Bodie and I at the gorgeous Chateau de Villandry, Loire Valley, France

Hello AndASmallDog followers! I know I have been quiet (except my rant about KLM losing our dog) but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been traveling. In fact, we’ve been on the road a lot of this year – first NYC, then Europe (Belgium and Holland this year), followed by a week in South Florida (the Keys and Miami). We’ve settled back home for a while until it starts again in NYC in March!

Of course, Bodie comes with us on these trips. We also took him all over France last year including the Loire Valley, Bordeaux and Burgundy areas. He got to explore the beautiful gardens at the Chateau de Villandry, see the cute castle of Chateau de Chennonceau (from the outside only), drive around the famous wine regions all over France (think his favorite part), visit the Armagnac distillery… Ooh la la! We stayed at some gorgeous pet-friendly properties including in the prestigious wine town of Puligny-Montrachet.

In Belgium, we did our own self-guided brewery tour. We lost count of how many breweries we visited but it was at least 12+! He wasn’t allowed inside the breweries but we’d leave him at our vacation rentals while we went in. Or just did a quick visit while he slept in the car (weather was cool enough for us to do that!).

Bodie enjoying the view

For the past two years, we’ve stayed on houseboats when in Amsterdam. Bodie loves (?) barking at the boats as they go by haha! We enjoy the feeling of space the houseboat gives us and its lovely to feed the passing ducks and swans out of the window (Bodie is not so keen and in fact tried to leap out of the window as I was throwing bread to ducks once. Luckily I grabbed him before he went overboard. So now I have to give him bits of bread each time so he doesn’t get jealous!)

He really doesn’t care where he is though as long as he is with us. He loooooooves being in the car and will sleep on our laps on the long journeys. I’m glad that he is so good about that!

Anyways, I am here still to assist you with your next vacation – whether you are taking your pet with you or not. AndASmallDog.com is my “pet project”. I have a couple other sites including GoYourOwnWayTravel.com (my main hub) and WineBeerTours.com (food/wine/beer travel). Feel free to check them out as well! They are the reasons why I have been quiet on here. Plus I’ve been busy helping my clients travel!

Happy Travels!

Leila Coe, CTA

My husband and I always choose to fly with KLM on our annual month-long trips overseas. We always take our dog with us and have flown with KLM with no issues at least a dozen times. We even drive 6 hours to the nearest airport so we can fly with them. And when clients ask me for airline recommendations why taking their pets to Europe (or beyond), KLM has always been at the top of my list.

So when we landed in Amsterdam about two weeks ago, we did our usual routine: my husband went to the regular baggage claim belt and I went to the “odd-size” baggage area where they hand deliver the pets.

It was a longer than usual wait for our regular luggage. They kept announcing the bags were coming but then nothing happened. So it didn’t seem that odd that our dog wasn’t there yet either. I asked a KLM attendant and she said he’d be the last thing brought over anyway (which in previous experience, isn’t necessarily true. They usually bring the dogs out quite quickly in Amsterdam).

After about 30 minutes of waiting, our luggage finally arrived. But still no dog.

After about 45 minutes, and when it was apparent that all luggage had been delivered, I waited in line at the KLM services desk in baggage claim. I was getting very anxious as minutes were passing, and still no dog.

I confirmed with the representative that all luggage had been delivered and asked how much longer until we get our dog. She made some calls on a phone and radio and told me to wait at the odd-size luggage area and to check back in a while.

I went back to the desk about 10 minutes later and she looked concerned. She told me they didn’t know where our dog was. I asked her to explain, and she just repeated that. She said she was waiting for a colleague to return her call.

We had confirmed, as we always do, that our dog was on the flight before we even departed from the US. So either they lied when they said he was on the plane, or he was somewhere at the airport. So we hoped anyway.

I started to get very anxious. And I couldn’t get any information about what was going on. Just told to wait.

Finally! Good news! They found him at the onsite “pet hotel” where animals usually go when in transit or when flying on their own. So we waited for him to baggage claim come in a “few minutes”.

We waited. And waited.

When nothing happened, I went back to the counter and asked where he was. She called someone. We waited for their response.

They can’t find him.

By this point, on no sleep and with this added stress, I started crying. My husband was equally upset.

I asked if they had really seen him before. Shrug.

I asked if he was definitely on the flight. She said it shows two dogs were on it. I asked where the other dog was. Shrug.

Could our dog be with the other dog going to who knows where? Shrug.

Was he still in Atlanta?! Shrug.

I asked for a supervisor. Was told he’d be there in half an hour. !!!

