After delivering our outbound passengers Matisse and Georgiana in France; Lake, Molly and Bobby in Spain, we headed to La Linea de la Concepcion, close to the Spanish border with Gibraltar, to meet our first UK-bound passengers.
As we drove towards Gibraltar, it was such a clear day we could see mountain ranges in northern Africa
Steve
Gemma’s cat Steve was all ready for his journey, bathed, nails clipped, and a quick health check at the vet. Gemma works for William Hill and, over the years, we have had the pleasure of transporting quite a few pets for William Hill employees relocating from Gibraltar to the UK.
Gemma arriving with Steve
Handsome hunk Steve
Domino, Disco and DJ
Also travelling from Gibraltar are Bill’s three cats Domino, Disco and DJ. These three gorgeous tuxedos are all brothers, found and adopted by Bill, who says they’re great company. Now accountant Bill is heading back to the UK, and the three boys are going too. Bill has sent them on a little ahead, so that he has time to redecorate the flat ready to let, with no chance of paw prints in the fresh paint!
Bill seeing his boys away
Such a handsome boy
Another handsome boy
These two are especially close
On our way back northwards we called in to Nerja to see Oscar, who travelled with us as a young pup several years ago, and belongs to courier M’s uncle. Oscar greeted us warmly, as always, inspected the van, and reassured our current passengers that they would have a comfortable ride.
Pedro
In Almeria we stopped off to collect Pedro. This young fellow has quite a back story. He was one of four pups found in a sack, all of whom had the fatal parvo virus. Sadly two of the pups didn’t survive, but the other two are well and thriving, thanks to the love and care they received from Kerry and her colleagues. Now Pedro is on his way to his new home in Guildford, in the UK, with Rick and Sarah.
Super cute Pedro
A goodbye hug for Pedro from Kerry
Shy and Speed
Shy and Speed are a pair of Degus belonging to Mario. Their journey started in Madrid, and they’re travelling with us all the way to Scotland.
Shy and Speed stepping in for their close-up
We love Degu ears!
Felipe
Adorable Felipe is a frequent traveller, now on his way back to London following an extended Christmas break with his grandparents near Madrid.
Felipe loves a chin chuck
A change of van
As we continued our journey northwards and crossed the border into France, we became aware of a problem around the clutch in our van. Given the warnings for snow and cold temperatures further north in France, we didn’t want to risk driving on, and then perhaps breaking down in a snowstorm. So we stopped with friends just outside Narbonne on Friday evening, and arranged for courier Joe to drive down from the UK in one of our other vans.
He made good time and arrived on Saturday early evening, so we transferred all the pets into the spare van, ready to set off on Sunday morning. In the meantime, we contacted Mercedes 24, who arranged for the original van to go to the Mercedes garage in Narbonne to be fixed.
Transferring from one van to the other
Thomas and Luc
Fortunately, our final collection was close to Narbonne. We scooped up Mary’s beloved cats Thomas and Luc early on Sunday morning, and continued our journey towards the UK.
Mary waving Thomas and Luc off
I am getting email notifications from AC now! Whatever you did worked!
Beautiful passengers, all of them, and the degus are a new species for me. They are adorable!
YAY! So glad it worked 😀 They are a great bunch. We love degu ears.
Great looking group.
Aren’t they lovely.
PS I had to sign up again because I was not getting your posts emailed. Looks like it is working since I received this one.
So glad you did Jovina – we had a meltdown and lost all our followers
I am so happy to be getting my emails from you again, too!
Makes me very happy!!
We couldn’t be happier either 😀
So cuteeeee
Aren’t they gorgeous!
Shy and Speed look cute!
I’m glad Oscar checks things out and keeps you on your toes!
They are cute and very busy! Oscar does check things out carefully, especially pockets 😉
Good for Oscar! I like to check pockets – discreetly, of course. 😉
Bet you can do discreet rather well Clowie!
Looks like another set of happy travelers!
Yup, all safely home!
Steve reminds me so much of Sammy…. and I bet pedro would make a pawfect partner in crime for me….and no one will place him on the pad of shame… he is toooooo cute :o)
Yup, he’s got a lot of Sammy in him. Heaven knows what you and Pedro could get up to Phenny! So far he’s a rather good fellow but we’re sure you wouldn’t be lonely on the pad of shame always 😀
Glad you caught your van issues before you hit weather! What a gorgeous first picture. Love all your incredible passengers as always. I haven’t seen Degus in ages, they are sweet little critters aren’t they?! Safe travels!
Marty’s Mom
It was a good call and luckily the van is all mended and collected and back in action already!
Well I’m still NOT getting email notifications BUT I remembered to stop by anyway to see what’s going on – looks like the usual bunch of happy travelers……glad you were able to solve the problem with one van by getting the other one on duty ASAP…..leave it to Animal Couriers to make sure the switch was SEAMLESS!
Hugs, Pam
Hi Pam, we haven’t published anything since you were signed back up so that might explain things! Hope so anyway 😉 It was a relief that everything did work out the way it did — keeping everyone moving is our priority!
oh, what handsome boys!
You know you’re right! All boys, how very interesting…
Aww, they are all soooo cute! 🙂 xx Roxy & Tigerlino <3
Hi guys! We do have to agree 😀