Pet Travel Advisors is a door to door dog transport service.
Dogs travel in the cabin, as checked baggage, as manifested cargo, or by road, and breed and size decide which one before anything else does. Out of a smaller Canadian airport the crate can rule out the first leg entirely, and a drive to Toronto Pearson or Vancouver is often the cheaper answer rather than the slower one. One coordinator owns the move from the first call to the handover, so you are not chasing four companies for one dog.
Dogs travel three ways, and which one is right is decided by size, breed and season rather than by preference. Here is what each actually involves.
Small dogs in a carrier that fits under the seat in front, on the airlines that still allow it. The fewest moving parts and the lowest cost, but the size limit is strict and it is measured at check-in, not when you book.
How most medium and large dogs travel. Your dog flies in a pressurised, temperature-controlled hold in an IATA-compliant crate, on a booking made separately from yours and often only through an approved shipper.
Door to door by road. The answer for snub-nosed breeds airlines will not carry in the hold, for dogs that travel badly, and for routes where driving beats flying on cost and on stress.
Two things settle how your dog travels before anything else is discussed. The first is the muzzle. Most airlines refuse snub-nosed breeds in the hold, because the same shortened airway that makes a bulldog snore makes heat and stress genuinely dangerous at altitude. If your dog is a bulldog, pug, boxer, shih tzu or one of their crosses, plan on ground transport or a cabin seat and treat a cargo booking as the exception that has to be proven. Our guide to breed restrictions covers which breeds carriers actually refuse.
The second is the crate. Your dog has to stand, turn and lie down naturally inside it, and that finished crate size decides which aircraft can carry it. A large crate rules out narrower aircraft doors, which rules out routes, which changes the price. Measure before you book your own flight, not after.
The crate is the part owners underestimate. Your dog has to stand without the ears touching the roof, turn around without contorting, and lie down with the legs extended. Those three tests give you a length, a width and a height, and the airline checks them at the counter rather than taking your word for it.
What follows from the size is the part nobody expects. A crate above a certain height will not fit through the cargo door of a narrow-body aircraft, which removes every route flown by one. Out of a smaller Canadian airport that can leave a single daily flight, and sometimes none, which is why a road leg to Toronto or Vancouver is often the cheaper answer rather than the slower one.
Buy the crate early either way. A dog that has slept in it for three weeks travels better than one meeting it at the airport, and IATA compliance is far easier to confirm in your kitchen than at check-in.
Airlines differ more than owners expect on live animals, and the differences are not marketing. Some accept cargo only through an approved shipper, which is a booking you cannot make yourself. Some restrict breeds, some restrict months, and some restrict aircraft types rather than routes, which is invisible until a crate will not fit the aircraft flying that day.
Our guide to Canadian airline pet policies covers Air Canada, WestJet and the international carriers that matter on a move out of Canada, including cabin and cargo rules, fees and breed restrictions. We choose the airline around your dog rather than around the cheapest fare, because the cheapest fare is often the one that will not take the crate.
Three things account for most of the trouble on a dog move, and none of them happen in the air.
The first is refusal at check-in. A crate an inch too small, a door fastener that does not meet the standard, a health certificate dated a day outside its window. The agent is not being difficult, they have a checklist and no discretion. Everything on that checklist can be confirmed in advance, and confirming it is most of what coordination actually buys.
The second is weather. A cold-weather embargo out of Winnipeg or Edmonton in February, or a heat limit at a connecting airport in July that nobody thought about. The defence is a direct flight where one exists and a second route held in reserve.
The third is the timeline. A rabies titre test with a waiting period measured in months, or a CFIA endorsement appointment that is not available in the week you need it. Neither is an emergency when you find it early. Both are close to unfixable when you find them late, which is why we would rather tell you a date is not achievable than book toward one that is not.
Every export from Canada runs through the CFIA. The fee is small. The appointment timing is not, and it has to be built into the plan early when you have a fixed move date.
The order matters more than the documents: microchip before rabies vaccination, rabies before the titre test where a destination requires one, and the health exam inside a window that is often only ten days wide. Get the sequence wrong and the fix is not paperwork, it is waiting.
Canada gives you two seasons to plan around rather than one. Airlines apply cold-weather embargoes when ground temperatures fall below their limit, which puts winter departures out of Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina and Saskatoon on a different footing from the rest of the year. In summer the same rule runs in reverse as a heat embargo, and it applies at every airport on the route, including a connection you never see.
The practical answer is routing and timing rather than hoping. Fly midday in winter and early or late in summer, book direct where a direct exists, and plan around the season instead of fighting it. A move that is flexible by a week is far easier to place than one that is fixed to a date.
We arrange moves within Canada and international moves out of the major gateways, including Toronto Pearson, Vancouver, Montréal-Trudeau and Calgary. Door to door is the default. We collect from your home and deliver to the new one rather than handing you a cargo terminal address and wishing you luck.
If your city is not a gateway, the plan usually opens with a road leg to one that is, and we build that into the timeline rather than leaving it to you. Moving coast to coast rather than abroad? Our guide to moving pets across Canada works through the same three options with Canadian numbers.
Every dog move follows the same backbone, whether it is two provinces or two continents. Here is the shape of it.
We map the route, check airline and destination rules against your dog’s breed and size, and give you a timeline that marks the dates which cannot move.
We size the crate to your dog rather than to a weight chart, and confirm it meets IATA requirements plus whatever the airline adds on top.
We sequence the vet visits, prepare the health certificate with your veterinarian, and manage the CFIA endorsement and its appointment timing.
We book the flight or the vehicle and confirm live animal acceptance before you are asked to commit to anything.
We handle check-in, track the journey and manage collection at the other end, and we update you rather than waiting to be asked.
Moving abroad? Our cost calculator breaks a specific route down line by line, including the government fees that most quotes leave vague.
Canadian pet moves do not have a single rate card, and we would rather show you the parts than quote you a number we cannot stand behind. Vet fees are set by your clinic.
Airline freight is the large line and it is quoted per booking, because it moves with the route, the season, the aircraft and the finished crate dimensions. Within Canada, a small dog in the cabin can start around $50. A larger dog in cargo to the United States more commonly lands in the $2,000 to $3,500 range. Australia sits at the top of the scale because of quarantine rather than because of the flight.
Send us the breed and weight, where you are moving from and to, and roughly when. That is enough for us to tell you which of the three routes is realistic, what the timeline looks like and what it will cost. If the honest answer is that you do not need us for this move, we will say so.
Only if the dog and carrier together fit under the seat in front, which in practice means a small dog, and only on airlines that still offer it. The limit is enforced at check-in, so measure the carrier rather than trusting the booking screen.
Most airlines will not carry brachycephalic breeds in the hold, and the ones that do add conditions. Ground transport is usually the safer and simpler answer. We will tell you which carriers are realistic for your breed rather than promise a flight we cannot book.
Usually yes, with planning. Airlines restrict live animals when ground temperatures fall below their limit, so winter departures from cities like Winnipeg, Edmonton or Montréal are planned around routing, timing and aircraft with heated holds. We build the plan around the season.
Four to six weeks for a move within Canada. One to four months for most international moves, and six months or more for destinations that require a rabies titre test, such as Australia or Japan. Starting early keeps the options open.
Yes. We prepare the health certificate with your veterinarian, sequence the vet visits so the timing windows line up, and manage the CFIA endorsement, which has a tight validity window and limited appointment availability.
Yes. Dogs move as unaccompanied cargo between Canadian cities and abroad every day, and this is where coordination earns its keep, because someone has to handle both ends. We arrange the routing, the crate and both airport handoffs.
Last updated 7 September 2026
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