In the meantime, I asked for her to pull up our reservation on her computer to see if any notes were in the record. I use the same reservation system (and booked our own flights through it) so I knew how to read the record. I was thinking if he was left in the US, someone may have put something in the reservation. No notes.

I was also checking my email and phone messages. Nothing.

Eventually the supervisor (shift supervisor) strolled up to see what was going on. The first thing he told us was that he “obviously couldn’t do magic to bring him back”. Yes, he really said that. Nice.

He made some calls. Asked the other attendant what she’d done already. Waited for someone to call back.

By now, it was about 2 hours after we had landed. Things were looking very grim. We were ready to fly home if anything awful had happened. This was not normal luggage. This was a passenger that was missing and the attitude to find him was very laid back. Like they didn’t really care.

We had already gotten our hopes up once that they had him an hour or so ago, so when we were told they did find him, again, we didn’t really believe them. Apparently he had been taken to the pet hotel by the cargo department. How he had security clearance to get there via cargo wasn’t explained. They didn’t know.

After an emotional roller coaster for almost three hours, our dog arrived. They did all apologize and let us take him out the kennel. He was fine. Apparently, while we were going through hell, he had a walk and something to eat.

We will never forget the ordeal we went through and are very hesitant about flying with KLM to Amsterdam again. We are booked to fly home with them in a few weeks and I’m already nervous.

I did a customer complaint and am not satisfied with their standard response. 3,500 Skymiles each. Thanks.

It’s not clear who’s fault the mix-up was. But it was not ours. The kennel was clearly labeled with the baggage claim label from the airline, as well as destination and flight information that I always put on the kennel in case of emergency. Our dog was correctly reserved and confirmed.

What upsets me the most, from both a traveler and a travel professional perspective, is that an airline that I trusted and I thought previously had really genuinely cared for its passengers (and our “belongings”) has overall just shrugged in response. I’d expect that from some of their competitors, but not from friendly KLM!

- Leila Coe, CTA

I know, I know – its been ages since I’ve made a post to the blog. Honestly I was swamped at work (travel agent for humans is my full-time job – pet travel advice is my “hobby”) so I haven’t been writing too much for this blog (see GoYourOwnWayTravel.com or LondonParisAmsterdam.com for my other posts). And we haven’t been doing too much traveling in 2011 – just a couple nights in Sarasota in May (review coming soon!) and that’s about it (Bodie had surgery in May after our vacation and so we took it easy leading up to the surgery and afterwards).
But we are now back in Europe for the summer – almost finished with a two week trip through Italy that included stops in Rome, Tuscany, Florence and Venice. We’ll be settling in Amsterdam for a few weeks and I hope to have some free time to update this blog (and my others) then.
For now, here is a photo of Bodie enjoying the view from our balcony at the Coquina on the Beach in Sarasota – a cute, pet-friendly hotel in a beautiful area.
Happy Travels!

Wishing he was allowed to go for a dip? Actually no - he doesn't like to swim!

I am proud to mention that AndASmallDog was featured in How To Travel With Pets list of the 5 Useful Pet Travel websites.

I also support the list and am big fans of GoPetFriendly.com and DogJaunt.com.

Thank, Anil, for the mention!

Bodie at the beach in Barcelona

Most of you who read this blog are probably also fans of Fido Friendly, so perhaps you’ve already heard about the Tongue Contest. I entered in the photo above of Bodie on a very hot day in Barcelona. We had walked him from where we were staying (Gothic Quarter) to the beach next to the “whale building”. While he didn’t win the contest, he did make it into the video – along with 400 other cute dog photos! See the video on YouTube and try to spot him!

On second thoughts, perhaps I should have entered this photo of him a week after his eye surgery (and his first time without the silly collar!).

Bodie happy to be without the E-Collar

If you are a regular AndASmallDog.com reader, then you already know that I’ve been quiet for the past couple months. There’s a few excuses for this, but the main one is that we weren’t traveling due to a problem with Bodie’s eye.

It started off turning red last summer. At first, we thought it was an allergic reaction to his new surroundings as we had just moved him from his hometown Amsterdam, NL to Florida. Then we thought maybe he had bumped it on something while playing. We took him to our usual vet who recommended we seek the advice of a local eye specialist for dogs (and other animals).

Bodie ended up having to undergo a series of tests and treatments which lasted about 7 months. We tried all types of eye drops and he ended up on 14 drops a day from 4-5 different medicines for several months, with no sign of improvement. His eye, just the right one, just got worse.

We then got the results back from one of the tests that showed an inconclusive result that he had lymphoma in his eye. This is a type of cancer that is usually fatal but is rarely found in the eye. It came down to the decision to whether or not we should remove his right eye based on this result.

