Help! Advice needed! Pet Air or Gradlyn for shipping dog? - Page 1

We are having a German Shepherd shipped from Frankfurt to Chicago/O'Hare late next week. Which is better for handling the shipping arrangements, Pet Air or Gradlyn? I really need to hear people's experiences and advice on this.

Also, which airlines currently ship dogs from Frankfurt to Chicago/O'Hare? Which airline is best for shipping a dog?

PET AIR    VINEET IS THE REP I HAVE USED FOR YEARS, I HAVE SHIPPED OVER 30 DOGS, ALWAYS GAVE  ME THE BEST PRICE YOU CAN GET, TELL HIM TERRY HATTEN FROM TEXAS  OELMANSDORF KENNELS, REFERRED YOU!  HOPE THATS HELPS, PRICES HAS INCREASED

I have used both.

Pet Air was a little less. If money is really tight and you can't squeeze another 50 bucks or so out of the expense account to ship your 10,000+ dog, give them a shot. The one dog I shipped through them was about 9 years ago, things may have changed. The dog was scheduled to ship, I called to see if he made it on the plane. They didn't know. Not a good feeling. I called GK out of desperation to see if there was a mix up with the drop off or something. GK was able to tell me they saw my dog being dropped off at Pet Air. They know most of the people in the German Shepherd world personally.

I called Pet Air back and asked them to check as the dog was seen being dropped off. They said they would look into it and get back to me. A few minutes later they were able to confirm that ol' Jaguar was on his way.

Since then, I've used GK. Very professional, never a problem, good follow up before the flight. I get a discount as a frequent flyer. They know just what is needed at each airport.

I like money as much as the next person. The comfort level and piece of mind are worth the difference.

Absolutely GK! Pet Air never check the documents it is ok or not,they ship the dog the health cert expired when it arrived .

*Thank you* for letting me know your experiences. As you may have guessed, this is not a question just out of curiosity. We made arrangements with one of these two companies to handle the shipping and so far they cannot even get a flight confirmed. Worse, they seem quite unconcerned about it. If they fail to get a confirmed flight by Monday, we will have to switch to the other company, and we will be letting PDB know which company screwed up. This is not an issue with temperatures being too high, since both Frankfurt and Chicago will be in the middle of prolonged cool spells on the shipping date.

We don't care about getting the lowest price. We care very much about getting the dog here safely on the scheduled date with all of the paperwork done correctly. We will spend whatever is needed to make this happen. This German Shepherd is to be a much loved companion.

Does anyone know if it is true that Lufthansa is the only airline that will ship dogs from Frankfurt to Chicago/O'Hare?

GK has always done me right, I've had 3 dogs shipped from Germany and each time they were professional, polite and knew exactly what was happening at every moment. Last time, they emailed me when my dog was checked in!

Never had any problems with paperwork as it's been perfect every time.

Capri flew from Frankfurt to O'hare on a Lufthansa direct flight. Super easy experience. Lufthansa knew as soon as we walked in the door that we were there for the dog and they actually took us immediately and made everyone else awaiting packages wait until she was checked out. One guy had a fit that we "cut" in line, and they calmly explained that dogs are more important than boxes. :-) Customs was a breeze, too. In and out. If I remember right, the stickers on her crate said PetAir. I do know, however, that the people I bought her from are extremely experienced shippers and very careful, so that likely helped. 

I would use GK.  I had two puppies imported using GK.  They not only went and got the puppies, got all the paperwork in order, got them on the plane, but they also sent all of the details to me via email.  If I hadn't confirmed I was picking the puppies up on the other end and that I received these documents, they were not going to put them on the plane.  I had total communication quickly and at all times.  Puppies arrived in a good condition crate, clean and happy.  Would refer again.  Pricing was not too bad for the service.  Lufthansa does a great job as well.

Thank you all again for taking the time to post. This information is incredibly helpful, and there's no way I could find it anywhere else.

From the way the posts are going, I'm sure you can all guess which company is causing the problems with shipping my dog. If they don't seriously get it together by Monday, I'm going to give up on them and have GK arrange the shipping. I'm sure I'll lose a bunch of money, but I'd rather lose the money than the dog.

The company is blaming Lufthansa, and from what I'm seeing here, it seems very unlikely that Lufthansa is causing the problems.

I'll let you all know what happens.