Good Dog News

Well a fellow traveler has successfully navigated their way from Denver to San Jose, Costa Rica with dogs in tow flying on Frontier Air Lines. Here is a copy of the report:

""Everything went so smoothly we were waiting for something to go wrong. But it was the easiest transfer ever!!! You are probably leaving on the Midnight flight so get to DIA around 9 pm. We were the only passengers there so we had about a dozen Frontier employees helping us.

Out dogs did great! They are enjoying the life here in CR (just getting used to the heat and humidity!)

Just follow the USDA guidelines and you will have everything you need. I had my dogs rabies shots at least 30 days prior to leaving and I had the International Health certificate filled out by my vet 10 days before leaving. The vet faxed the certificate over to the local USDA office to make sure it was filled out correctly. I then made an appointment (without the dogs) with the USDA and picked up the certificate and the rabies vaccination verification from my vet and took it to the USDA office in Lakewood. They verified all the information, stamped everything and I was set. Actually very easy!!

Call Gail at the USDA, she is great - 303-231-5385 .""

With only a few more questions, we should have part of the mystery cleared up so when we arrive at the airport with dogs in tow we will know what to expect and what to do. If this goes as planned then a lot of hand wrenching will not be needed.


""We took them straight to the ticket counter with our other luggage. After we checked in, they checked our health certificate, and put all the stickers on the kennel, we went with them to a security room where we had to let them out of their kennel so the kennels could be examined. After that we put them back in, we wire tied the kennel doors and they were taken to the plane. Our dogs are around 65 lbs so we used a 400 or 500 series that we purchased from Petsmart for $100 each. We picked them up in the San Jose airport at baggage claim #4 (for oversized luggage).

Our dogs are 4 and 6 years old and had never been in a crate before, but they were fine. We purchased the crates a few weeks before we left and left them in the house without the doors so they got used to them being there. We also would throw in treats everyday so they new it was ok to go in them. I think your dogs will do fine.

Also, you may want to find out where your local USDA office is so you can hand carry the certificate to them to get it stamped. Gail could probably help you find it.

Also, the first thing they will ask you at the ticket counter is "Do you have a return flight?" Contact me on my email below and I can tell you about that as well.""

I called the USDA Vet today (5/17) to see what we needed for them to certify our dogs for travel to Costa Rica. Since we will be in Denver longer than 10 days, we can’t have the Idaho USDA do it since the 10 day travel certificate that the airlines use would expire. The 7001 form is good for three months; it’s the other form for interstate travel that runs out in 10 days. So it’s the airlines that have the 10 day restriction not the USDA or Costa Rica.

So anyway we found a USDA Certified Vet in Lakewood that will certify the dogs ($92/ea) and then they will fax the forms to USDA for pre-approval. Once we get the OK from USDA we will make an appointment to take all the original forms to USDA so they can stamp them and we’ll be good to go, or should I say the dogs.

So soon our snow dogs will become beach dogs (we hope)..