This was a hard decision to make – on one hand we wanted him to be healthy and cancer-free, but on the other hand we had no conclusive evidence that it was cancer and we didn’t want to remove his eye if he could still see. We saw a different eye vet just to get a second opinion, and he told us to do the same thing. There was already so much damage to his eye at this point (glaucoma had become very bad so he could barely just make out the differences in light with no real vision) so we decided to proceed with the operation.

Bodie the day after his surgery

It has now been over three months, and the real Bodie is back. We thought he was slowing down because he was reaching “middle-age” (he’s 6), but in reality he must have been in so much discomfort which made him just want to sleep all the time. He still naps a lot, but he also wants to play a lot, also! The day after his surgery he was already wanting to play (even though he had that silly cone on his head!). He has since fully recovered and doesn’t seem to miss his eye at all. He still has better eyesight then my husband and I put together (or so it seems – we are both are blind in one eye also!).

Bodie just had his 3 month check-up to see if there were any signs of the cancer anywhere else in his body, and the answer is still no. We decided to celebrate by bringing him back to his home country (the Netherlands) for two months this summer. We just got here a couple days ago and he’s already settled in. He is definitely a trooper and a globe trotter! We just love our one-eyed Jack (Russell)!

Bodie enjoying the view in Amsterdam

Thank you to Dr Denis and everyone at Animal Eye Associates in Maitland, Floridafor taking such good care of Bodie! Visit their Facebook page to say thank you on our behalf!

This is a guest post from Mary-Alice Pomputius, who has two blogs. Dog Jaunt offers advice about traveling with a small dog and Pet Carrier Reviews offers unbiased reviews of carriers and crates for dogs, cats and other pets. AndASmall Dog loves reading Dog Jaunt – always something new and informative!

Chloe ready for her next vacation

I write about all aspects of traveling with a small dog (our dog, Chloe, is a young Cavalier King Charles Spaniel), but most of the questions I get are about taking a small dog on a plane. And most of those questions are about choosing a carrier. It’s a bewildering task: There are lots of choices, and there are lots of parameters to worry about. Nearly all of the U.S. airlines allow small dogs to travel in-cabin, and many international airlines do too, but there is no standard accepted maximum carrier size. Take a look at the “Guides” section on my blog, Dog Jaunt, and you’ll see that the maximums range from extremely small (Sun Country’s 8Hx16Lx11W) to the relatively palatial (THAI Air’s 12Hv22Lx15W). What’s a dog owner to do?

Here are five tips:

1. Assess your dog

The very first thing you need to do is measure your dog’s height. The crucial measurement is the distance from the floor to the top of your dog’s shoulders — not his head, his shoulders. Imagine that your dog has put his head down to drink water. His head and neck have bent low; the remaining body height is what you care about. That’s because your dog will spend nearly all of his time in his carrier lying down, either curled up or stretched out. He needs to be able to turn around freely in his carrier (that’s merciful, and it’s also an airline requirement), but he doesn’t need to raise his head completely to turn around or be comfortable.

That number is the minimum height that your carrier needs to be. If you’re blessed with a mini Dachshund, for example, you’ll likely be able to purchase a carrier with extra vertical room. We, however, have a dog that is 12″ tall, and so is her carrier.

Another crucial measurement is your dog’s weight. In general, a dog that weighs more than 15 lbs. is going to be too large to travel in-cabin. Some airlines have maximum weight requirements (look out, especially, for some very low international maximums), but the main problem is that a dog larger than 15 lbs. may not fit in a workable carrier and still be able to turn around freely. Chloe weighs 13 lbs., and she is at the upper limit of what works.

2. Buy a good-quality carrier

If you plan to take only one plane trip with your dog (say, for example, you hate to travel, but you need to relocate from Houston to Seattle — please note that I’m choosing two cities not serviced by the pet airline Pet Airways, which will carry your dog in-cabin for you), ignore this advice. Buy an inexpensive but complying carrier, like the small Bergan Comfort Carrier (available on Amazon), and call it good.

If you plan to travel frequently with your dog, however, don’t chintz on the carrier. Yes, a good carrier is expensive, but it will be sturdy and have features that contribute to your dog’s comfort and to your peace of mind. The features I look for include sturdy and big/numerous mesh ventilation panels, good-quality zippers, visual access to your dog from above (since your dog will spend most of your journey at your feet), patting access to your dog from above, at least one good-sized pocket, and minimal weight. A bonus feature is the ability to slip the bag over the extended handle of my own suitcase.

The features that airlines require include mesh ventilation panels on at least two sides, water-repellant fabric, padding, the ability to completely contain your dog, and sufficient room for your dog to turn around.

