Flying With Dogs?

[BTP880]

Hi all,

Ive seen a few posts where people are flying with their dogs but I haven't seen much about it specifically. I have a small 25lb dog I want to fly with (so when I travel I dont have to leave her at home) once I finish my training and had a few questions.

1) Planes are loud, how do you protect your dogs hearing? My dogs ears are large and stand straight up so a lot of the commercial dog ear muffs ive seen would require her ears to be smushed down and im not sure how she would like that.

2) My dog is pretty chill and I take her in the car and kayaking a bunch and she dosnt care but getting her to like the plane may be harder, how did you get your dog comfortable with flying?

3) Im thinking that putting the dog in a small crate and strapping that down is the safest for both the dog and me. No possibility of her getting in my way. Just making sure im not missing something with this assumption?

4) Post pics flying with your pup!

[Captain Avgas]

Lots in the archives on this topic. Try this thread from last December... entertaining and informative. Seems like every pooch is a different personality...which won’t come as any surprise to repeat dog owners.


http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...ght=Flying+dog

[TShort]

With my old dog, we put him in the back (I took a friend along, this was when I had a C-172) and taxied around a bunch.
Once I could see he was good with that, the same friend and I took him for several short flights.
He flew with me for 100s of hours.

My current dog, no way no how. Despite every intervention known to man, he hates the car, shakes and shivers and drools. I have had him in the back of the C-170 on the ground, but it is pointless, there is no way he will ever overcome that. So he stays home...

[flyboy1963]

Originally Posted by TShort

......….no way no how. Despite every intervention known to man, hates the car, shakes and shivers and drools...…...put in the back of the C-170 on the ground, but it is pointless, there is no way ...

sounds like my ol' college girlfriend....;b) wouldn't fly with me either!

[Electrogunner]

A doberman, beagle, terrier and a cat travel in the back of my -10. They don't seem to mind. My wife regularly takes her headset off, she doesn't seem to think it's too loud for animals. She's a vet tech.

[N941WR]

Check with you DVM for a dosage of benedryl you can give you dog to help calm him/her down. (I'm married to one, so for me, it is easy.)

We use MuttMuffs and have had good results. We did use cotton on one of our bulldogs and when he realized it cut down on the noise, he stopped pawing at his ears.

Remember, dogs have very sensitive hearing, you should provide them some type of hearing protection.

Good luck!

[Bavafa]

We have taken our German shepherd in our plane multiple times, including x-country trips. She is a very travel friendly dog, can go on a 12-hour drive without any issues or in a windy road again without any issues. But she hates the flying part, specially going away portion since all of our trip with her has been a x-country of 1 to 4 hour flight. On the way back, she usually just jumps in and doesn't show much displeasure as she knows she is coming home.

We tried the ear muff and did not work at all, it slips down and off the ear.

She is at the point that even if/when we take her to the hanger, she prefers to sit in the car than in the hanger next to the plane.

[N546RV]

Whether it's a crate or otherwise, some kind of restraint is definitely in order. Getting the restraint right may take some trial and error. I was flying a husky for Pilots and Paws a couple weeks ago, thought I had him decently secured in the back seat, only to have him come join me up front while I was taxiing out. That could have been a really hairy situation if he'd waited until I was in the air. From now on, PnP transports for me will either involve a crate or a copilot.

Anyway, we weren't sure how our dogs would do, so we resolved to make the first flight very easily abort-able if things went sideways. As it turned out, there was no need to worry - they were perfectly fine, and I'd go so far as to say that our one dog actively loves flying.

Mutt Muffs or something similar are a good call, though we've had limited success getting them to stay on our dogs' ears. We suspect this is due to them having been cropped, so there's not a lot of ear for the muffs to sort of hang on any more. We trained the dogs to "understand" the muffs by exposing them to power tools in the garage, with and without the muffs. They seemed to get the idea pretty quickly.

We even tried flying with Mae sitting up in the front seat last weekend, it worked out great.

[philip_g]

I toss our vizsla in the baggage area of the sr22 with the back seats down. She sleeps.

[koupster]

Have been flying dogs for Pilots N Paws in the RV-6A.
Even small crates don't fit into the baggage area well.
Have settled on a tether that loops around the flap drive tube next to the floor and has a snap hook for the dog's collar on the other end. The snap hook reaches to about an inch below the seat crossbar, so the dog can get its head over the crossbar but no more.
Most of the dogs end up lying down and possibly sleeping most of the way.
The last dog I flew had done a leg in the back seat of an RV-8; presumably in a crate with the rear stick removed.

Cheers ,David
RV-6A KBTF