Hegartyfelds Abroad

Since we decided to make the move, and when we started telling people that we were going to do it, one question kept popping up: What are you going to do with the dogs?

This is in reference to our two rescued goldendoodles. The older, Lizzy, whom we’ve had since January 2023, is a 75 lb. (34 kg.), approximately 6-year-old rescued mill mom who is the personification (dogification?) of love. She is smiles and cuddles and goofiness.

Her little “sister,” Kelce (named for Philadelphia’s favorite son and his wife, Jason and Kylie Kelce) is 11 lbs. (5 kg.) of barbed wire. We got her in February 2024 and she’s about 2 1/2 years old now. She has an underbite and patellar luxation in one of her legs, so the puppy mill couldn’t sell her. She loves Megan. She barely tolerates anyone else. (Full disclosure: Kelce and I are developing a little more of a relationship and I’ve been permitted to pet her, but only when she decides it’s OK.)

So, we got both of our girls, thanks to the wonderful Home at Last rescue in Lansdale, Pa.

They’ve both become absolute members or our family, so of course we were going to bring them with us. This brings us to part one of our story.

Part 1: Stress

We started the process of getting our girls over here about a year and a half ago when we had them in at the vet for a checkup. We told the vet and the tech what we were thinking and they both said “Take me with you?” Then the vet told us that bringing a dog to Ireland is easy. If we were to try to bring them to Australia, she said, we’d have to start the paperwork right then. However, for Ireland, it was just a matter of getting their health records signed off on by a USDA-licensed vet.

Unfortunately, our vet (and the vets at that practice) didn’t have a USDA license. So, we had to cross that bridge at some point. But we were feeling good.

As the months went by, we started reaching out to companies that “specialize” in transporting pets from the U.S. to other countries. We got varying responses. Prices ranged from $5,000 to $10,000. Calls went unanswered. Questions went unreplied. We started believing these companies were scams. Finally, Meg said “enough!” (metaphorically).

“I’m going to contact Aer Lingus and find out who does their transporting,” she said, smartly. (You’ll find throughout this blog series that Megan, in certain ways, is way, way smarter than yours truly.)

She did, and we got a quote.

Then we got the reams of paperwork that had to be filled out. All in all, though, not too painful.
We were directed to buy travel crates for our dogs. (Another form of stress, because they weren’t at all clear about what size crate or anything of that sort. There was VERY LITTLE CLARIFICATION PROVIDED.) The only thing they said is that the dogs had to be able to stand up and turn around in the crate. That’s it.

We tried to buy crates off the local channels (Facebook Marketplace, local channels for selling unneeded things, etc.). That got us Kelce’s crate. Lizzy, however, was proving to be a problem. It seems that large dog crates aren’t readily available and people aren’t selling them that often.

So, we ended up going to the local pet store we like, Dogs and Cats Rule in Maple Glen, Pa. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a crate big enough for her. They actually recommended we go to the local big-box pet supplies store, which we did. We told the manager what the issue was, and she got the second-biggest crate down. She measured Lizzy next to it. “That’s perfect,” she said. We bought it.

Lesson: Never take the word of a big-box pet-supply manager.

The girls were happy-ish in their new crates. We got them with plenty of time for the girls to get used to them. The girls were good with their travel accommodations.

The Vet

We found a local USDA-licensed vet, who told us that all we needed (thanks to the records our prior vet had provided) was rabies vaccines for the girls (it has to be the first shot for each, even though they both had had rabies shots before), and a heartworm treatments within five days of our departure.

We booked our appointments. We got the shots for the girls. Then, exactly five days before our departure, we got them their heartworm treatments.

We were good to go.

Or so we thought.

Which leads us to the second part of our story.

Part 2: That Wasn’t Stress; This Is Stress

We got to our departure day, July 21. We packed the crates. We packed our luggage. We packed ourselves. We got everything into the two rental cars we were going to drop off at JFK, where we chose to fly out from. (We didn’t actually “choose” JFK; the freight company told us that we had to fly out of JFK. We had also actually booked flights to leave at 11 p.m. from New York, which would get us to Dublin at about 11 a.m. “No!” we were told by the freight company. We had to rebook for the 9 p.m. flight. Which we did.) All was still good.

The week leading up to departure, as Meg was sending the freight company our info and itinerary, we were told we had to arrive at their facility right by JFK no earlier than four hours prior to our flight, but no later than three hours prior to our flight. A narrow window indeed.

I was driving a big SUV packed with both crates and about 80% of the luggage. Meg had the boy, both dogs and the remainder of the luggage. I had to make a stop for poop bags because, in the midst of moving our lives overseas and shipping a lot of stuff to our new home, things were chaotic. (Thank you again to Micki, Meg’s mom, for all her help in getting us out the door and handling a whole lot of our moving details, like getting rid of most of our furnishings. She is a miracle worker and a life-saver.)

