How Should You Greet Your Pet After Their Long International Journey?
An international move is not easy, especially when you have a pet. It may be best to hire a reputed pet shipping company in order to ensure your furry friend’s smooth move. Most likely, you and your pet will be separated during the journey. As a loving pet parent, this separation can be a very daunting experience.
Therefore, have you thought about the best way to greet your pet after a long flight? If not then maybe this blog is of interest to you, but before that let’s find out if our pets miss us.
Do our pets miss us?
According to studies, our pets miss us when they don’t find us for longer than usual. Dogs and cats get used to our work schedule and they know that we will come back. However, when they are not able to find their parent for longer than usual, they feel sorrow. And separation due to long international flights (longer and different times from normal separation, as well as your pet will be in a strange and scary environment), is certainly not easy for most pets. Thus, you can expect an emotional greeting from your pet after the flight.
Dogs recognize people by their voices, appearance, body language, smell, as well as sight and they celebrate this recognition as a huge event of reuniting with you.
How to greet the dogs
Research suggests that when dogs reunite with their parents, their oxytocin (the love hormone) levels increase, and cortisol (stress hormone) levels decrease. Moreover, the research suggests that:
- Dogs that aren’t greeted at all were disappointed. Their oxytocin levels decreased and cortisol levels rose significantly.
- Dogs that are greeted verbally were happy and had increased oxytocin levels.
- Dogs that were greeted verbally and touched with love had the highest levels of oxytocin.
Although the sight of a parent is a special event for the dogs, it is actually the sensation of being touched by that person that makes the dog feel better.
Whilst greeting your dog upon reuniting is important it is also important to choose your timing right, most dogs after a long flight have a need to urinate/defecate. Greeting them very enthusiastically in the arrival hall of the airport will make them most likely urinate in happiness and need. It is therefore highly recommended to calmly greet your dog upon arrival and only release them on a leash outside the airport.
How do you transport pet internationally?
There are a lot of things that you can do to reduce the potential separation stress for your pet. First of all, hire a reputed pet shipping company so that your pet can be comfortable during the journey. Keep their routine as normal as possible. If you are nervous about their trip ask your pet relocator to collect the pet from home, This way he/she will not sense your anxiety and can be more confident.
