It is a year today since my last pet transport between Spain, Germany, Holland and the UK. At the time I was looking forward to the drive back from Spain with Sands and our gang to our new home, and then to a rest.
The plan at the time was to take a break until July ………
In June we provided an update, following the decision to stop the Scheduled pet transports, and at the same time introduced a range of UK based pet transport services.
A year in and without doubt it was the right decision for us as a family, and for me as an individual. While part of me does miss the pets and the people, I am very happy that all our regular partners have found alternative transporters.
We have not really put much energy into developing the UK business, and I am not sure that we will. The roads in the UK are packed with small vans offering pet taxi, dog walking, pet sitting services, but as a rule they are all local. Delivering pets across the UK is not cheap. As a rule the transporter is only earning revenue on one side of the triangle i.e. have to drive to pick the animal up, deliver the animal, drive home, so a simple enough request can cover 500 miles and 12 hours. Always happy to quote and help if we can, but the reality is that it will always seem expensive.
Every two weeks I do a Calais Shuttle transport to help a Romanian pet transporter bring their cats and dogs into the UK, and I like working with these guys and it’s good to know that they are helping the animals from Bosnia as well as I always wanted to be able to more to help.
Realistically I could help one more pet transporter on a regular basis with this service.
I have done a couple of short Charter Transports picking animals up from Holland (which had come from Bulgaria) and Germany, and in many ways these are easier for me to schedule, and I am certainly happy to do more if required.
What next?
We still get a lot of enquiries for pet transport from Portugal, Spain, Bosnia and Romania so I would like to have more transporters on our Pet Transporters Page, but I can only add them if they ask to be included.
We have been able to help with a couple of SOS Situations, so of course always happy to receive requests and will help as often as we can.
Other than that we are just going to let the site, vans, experience and capability sit there and respond as and when to requests. We are NOT going to be pushing the services, as very much I feel that it is time to let others take over.
I am planning on driving to Spain one or twice a year socially so would always be willing to bring a few animals back with me each time. I will post dates on the site as and when, but in reality I will contact a few rescues in advance that I am still in touch with.