International travel with a dog: A great way to become an alcoholic

I came to the realization this morning that red-tape and bureaucracy is truly out of control. This occurred to me as I was arranging the paperwork, and trust me, it is a friggin mountain of paperwork, for the various agencies that need to know every single minute detail about my dog, the container she is traveling in, her exact weight, the exact weight of the crate, her entire medical history, copies of this and that... you name it, they wanted it. By 10am I needed a beer and I've been holding off but now it is 1pm and I'm gonna head straight to the shop and get some because, and I rarely swear in person or online but fuck all of these people that are involved in this process.

If you follow me at all, you are probably at least somewhat familiar with my dog, Nadi. Nadi was a rescue dog that I can't believe someone would discard but that was the case. I do not know her dog parents, or the people who had her before me.

I call her a Shih-Tzu but I'll be honest with you... she is not. I don't have any idea what kind of dog she is but after meeting several Kennel-Club registered Shih-Tzus I know that my dog is not a purebreed if she is even part Shih-Tzu at all. I do not care that she is not a pure-breed, that is all meaningless to me.

It is very important to the airlines though and they absolutely refused to accept the fact that I don't actually know what kind of mixed breed she is

One of the above images is my dog, the other one is not, both are mixed breed. So you tell me Mr or Mrs Qatar airlines call center person, which one is the Shih-Tzu and which one isn't?

The reason why this is so important to them is that there is a VERY LONG list of dogs that are forbidden to be flown on various airlines. The list seems rather arbitrary but most of them are snub-nosed dogs. For reasons that no one can explain some snub-nosed dogs are on the list and others are not. Shih-Tzus are on the list, and a wide variety of other similar breeds are not on the list. If I tell them that Nadi is a Shih-Tzu (and she isn't) she can't fly. If I tell her she is a Maltese / Poodle mix (which she also isn't as far as I know) she CAN FLY. These two dogs look the same and are almost identical anatomically speaking.

So eventually I caved and told them she is a Maltese / Poodle mix, just to get things moving. My journey has only just begun though, because for some reason I have to bring the dog to both sales offices (of the airlines I am flying with) prior to my flight so the people who work there that definitely do not have any background in veterinarian studies can have a look-see to determine god only knows what.

Make no mistake: I am not new to this and I would never intentionally put my dog in harm's way but I have flown with her on international flights many times and have proof of this too. One of those airlines I have flown her with is the same airline that is hassling the hell out of me right now.

Just for the hell of it I popped over to Qatar Airways social media pages only to find that nearly all of the comments on their pages are from disgruntled customers. You have to hunt for a while to find anyone that says anything nice about them and I'm not going to bother to get involved because they clearly do not even look at what their social media pages have become.

In order to get this process completed like I have in the past the process is now involving multiple agencies, forms in triplicate that will almost certainly never be looked at by anyone, and a condescending staff if you are lucky enough to actually get someone on the phone.

Is there such a thing as a "good" airline anymore? Because these days it seems like all airlines should really be doing everything they can to kiss our asses since almost no one is traveling anymore.

In a few days this will all be behind me but I am expecting to be harassed at least a couple more times before I finally get this process finished with. If things go according to plan I will be out of here on the 10th of July. If things don't go according to plan I will walk away and probably end up breaking the law because one thing is for certain: There is absolutely ZERO chance that anyone is taking my dog away from me because of some paperwork.