Many Frenchie own­ers and owner-wanna-be’s have seen these mes­sages on French Bull­dog web­sites, “Will ship for $XXX.XX” or “Absolutely no shipping!”

What’s the big deal with ship­ping? Why won’t some peo­ple put your new pooch on a plane and send it direct to your city? The Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion esti­mates two mil­lion ani­mals travel by air each year.

A hint might be air­line rules about not ship­ping snub-nosed dogs dur­ing the hot months, and another one might be the num­ber of deaths, which really do hap­pen each year. The num­ber is small, but that num­ber wouldn’t feel small if it was your pet.

The Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion tracks and pub­lishes reports of air­line ani­mal deaths by month and air­line. It’s called the Ani­mal Air­line Inci­dent Report. The num­bers rep­re­sent more than dogs, but are cer­tainly some­thing to consider.

Below is a link to a very good arti­cle by Bill McGee, a writer for USA Today. His arti­cle includes the cur­rent sta­tis­tics from DOT and lots of help­ful hints about prep­ping a pet for flying.

What you need to know about fly­ing with pets

Cur­rent Ani­mal Air­line Inci­dent Reports are avail­able from DOT: Air Travel Con­sumer Report.
(They are bun­dled with other reports, so expect a 40–50 page report.)

Post to Twitter