Sedating your pet for air travel

Request a Quote Call Allaying your concerns about pet travel is part of our job here at Starwood. But you may have heard otherwise, and you can find seemingly reputable online sources that still recommend sedation. This is why we work so hard to help you separate fact from fiction.

Here at PetRelocation, we are constantly asked about sedation or the use of tranquilizers when flying our customers' pets. Simply, the answer is NO! According to the American Veterinary Medical Association AVMA , sedating cats or dogs during air travel may increase the risk of heart and respiratory problems. Except in unusual circumstances, veterinarians should not dispense sedatives for animals that are to be transported. Little is known about the effects of sedation on animals that are being shipped by air and enclosed in kennels at 8, feet or higher, the altitude at which cargo holds are pressurized.

There are many preparations to make when it comes to traveling by air. For us pet parents, there is even more to consider if our furry family members are coming along for the ride. We have to find out which airlines are pet-friendly, pick the right pet carriers, prepare our pooches for travel, and so on. But one of the biggest challenges we might come across when traveling with our pets is thinking about whether they need to be sedated while traveling by air.

Throw a pet into the mix and now a whole new set of concerns are on the table. Earlier this month, the tragic death of Kokito , a dog that died after a flight attendant placed him in an overhead bin, drew the ire of pet owners everywhere — as did follow-up stories of pets crossing the globe in flight mix-ups. As such, pet owners are eager to get informed about all the measures they can take to travel safely with their pets.