Les chiens en France

From Toronto we flew into Paris...mainly because after Zoom airlines collapsed it was faaaar cheaper to fly the dogs as excess baggage into europe than it was as cargo as would be required into the UK.

Loading the dogs onto the plane at the canadian end was fantastic. I had Kims help (to which I am indebted), and the airline staff allowed us to take the dogs out of their crates after they had been checked in..they just had to be back within an hour prior to the flight leaving. I think this was fantastic of the airlines to allow.

Unloading in Paris was a slightly different story. The dogs got brought out with all the other luggage..poor Hollie was put on the conveyor belt and got half way round (with people sticking their fingers in her crate none the less) before I could rescue her. It was there the fun began.. We flew into terminal 3, but had to get to terminal 1 to pick up the rental car. This involved walking down a long eisle way (with 2 large dogs crates, 2 dogs and all my luggage) and then getting a train to the other terminal. While it was interesting to say the least, I got very proficieint at managing all my gear, the dogs handled the train ride just fine, and we did have many nice people attempting to help.

After picking up the rental car, I headed up to Lille for the night.

From there, we then finished the trip to Calais (which wasnt that much further). It was at this point that we had to go through the whole procedure with export requirements again, but at this point it was sooo much easier. We found a vet in Calais that spoke some English, they frontlined & wormed the dogs and stamped off their pet passports..process complete.

We then had another day to spare in Calais, so I went for a drive down the coast line, stopping at a few points along the way. It was very scenic & beautiful!!

Our final morning we headed off to the ferry terminal to make the trip back to England. We travelled with P&O, as they were the only company that would allow dogs on with foot passengers. Once again I had to drag around all my luggage and crates, but by this stage I was quite proficient at it, and I had help from the employees there. And we got our own bus onto and off the ferry. The dogs had to stay in their crates on the cargo deck for the duration of the crossing, and were a little shaken at the other end but none too bad.

Whilst waiting for our rental car to be ready on arrival in Dover, 3 young boys were fascinated by the dogs, and spent a good half an hour running Tooheys around the terminal. Tooheys being a good boy, was more than happy to run with them, and I dont know whether boys or dog were more exhausted!

At Cap Gris Nez