I told Suzan that I was definitely having Megs so for her not to look for another home anymore. Suzan worked out that Megs would be ready to travel to the UK in March following the completion of her final outstanding vaccinations and parasite treatments. She had found a pet travel company that took dogs from Turkey to the UK overland so she would only have to fly with Megs as far as Izmir and then Megs could get on the pet transport and travel back to the UK by road, which would be a considerable saving to having her fly all the way from North Cyprus to the UK, as Genghis had done 7 years earlier. The greedy air cargo company had consistently increased its fees and now wanted something like £500 just to unload dogs from the plane at Heathrow!
So on that sunny morning in February I placed little Megs back in Suzan’s care in full expectation that it would only be a few weeks before we would be reunited again. At the end of February, Suzan contacted me with costings for the trip and a provisional date for Megs to travel. She also put me in touch with Helen from 4 Paws Pet Transport, who was going to be driving the dogs back from Turkey. The dogs would be travelling in luxury in padded compartments with heating and air-conditioning. One or two dates were suggested but finally we had a definite date of 31st March for Megs to depart Ercan airport and she would arrive on 3rd or 4th April at Folkstone from where we would collect her. Helen had put me on her WhattsApp group and she also had a tracker so we could see where she was at every stage of the journey.
Helen had agreed to try to fit Meghan’s travel crate in the van and bring it back to me in the UK or if it didn’t fit Suzan would take it back to Cyprus and I would bring it back with me when I next went over. Suzan had purchased a supply of Meghan’s medication to send with her as it is much cheaper there than in the UK. I paid Megs’s travel fees to Helen and Suzan for their respective legs of the journey and we were all good to go.
Then I got a message from Suzan to say that due to the Coronavirus they were in Lockdown so Meghan would not be able to travel. The borders were closed. Little Megs was stranded….