# Pet Relocation service from Canada to New Zealand?



## SAAG

Ha... sent an e-mail inquiry to a pet relocation service to see how much they'd charge for shipping our dog to New Zealand.

Upon first contact, the rep says:

_"Thank you for reaching out to us about moving your dog to Auckland next year. This is quite a big move that you both have ahead of you and I would be happy to make any of the necessary travel arrangements to get Merlin safely delivered to your new home. What brings you to Australia and what prompted you to reach out to a service like ours for assistance?"_

um, Australia? Since when is Auckland located in Australia? lol

Next e-mail goes fine, and the 3rd one she says:

_"Getting your dog moved to Hawaii on your own is quite an undertaking, so I’m glad to hear that it went smoothly for you!"_

Hawaii? um... yes, a very nice place, but I never mentioned Hawaii to her in any of my e-mails...

Ok... so, given the high degree of confusion, I'm thinking this is one pet location service I will NOT be considering lol I'd be worried they'd send my dog to Russia or Africa by accident...  goodness knows where the poor dog would end up! lol

Interestingly, she said they'd charge $5000 for their services. Wow... very expensive, considering I found pricing for a few hundred dollars for my dog to fly if I book it myself... even taking into account breaking up our journey over a few days to make the flights shorter for our dog ends up way less expensive than $5k. Granted, doing it myself would mean having to oversea the vaccination/blood testing schedule etc. all on my own... but maybe worth it to save a few thousand dollars? Not decided yet, and have time to decide...

So, question is, has anyone used a pet relocation service to move their pet from Canada to New Zealand? If so, what was the cost, and were you happy with what you got for your money?


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## Liam(at)Large

We have just brought our dog from Canada to Auckland (collected him from quarantine on Monday), and also spoke to the pet shipping companies (I think I even got some of the same cut and paste responses), Pet Flight Inc and I can't remember who else. For sure it's a big job, we did it ourselves successfully, although, it's not as cheap as you seem to think. Flight for a large dog was about $3000, plus airline approved crate, plus a few thousand dollars in vet bills, etc... You have to be very on top of the vet stuff, a minor mistake could mean spending up to 6 months in quarantine. You have to book your quarantine and apply for your import permit in the correct time frames, it's a lot to stay on top of. Our all in cost for a golden retriever and 2 domestic short hair cats was about $13,000.


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## SAAG

Hi Liam,

Thanks so much for the reply. I must have been off on the flight price then... it did seem very cheap  

So the $13k covered all your pre-move vet bills plus the flights for 3 pets? That's pricey, but not the end of the world... I was bracing myself for the worst!!! Plus, I assumed that the pet relocator I was in contact with would charge the 5k for the paperwork and flight, but I'd still be paying the vet bills on top of that, so it seems like there may be a lot of money to be saved by doing it on our own.

I still have to do some more reading for sure... just doing some preliminary research at this point. 

If I do it myself, I see a big Excel spreadsheet to organize it all in my future haha


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