doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com impoorting a dog from Europe, has anyone done it

As a general rule Dogs are rather stoic..adaptable...and tolerate their situation (albeit less than desirable in human eyes). My experience showed them to just "switch off" during flight and they mostly ignored any other activity on the cargo deck. While there is no guarantee that people do not try to fuss them or try to stimulate play or activity during transportation these same events can happen when out walking your mutt and a stranger wants to call your dog and fuss over it ....Aaaaargh !! BACK OFF !!
If the dog shows temperamental and/or behavioural issues after the transportation period then the likelihood is that the pooch had them before shipping.

Too much money and emotion are tied up in pets, bird dogs.
My oldest had a fine German Wirehair, about 5 years old--he took him to the vet with a mobility problem and didn't bring him home.
Another son had a fine Pointer pup around 9 months old, a grass awn entered her nose and ended up in her lungs--you guessed it dead with an infection. A buddy had a fine Setter pup running in the woods until a branch speared her in the chest! These accidents are tragic but the financial loss and emotional trauma adds up to be a big deal. Working dogs have always been tools for sport, their useful lives are finite and fairly fragile. Invest emotion in your family not your animals, this isn't a Disney movie!

One of the lessons life teaches you is that change is constant and loss never really ends. I hate losing my bird dogs, I am extremely attached to them but also understand the cycle of life just as any hunter does. I am not willing to forego that bond and connection to my dogs in order to avoid the pain of loss. The financial part? As the old saying goes, I spent all my money on fine guns, bird dogs and hunting trips, the rest I just wasted.

Well, Brian, I just read through the whole thread again and I think you’ve gotten a pretty good overview of the process and the risks involved in this endeavor. I’ve only brought a dog from overseas once. The whole process was involved but went well and the dog did fine. However, within a year she developed cancer and was soon gone. If I’d known that was going to happen, would I have done it? No. But I didn’t know that and couldn’t know that. We do our due diligence on all the things that we can know and we accept up front all the things that we can’t. In the end if the dog checks all the boxes and you really want the it, go for it. He/she might turn out to be the dog of a lifetime. Or not.

All the best to you and come back and let us know what you decide.

OK, we've got AZXMike and eightbore as "not dog people." To each their own. Your shotgun won't keep you warm at night.

Bruce

He didn't say he wasn't a dog person

"Working dogs have always been PARTNERS for sport..."

Fixed it for you. Pretty sure this is what you meant ;-)

There are "dog people" and "it's just a dog people". The two categories don't understand the other. Meet "Snap" aka Uma De La Source d'Hannahatchee. My 75th birthday present. Picked her up on June 24th at Hannahatchee Kennel in Lumpkin, Ga. She upgrades the MuttPak 2.0 dogware of Abby and Willa, 12.5 and 9 years old, to version 3.0. A French Brittany joins my two American Brittanys. Will Rogers nailed it. Gil

Well done Gil!
May the two of you have many wonderful seasons together.

Well put me in the dog column. If you want the dog just do it. Life is too short to hunt with a bad partner, be they two legs or four, or have an ugly girlfriend. Unless she has 400 acres nobody hunts and you can tell everyone she is a great cook and has a good sense of humor. . I have retired several working dogs for one reason or another and cried when I had to put more than one down.