My choices? Chloe’s go-to carrier, the one she uses for her longest trips, is her large SturdiBag. My other favorite, and the one I use when I suspect that under-seat space is going to be tricky, is her Sleepypod Air carrier. If she weighed 10 lbs. or under, I would use her Creature Leisure Pet Pilot XL carrier (it’s a heavy carrier, though, so I wouldn’t use it if I was concerned about weight maximums). Please note that none of these carriers is a Sherpa bag, which is the original (and still most popular) soft-sided pet carrier. They have many good qualities, but their tops are solid, and I insist on being able to see Chloe from above, for both her comfort and mine.

3. Choose a carrier that flexes

The simple fact is that most pet carriers you see in use at an airport are non-complying. Only the tiniest of dogs can fit in a carrier that is 8-9 inches tall. The bag you will see most often, a classic Sherpa bag in size Medium, is 10.5 inches tall. No ticketing agent or gate agent will turn a hair over a medium Sherpa bag, and there is, in practice, a bit of leeway afforded to traveling pet owners. Don’t take it to extremes (a large Sherpa bag is too large, as is an extra-large SturdiBag), because even if you can charm your way past an agent, you still have to fit your dog in an airplane’s under-seat space. Since that space is fairly shallow, your dog’s carrier needs to fit oriented left-to-right. A carrier that is 18 inches long works; 19 inches is iffy; 20 inches is too long.

The three bags I like flex in important ways. The SturdiBag’s top and sides flex considerably, but its length is fixed at 18 inches. The Sleepypod Air can lose about an inch in height, but it is designed to (temporarily) lose up to 6 inches in length. The Creature Leisure Pet Pilot XL flexes in a different way: Zipped up, it just fits under most airplane seats, but as soon as you take off, you can pull it out from under the seat and unzip a large gusset that gives your dog a good deal of travel room during flight.

That last point is an important one to remember. Your dog needs to fit under the seat in front of you for takeoff and landing, but during the rest of the flight you can pull his carrier out into the space under your knees. With that room, the top of the SturdiBag pops back out, the ends of the Sleepypod Air flip back down, and your dog has the maximum scope his carrier allows him.

4. Choose black

Black bags look smaller. If you are the owner of a dog small enough to fit in a fully-complying carrier, buy one that’s neon orange. Live it up! The rest of us need to minimize the visual impact of our pet’s carrier.

5. Consider wheels

If you are traveling far enough that you have a layover, you’ll want to make it a long one, so that you and your dog have the chance to exit the airport, find the pet relief area, and return through security. Some pet relief areas are conveniently located and easy to find, but many are not — and sometimes the gate you arrive at is a remote one. You’ll need to hurry to achieve your goals, and wheels help. Chloe’s a small dog, but by the time I get to the pet relief area in Denver she effectively weighs about 57 lbs.

Only one of my favorite carriers (the Pet Pilot XL) has wheels, and it’s really too small for Chloe. Wheeled carriers that comfortably fit a dog Chloe’s size are typically too big to work as in-cabin carriers, unfortunately, but owners of dogs under 10 lbs. should give wheels serious consideration.

Thank you Mary-Alice for your wonderful and informative post! Please be sure to check out Dog Jaunt and Pet Carrier Reviews for more information.

Rachel from PetRelocation.com asked me to provide an answer to a question they received about taking a road trip with a dog. Since they mainly deal with moving pets around the world, they asked for my expertise in answering the question

Thank you for the opportunity!

Read the post here!

Earlier this week, I co-launched a new campaign with the gang at GoPetFriendly.com called “Give Big Dogs a Break!”. We have decided that the pet weight limits imposed by most hotels and resorts are not fair, and that larger dogs have the right to vacations just as much as little dogs!

For more information and to show your support, please visit www.GiveBigDogsABreak.com.  I will be posting news and updates on our progress, as well as ways that you can help!

Planning your spring or summer vacation? Why not take your pet? More and more hotels are allowing pets – as pets are part of the family too! It can be a bit of a pain to find the right hotel – especially when traveling with large dogs, multiple pets or exotic animals – but I am here to help! I have a background as a travel agent for humans, but now specialize in the growing niche of vacations for the whole family – including your pets. Just email me with your travel request and I will do the research so you don’t have to! Items to include in your email are:

• Chosen destination(s) – or if you need help, just let me know!
• Dates
• Type of pet(s) and their weight(s)
• How many travelers in total
• Any additional information that will help me suggest the perfect vacation spot for you and your whole family

If you are looking for things to do with your pet at your chosen destination, head over to GoPetFriendly.com to find some ideas!

Happy Travels!

Leila