What has happened to little Megs over the past couple of months?
To tell you the truth it has been a bit of a rollercoaster over that period of time. She is still at K9 Country Kennels and Suzan has been sending me updates, photos and videos so I can see how Meghan is getting on. It is very reassuring to see how happy and contented she looks. However it has been very frustrating that she was supposed to be here at the end of March and we are now at the end of June and there is still no news on what date she will arrive.
I am on a WhatsApp group of doggy adopters and rescuers waiting for our respective charges to arrive from Turkey with Helen from 4 Paws Pet Transport. On a few occasions there has been an excited flurry of messages and news updates between members when we hear that restrictions are about to be lifted, only for our hopes to be dashed by some more red tape and delay.
On 10th April we heard that British Airways had flown 50 cats and dogs to the UK after they were abandoned by owners in Cyprus following the coronavirus outbreak. One of the WhatsApp group members got their hopes up that this might mean our little friends would be able to fly out, however as soon as I heard it was British Airways I knew it was from the south of the island as British Airways does not fly to North Cyprus and that therefore this did not change anything regarding the status of our furry family members.
Next we heard that Austria and a couple of other countries were opening their borders to neighbouring countries, but this didn’t help our position either as Helen would need all borders on her route to be open in order to travel from Turkey to the UK. Gradually more and more countries started opening up across Europe, but then we heard that some countries would want to quarantine people coming from the UK or would not allow entry to those from the UK due to the pandemic. Then we heard that restrictions on all those travelling across borders in Europe had been lifted in full only to hear that the UK itself had decided to impose quarantine on arrivals, with a few exemptions, which led France to state that it would retaliate and impose quarantine on people arriving from the UK. This meant we were back to square one!
Finally we got to the stage where Helen would be able to travel across Europe and return to the UK without having to do 14 days in quarantine, as she would be travelling as part of her job. Through all these ups and downs Turkey’s borders remained stubbornly closed. Then towards the end of June things started to ease up and Turkey opened its borders. Flights started to resume between Turkey and north Cyprus and there was no need for passengers to quarantine. Our hopes were raised once again. Suzan went to the office of Pegasus airlines to enquire about flight availability and we even had 7th July penciled in as a possible day for them all to fly out. Suzan went looking for a suitable travel crate for Meghan and I was about to send her the money to pay for it when we heard that Ankara was not allowing animals to travel by air at this time. Our hopes were dashed once again.
As I write this blog at least the dogs from Turkey are on their way back to their new lives in the UK. However my little Megs and at least one other dog from our group are still not able to get back to us…