Why You Shouldn't FedEx your Dog to Portugal

Jul 03, 2025

On January 31, 2023, we were two hours away from the airport, with a rented cargo van, ten pieces of luggage, Kiitos in his large crate and tickets on that night’s Lufthansa flight to Lisbon, connecting through Frankfort. All of us would be connecting through Frankfurt, so I’d printed his name and a greeting in all three languages on his crate.

It was 4th down and goal in the last minute of a very long game when FedEx fumbled the ball.

Over the past year, I’d dealt with the nuances of the FBI fingerprinting system, the overall mystifying Portuguese D7 bureaucracy that surrounds the D7 process and customer service calls to VFS immigration services that ended up with broken promises over a shaky phone connection from somewhere in El Salvador.

In my down-to-the-wire preparations for selling my home in the US, I traded some of my furniture with contractors in return for repairing bathroom drywall and tiling the kitchen floor. Then I sold the house, sold my car, gave away art and traded worldly goods for dinners with friends.

The movers came and packed up everything else in preparation for its shipment overseas, which I tracked (thanks to an embedded Airtag) with baited breath, port-to-port as it made its long journey across the Atlantic.

I watched in astonishment, then bafflement, then frustration, then amusement, before finally – after four long months of breath-holding – enjoying the happy disbelief of buying a small villa in Portugal.

I made it through the year without getting COVID, even though my boyfriend came down with it.

I’d navigated it and survived it all. At long last, the finish line was in sight.

Only one task was left and that was the paperwork for my lovely golden guy, Kiitos.

In order to come with me, he needed an international microchip, a rabies shot, and a large crate for his airline travels.

For some reason, instead of the large crate I’d ordered, Amazon sent me a large, heavy box of disc brakes from Detroit instead.

Was that a sign, I wondered?

Kiitos also needed USDA paperwork, an 8-page document that would get him through immigration and would then be converted into a coveted International Pet Passport by a vet once we were in Portugal. This needed to be done no more than ten days before our departure day.

Our wonderful vet in Asheville did everything right on her end. The paperwork was sent to the USDA in Albany for sign-off and embossing. A vet in Greensboro, North Carolina created the final document and delivered it to FedEx on the Sunday morning before our Wednesday flight. At our vet’s direction, I’d provided a pre-printed label addressed to a Walgreen’s drugstore located just two minutes away from the hotel in Staunton, Virginia where we would be staying en route to Dulles Airport the night before our flight. It would be there waiting for us when we arrived.

The drive to Staunton VA from Asheville NC took hours longer than it should have due to a tractor trailer which crashed and caught on fire, blocking all lanes ahead of us.

Is this another sign, I wondered?

To calm my nerves, I began calling Walgreens every half hour to see if the USDA envelope – promised by FedEx for end of the business day delivery – had arrived. Each time, the answer was no. I called so many times, they began to get frustrated with me.

We pulled into Staunton at 7 pm, checked into our hotel, then walked into town for a bite to eat.

FedEx eventually sent me a an email saying the envelope would arrive at destination the following day by noon, six hours before our flight. Looking at the tracking, I saw that was still in Greensboro, two days after it had been dropped off for overnight delivery.

The next morning, we walked around Staunton – which is a lovely town even if you’re a walking mess of exposed nerve-endings – to pass the time until the promised delivery by 12 pm. But noon came and went without a FedEx sighting. They sent another note promising end-of-day delivery, more or less the same time our flight would be taking off in another part of the state.

I had a pdf as well as a printout of the USDA paperwork in my folder, so we decided to make a run for it.

Five and a half hours before our flight to Portugal, on the drive up I-81 through Virginia’s lovely farmlands, I decided to try making a call to Dr Joe, the USDA vet in Greensboro. I didn’t know him, but my vet referred to as our ‘hero,’ and that was encouragement enough for me to try and reach out to him directly.

Was there a way, I asked, to have another set of paperwork meet us at Dulles Airport? I offered to pay messenger services and whatever fees were necessary. Dr Joe could not have been nicer or more willing to help.

Dr Joe placed a call to Dr Adam at the USDA in Albany, New York and explained our situation. Dr Adam, another hero, began making calls. Waiting to hear back, I watched the scenery roll by, trying to come up with other ideas if this one failed.

Twenty minutes later, Tom turned our cargo van onto I-66 heading east towards Washington DC and Dulles Airport.

Five hours before our flight, I got an interesting message.

Can you meet Dr India at the Cracker Barrel on Battleview Parkway in Masassas?

Close to tears at this point, I replied “Yes! Yes, we’ll be there!”

Four hours before our flight, we pulled into the Cracker Barrel parking lot and there was Dr India, a small young woman with one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen. She was waving our paperwork. Another hero. Never wanting to forget her kindness, I asked if we could commemorate the moment with a photograph together on the famous white rocking chairs.

Embossed USDA paperwork in hand, now all we had to worry about was getting to the airport and getting of us all on the plane. Which, despite a small amount of kerfuffle checking in a large dog and so many bags, left us just enough time for a few celebratory drinks at the bar nearest our gate.

Oh, and that FedEx envelope?

I received an email that it was eventually delivered – five days after we left the country.

My Portuguese Neighbors

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