Three ways your puppy gets home

Depending where you are, we're somewhere between eight hundred and twelve hundred miles from you with Jacksonville at the near end, Miami and Naples at the far end. That's too far to drive down for the day.

Ground transport $400 to $500. Most Florida families choose this. A professional pet transport service runs it in a climate-controlled vehicle. No airport, no terminal, no carrier under an airline seat. Your puppy is checked on, walked, watered, and brought to you.

Timing depends on the route. The service runs planned routes rather than one-off trips, so how soon Florida comes up varies. Once we know your go-home window we'll get you the actual dates instead of guessing at them.

Personal flight nanny is generally $850 to $1,650. Your puppy travels in the cabin, in a carrier under the seat, with someone whose only job that day is your puppy. Into Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Miami or Fort Lauderdale, whichever suits you. What you're buying is a fixed date it's booked to a specific day and it doesn't move.

Fly in and carry them home yourself. A few families do this, and it's worth considering.

You fly into Cleveland or Akron-Canton, we meet you, you spend an hour with us and meet your puppy's parents, and your puppy flies home in the cabin as your own carry-on. Most airlines allow a small dog in the cabin for a fee each way, and a nine-week-old Cavapoo fits comfortably in an under-seat carrier.

Two reasons families choose it. First, once you've bought a ticket and paid the in-cabin pet fee, it can come in under what a flight nanny costs and you were going to be curious about where your puppy came from anyway. Second, you get the thing our Ohio buyers get and our out-of-state buyers usually don't: you stand in front of the mother, you look at the paperwork with us.

If you're thinking about it, talk to us early. Airlines may limit how many in-cabin pets are on a given flight, so it needs booking sooner than you'd expect, and it has to line up with your puppy's go-home date.

None of the three uses a cargo hold. Not the ground vehicle, not the flight nanny, not your own carry-on. That's the whole point of doing it these ways.

The paperwork side

Your puppy crosses state lines, so there's a certificate of veterinary inspection from our vet, issued close to travel. If a flight is involved with a  nanny or your own the airline will likely want to see it as well, and airline windows are usually tighter than the state's.

We handle getting it. Nothing for you to arrange. It does mean the travel date and the vet appointment have to line up, which is one more reason we confirm the exact go-home day closer to the time rather than promising a date months out.

Our contract asks you to have your own vet see the puppy within 72 hours or three business days of arrival. Book that before travel day, not after.

One thing to ask your Florida vet

Florida's mosquito season effectively doesn't stop, and heartworm pressure there is among the highest anywhere in the country. Your puppy is arriving from Holmes County, where that pressure is seasonal and much lighter. Ask your vet about prevention at the first visit rather than at the six-month one.

Reading the paperwork from a thousand miles away

If you're not flying in, you shouldn't have to take anything on trust. Both parents' OFA results hips, patellas, cardiac, and eyes and their genetic panels are on their own pages. You can read every one of them before you spend a dollar.

Most Florida families do a video call with us and with the litter before reserving. Several have told us afterwards that the FaceTime was what decided them.