So, I stopped at the aforementioned Dogs and Cats Rule, got poop bags, and we were off for JFK.
I arrived shortly after Meg had. We brought the crates in. Alejandro, who was handling us and the dogs, looked at the crates.

“That’s too small, man,” he said to me as he measured Kelce against her crate.

Our hearts dropped. He went out and came back a couple minutes later with a slightly bigger, although filthy, dog crate. Apparently, that was the right size.

Also, apparently, the rule isn’t that the dogs have to be able to stand up and turn around. The rule is that they have to be able to STAND UP TO THEIR FULL HEIGHT AND TURN AROUND. This is information that we would have appreciated earlier in the process.

So, we had Kelce’s crate. Next came Lizzy.

“That’s too small, man,” Alejandro said. “We can’t send her in that. If the authorities see her in that, I could get in trouble for animal cruelty.”

I didn’t hold this against Alejandro. I was just disappointed. And Meg was getting a look on her face.

Alejandro provided what we thought was a solution: The facility where animals are quarantined when they come into the U.S. is called The Ark. They sell creates, he said. They are very, very expensive there, he also said.

Out of options, Lizzy and I got into the SUV and I drove to The Ark. It was about 5 p.m. at this point, but there were people there. I explained our situation. I explained that we were flying out to Ireland and we needed a crate for Lizzy. I told them time was of the essence.

They brought a crate which was bigger. They described it as a PP90 with extenders. They said “You could try the PP90, but I don’t think it’s big enough.”

I said “Let’s use the extenders. Better safe than sorry.”

They sold me the crate for $1,500. Yes, $1,500, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Two employees helped me load the crate into the SUV. Lizzy got in. We raced back to the freight company.

“That crate won’t work,” Alejandro said. “It’s too big. Aer Lingus won’t allow it on the plane.”

Again, information that we could have used before.

Alejandro told me we needed a PP90 crate. (Again, info that … never mind.)

I raced back to The Ark. It was closed. I knocked on windows. Nothing.

My heart sank.

We weren’t flying out on July 21.

Part 3: Back to Philadelphia Again

At this point, Meg and I were out of options. We tried to call local pet-friendly hotels to see if we could stay there and fly out the next day. Then we found out Aer Lingus didn’t have a flight until two days later. We realized we had to head back to our house in the suburbs of Philly, which we’d said goodbye to earlier in the day. Fortunately, we still had beds there.

We took a depressing ride back to the house, where we arrived around midnight.

Not a lot was said that evening.

But we had other problems we had to deal with. First, since we got the heartworm treatments exactly five days before our flight, they weren’t going to be good for our newly booked flight on July 23rd. Meg handled speaking with the vet. I decided my day would be best handled dealing with The Ark.

After spending about six hours in the car going back and forth to JFK on the 21st, I got up on the 22nd and drove back up to JFK and went to The Ark again. I explained my issue. They were sympathetic. They got me the right crate. Or so they said. I told them that if I had to come back, they weren’t going to see a pleasant guy they saw before them. I was going to be Angry Brian. They didn’t want to see Angry Brian.

I returned home again Wednesday afternoon. Meg had gotten the girls back to the vet for their heartworm treatments. The vet updated all the paperwork to show that we were now flying out on July 23 and arriving in Dublin on July 24.

Our transport from Dublin to Donegal were updated.

All in all, this mixup ended up costing us a lot of money. But we were still able to get our girls to Ireland.

Part 4: Back to JFK. Again

We decided to leave a little earlier this time. Since the crates were so much bigger than we originally had, I was only able to pack the two crates and about 60% of our luggage this time. The rest had to be packed, tightly, along with the boy and the two dogs, in the sedan Megan was driving.

We headed up. I arrived just before Meg did and had to take the big crate, which wasn’t assembled, out of the SUV and put it together in the parking lot.

Meg arrived and got we got the crates inside. The sizes were good! Thankfully, because I didn’t have to go back to The Ark and burn it to the ground.

Our girls were put into their new, strange crates. Kelce cried. (She gets separation anxiety when she’s away from Megan.) Lizzy smiled. (She’s OK with new experiences because she likes meeting new people.)

We flew out on the night of the 23rd. We arrived the morning of the 24th and the limo (read: van) that took Meg and the boy went to the cargo arrivals at Dublin Airport and we got our girls packed into the van.

Three hours later we were all in Drumbar, at our new home. Lizzy and Kelce have been smiling since our arrival, overwhelmed by the new sights and smells, and our new neighbors, the horses.

So it took a little longer than we planned. We hit some unexpected bumps along the road. But, in the end, our girls have safely arrived and are settling in nicely.