When Reggie and I moved from Massachusetts to Maryland, it was a smashing success. Reggie traveled in his little pet-carrier in the car passenger seat, growling every ten or so minutes at his situation. We stopped a few times for gas and arrived at the new house at same time as the cage. Eight hours in a pet carrier may be annoying, but he only weighs a pound, so it’s not like he’s absolutely cramped in there. Aside from the growls and periodic pacing, he didn’t seem to mind too much. But don’t put your finger in there because unlike real-life-Reggie, travel-sized-Reggie is likely to take it off in bitterness.
There were two Christmases where I wanted to go home for more than five days. Since I won’t leave Reggie alone that long, I had to find someone to take care of him. Except it was Christmas and absolutely no one wants to take care of your pet at Christmas. Don’t even try. So I booked Reggie a pet plane ticket (they’re not free and only two pets are allowed per flight), and braced myself to travel with Reggie to Houston for a 10 day trip. My parents have an extra cage (they have parrots, too), so he had housing waiting, at least. But I had to find myself a carrier that would fit under the seatback in front of me. It wasn’t too hard, and like I said, Reggie doesn’t really weigh a pound, so he fits with room to pace. Then I had to take him to the vet to get him “certified” to travel. The certification lasts ten days, so I only had to do it once.
Then I had to take him to the airport. I will generally describe all four of my trips to the airport with Reggie. To start, when you have a parrot in a cat carrier, it breeds all kinds of questions from passersby: “ooh! What is that?” they would ask as they gazed into the top, which is open/caging — I was tempted to tell all these people it was a parrot-shaped snake. “Are you taking him on the plane?” – no, we just like to visit the airport. “Make him talk!” — he doesn’t like you. (of course Reggie doesn’t talk in the box; he’s not in the best mood). “Can I touch him?” — he’ll bite you. good luck. And the absolute worst experience sitting in the airport was a lady who asked if her 6ish-year old daughter could come look at him. As I sat in the airport, I felt like I was babysitting this 6-year old who just kept talking to me about who knows what and trying to stick her fingers between the bars. I kept having to tell her “no”. Her mom was neither nearby nor paying attention. In airports, even nice people can become obnoxious.
The strangest part about the airport (all four times) was going through security. I got the usual “what is he?” from TSA, but they were really the nicest people to me, very considerate. I had to take Reggie out of his porter so it could be x-rayed and then we had to walk together through the people-xray. Reggie’s wings are clipped or I never would have considered this. He was pretty excited to come out of the carrier and dismayed to go back in. He didn’t try any funny-business any of the times.
On the plane, Reggie had to sit under the seatback in front of me in the dark. But he didn’t complain. He just sat there quietly. I had put a dish in the carrier for water, so I poured him some water in-flight and gave him some food. I tell you, despite the fact that his ears were probably popping like crazy, he acted better than any two year old. He didn’t make a peep about it. He was probably too busy plotting my demise to think about it, really.
Would I travel again with Reggie? Absolutely. It’s annoying for me, and annoying for him, but it’s much better having him with me than finding him weeks’ worth of care (and missing him all the while)! The next thing I’m exploring is how Reggie and I might be able to live overseas: there’s little-to-no quarantine from what I understand, but there’s some unknown and large set of paperwork with the FDA or the USDA or the foreign sponsor country’s equivalent if you want your pet bird to go overseas and be able to come back eventually. We’re not moving any time soon, but someday we might want to!
