're totally fine. other passengers don't even notice they are there most of the time. i've had to let rupert's nose poke out before to prove his existence to an older gentleman. and 9 out of 10 times, the flight attendants are excited by the prospect of flying doxies (some even show us the wallet pics of their own lil' fellas).

    i suggest getting the approved kennel club bag (sherpa?) and using it the same way you would a crate for a while to get obi used to the space. in fact, we actually use the bag in place of the crate while at our vacation destination.

    doxies do love hidey holes...
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