oidara

Hi Leah,

Got your PM< thanks, but it's LauraRusty who is currently looking for a dog boarder, not me (I started the thread back in 2011!). Perhaps you could PM her?

Anita - sorry, I didn't get notified when you replied to the thread. Thanks for the offer, even though it's no longer an issue as it was a few years ago! ;-)

Laura - we ended up taking our dog with us and moving to Australia sans recce. However, we decided to return to the UK 12 months later and we sent our dog back a few months ahead of us. She stayed here: http://aidenslabradors.co.uk/ with a fantastic man called Frederick and became a real part of the family. She loves him to bits! The only thing is that he is very popular and gets booked up far in advance, especially during holiday times, but he could be worth a go. Good luck!

Hi everyone,

Not sure if anyone has any experience of this (hope not!) but I am looking for some advice.

We moved back from Oz last year. The shipping company were an absolute disaster. We had arranged for them to collect our stuff in two batches and then send it all over to the UK in one container.

They messed up and ended up sending the second batch over to Perth for some bizarre reason! It sat there for 3 months before joining the rest of our stuff in the UK.

When it all turned up, a box containing a brand new Evakool camping fridge that we'd just bought for $1000 was empty! So one of the people involved in the move had stolen it. We know it was a malicious act as we had packed sheets inside the fridge for padding and they were still in the box, so someone had gone in and removed the fridge and put the sheets back in the hope no one would notice.

We have claimed on the insurance but, as it wasn't insured specifically, they only want to pay $200!!!

Is there really no way to get more than this considering a criminal act occurred through the carelessness of the shipping company?

I have only read the first 3 pages, but I'd cast another vote for staying in the UK and having the second child. I totally understand the pull of Oz, but family is more important, especially when it comes to your own kids. If you always hoped/planned for 2 kids, then I think you will always regret not having the second one. If there is no way to have both Oz and the second child, then I'd definitely stay in the UK. If the only way to make Oz work is to put your kids in childcare and you are not comfortable with that, then I don't think it would be worth the move. We are the same - our kids have never been in nursery/childcare and we've now ended up home-educating as well. I wouldn't swap the time we have had with them for the world, let alone one country, and they are all happy and well-adjusted kids. I know lots of parents do use childcare either from necessity or preference, and I would never judge them for that. But I do think there are some parents, like us, who could never get along with the idea, no matter how nice the childcare is. If you think you fall into that box, then I'd say stay put in the UK if Oz isn't feasible without you parting with your kids. Good luck!

We have returned to the UK and have an Aussie car seat for sale. Could be useful to any of you who are in the dilemma we were about how to get from the airport in Oz to accommodation without a reliable and safe car seat for your kids.

The seat is for 4-8 year olds. It was the best scoring seat in the CREP safety tests when we bought it a year ago, and is in excellent condition. Needless to say, it has never been in an accident. It's an Infa Secure Vario Crown in Steel Velour. You can see info here:

http://infasecure.com.au/category/ca...s/vario-crown/

We paid $170 for it, but we are open to offers.

(PS. The colour is shown in the 4th picture along at the bottom. It's not the garish red colour that initially assaults the eyes when you open that link!)

Thanks for your replies, both of you! It's a tricky one. I want what's best for the dog and sometimes I think that would be giving her up now, before our recce tour. She'll have to suffer 6 months apart from us and then the whole flight/quarrantine thing and upheaval of moving to a new country.

But the risk is that we decide after the recce that we won't move to Oz after all, and then we've given up our dog for nothing! This emigrating idea seems to be one dilemma after another at the moment.

Thanks for the advice. Very helpful.

Do you know what happens if a foster carer can't find suitable new owners? Do they hand onto the dog themselves?

Thanks for your reply.

I agree that 6 months is a big ask. The problem is that we can't afford to make this trip twice so we need to be out there long enough to be sure of what we're doing. We are expecting opposition from my husband's family and don't want to umm and aah over our decision. We've been living in Europe for 7 years and have spent the last 4 constantly debating where we should be, so we feel the need for decisive action!

What you said about how people caring for a dog for that long might end up wanting to keep it wouldn't necessarily be a problem. I'm already unsure about whether it would be wise to take her with us if we did emigrate as I don't know how she'd tolerate the journey and quarrantine. If the kindest thing would be to leave her behind, then we would do it. And if the kindest thing would be to rehome her now before we even made our decision, then I guess we would consider that too. Tough as we may come back from our trip having decided not to emigrate and having given up our dog for nothing, but I wouldn't say it's out of the question.

If we were looking to rehome at the end of the 6 months, would you know anywhere useful?

Me again! I have found a few places, but they charge 20-25GBP per day!! We can't really afford this much, so if anyone has any tips of how to find something cheaper, I'm all ears. Thanks.

Hi folks,

My husband and I are thinking of going out to Australia for 6 months next year to look around and decide whether to emigrate or not.

We have a 5-year-old Labrador cross and we're trying to figure out what to do with her while we're away. We have no family who can take care of her and we don't like the thought of putting her in kennels for that long. We also don't have a home in the UK (we live in Slovenia) so in-home pet-sitting isn't an option.

Does anybody know of a place she could stay where she could be part of a family? It doesn't matter whereabouts in the UK, we can take her anywhere.

Many thanks!