The issues started for us after we paid the deposit and found out that they weren't open on weekends (!!). Even though as you know people and pets still fly on weekends. This was an issue from the start because we flew out on a Monday. We had the expectation that our dog Scout would fly out on a similar day and have a similar arrival time and date to our own, yet even though we had provided them with our flight details from the very start we found out that Scout's flight details were changed and they now expected us to take her to Sydney airport on Monday the 10th, even though that was clearly when our own flight was. We had no consultation with this date and no say in it. Thankfully we were able to arrange for her to stay with my mum after we'd already left for Sydney and then be driven all the way down by a friend. This was just the beginning of the stuff ups, then we found out that Scout's flight wasn't actually until the 12th!! So she had to stay down in Sydney without us in an unfamiliar environment for extra time. When she did finally fly we had to email multiple times to get an update on her and we received a brief copy and paste description from Emirates with a photo of her looking terrified. We had extra stress when we noticed that her flights were different on the flight tracker the day before pick up. We spent a lot of stressed hours emailing and ringing Emirates trying to get information and getting no reply. Eventually we got an email from them just before we were about to leave. We still did not get an update about exactly where to pick her up from and had to pay $12USD for parking at the airport while Emirates rang each other to determine that it was in fact the freight terminal. We drove all the way to New York City with our 2 year old who had the understanding that he was going to see his puppy that morning. We arrived at 9:45am just after her flight had landed, someone was able to give us her paperwork and direct us to the customs building to pay the fee. This is where everything fell apart and our happy day became a nightmare. After waiting at customs for 2 hours to pay and fee and get our dog released, we were told that we actually needed to have hired a broker to get her released and they needed to have all of her documents. We had to pick a name off the sheet of paper there and then and pay an additional $240USD (that was the cheapest broker!) on the spot. Thank God my sister in law was able to pay this for us or I don't know what we would have done. The officers at the freight terminal couldn't believe that we went through a pet transport company and hadn't been advised that the broker was part of standard procedure. They said that they definitely should have been aware of it and already have had it sorted and paid for us, with all of Scout's documents transferred to them. Instead we had to sit in the office at the terminal and try and locate all of Scout's documents on our phones to be able to send them through ourselves. We paid Dogtainers $6000 with the understanding that it covered all the paperwork and fees for import and export to America (except the final customs fee). Thank God we chose an amazing broker who answered his phone on the first ring and did everything for us so quickly. Customs told us that it would likely be another 2 hours after the broker filed the paperwork before Scout would then be released to us. This then meant that she would have spent too long in her crate at the freight terminal and would have to be picked up by The Ark and taken over to their facility to be properly cared for. This would also incur a daily fee of over $200USD. When they came over and said they would have to take her rather then release her my toddler and I were in tears. Thankfully our broker worked overtime on her case and was able to get her released in only half an hour instead of two hours. When we got the phone call we rushed to The Ark to get her, only to be told that she had just managed to get released in time to not be shipped over, so then we had to pile our now distraught 2 year old back into the car and drove back to the freight terminal. We waited another half and hour and then finally got told she could be released to us. When they brought her crate out on the forklift our son went straight up to it and was trying to get her out. Both he and I were crying, Scout was terrified after sitting in a crate in a freight terminal from 9:40am that morning till 2:40pm. She wasn't in a large crate as we had been advised that Emirates thought she should be, and only had her collar with her, not her lead and her toy that had also gone with her. This meant that we couldn't even take her for a walk after we got her out. The poor thing just jumped into my husband's arms and got carried all the way to the car. And because yet again this company is closed on the weekend we couldn't have even emailed or rang you to deal with any of this nightmare. We were both furious by the time we got her in the car 5 hours after we were meant to pick her up!! And another $410USD poorer ($170 in customs fees & $240 in broker fees). All of the officers at the fright terminal and The Ark couldn't believe how much we paid for the lack of communication and knowledge of the import procedures Scout had to go through. I emailed Dogtainers to try and get some resolution and a partial refund and got no empathy at all. They just copy and pasted their terms and conditions to us and pretty much said 'bad luck'. We would never trust them with another one of our pets again.