Squishy and Mushy, safe in Istanbul

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I decided to start a blog about my recent move to Turkey. More importantly, my guinea pigs have been demanding a website from which to audition for the movie G-force starring Nicholas Cage. Combining those two, logically, is this blog. The title says it all: Squishy and Mushy have gone to Istanbul.

The History of Squishy and Mushy

I will start Squishy and Mushy's path here chronologically: Squishy was born out of the incestuous relationship between her mom and her dad/granddad. As evidence of why nature has created a strong aversion to close-kin relationships, Squishy's close family ties have left her with an extra toe. She needed a friend, so I got her a pet: a tiny guinea pig, named Mushy, who looked entirely different than Squishy, but whose colored ear matched Squishy's long fur. I had them about a year before I graduated from law school and decided to move to Turkey, and wrestled with the decision of whether to bring them or not for months. Finally, after consulting the Turkish Embassy in America three times, British Airways multiple times, and numerous internet blog boards, I decided to bring my cavies to Turkey.

Although bringing a guinea pig back to the US seems fairly simple - according to the USDA, the CDC is in charge and the Agriculture folks are only called in if the animal looks sickly. The CDC has determined that guinea pigs, the harbingers of rabies, mad-guinea-pig, and zombieism that they are, need not submit to the rigorous examination of cats and dogs entering the country. For guinea pigs to return to America, they need only a vet letter indicating they are healthy.

To go to Turkey, however, is a very different story.

To go to Turkey, the Turkish consulate was quite adamant that the guinea pigs needed only what the airlines required, but also mentioned repeatedly that I needed to go to a “state-certified” veterinarian. I was unable to determine at any point what they meant by that, so decided to play it safe and get them certified through the United States Department of Agriculture as well. There is also a competing, and similar, requirement for certification from British Airlines and any reputable airline that the vet certificate must be within a week of flying. No problem with these two things – vet appointment and USDA were knocked out exactly one week before our flight.

Booking Guinea Pigs on a Plane: Cage Requirements

To book their spot on British Airways, though, was an entirely different matter. I had been planning on using an old cat carrier, but when I called to put them on cargo, I was told that the carrier had to be an incredibly specific type, and that I would need to confirm that I had the specific carrier before I could book a spot on the flight. Getting this carrier was easier said than done as I was driving to New York from Michigan the next day – I ended up having them fax the requirements to my dad, who scanned them and emailed them to my sister Molly, who called around pet shops to find out about cages.

When we got the requirements, though, something seemed a bit fishy. I had been anticipating some sort of modified small cat carrier, perhaps with additional mesh around it to keep guinea pig paws from extending beyond the cage. Instead, what they sent me was some sort of do-it-yourself cage kit that was listed as acceptable for wolverines, Tasmanian devils, and guinea pigs. If you know anything about animals, you know that these animals do not go together. There is an enormous difference between two animals that will take out a moose or sheep with a vengeance because of hunger, and Squishy and Mushy, who will squeak with abandon when the refrigerator door is open because they are fat little pigs. Molly kindly called around to shops to enquire about such a cage, and was informed by pet stores that they really only use those when they receive an enormous lot of guinea pigs at once. She then asked a coworker/former vet tech, who told her that those cages are not for sale, generally not in use outside laboratories, and that she should call back the airline, which she did.

At this point, Molly was able to secure some more pages of requirements for the cage. This one was more like it: for chinchillas, bunnies, and guinea pigs, it was basically a cat carrier, and the person on the phone was even kind enough to tell us what brand to get and where to get it – PetCo Cabin Kennel. I got the cage and called British Airways, booked their spot, but was given a number of warnings about how I should have called them earlier (I had called them seven days before the flight, and then five days before the flight called to book the spot). Apparently, and not shockingly, the Ataturk Airport takes their time getting back to JFK, so I was given their number in Turkey to call repeatedly to ensure that they would accept the cargo booking of Guinea Pigs.

And this is where the story gets really, really fun.

Guinea pigs are not a common pet in Turkey. From what I gather, having pets at all is fairly uncommon, not unusual for cramped city life. Where people do have pets, they generally have a cat, dog, sacrificial goat, etc. (Perhaps not actually a goat, but I've heard lamentations missing times past, when sacrificing a goat anywhere was legal.) Pets that people certainly do not have include guinea pig. Pets that people most certainly do not have includes two guinea pigs. Pets that people bring into the country do not include guinea pigs. In Turkish, there is no word for pet: it is instead a series of words meaning “an animal that I raise in my home and love very much.” In Turkish, there is also no word for guinea pig, though the dictionary listed one, it means one who is used as a guinea pig (experimented upon). The only other word meant, I gathered, after speaking to a representative at the airlines, rat. I say this only because I told them I was going to bring a kobay, and the person started freaking out and told me those animals were full of many types of illnesses.

At this point, to secure their booking, I needed to figure out what to call them. This created a number of difficulties. As many reading this should (or do) know, Turks hate pigs. Pigs are haraam, or religiously unsuitable - and certainly would not be kept as a pet, and keeping one as a pet would quite probably be criminal. I decided to call them something between a hamster and a rabbit, because those are two fairly innocuous pets and that is pretty much what they look like. My first interaction after this decision showed I had chosen the right path: during my chat with Oğuz, a customs representative, who will feature prominently in this story, the following dialogues did go down:

Me: "Yes, I have two pets. They are kind of like hamsters, kind of like bunnies. Rabbits. Kind of in between a rabbit and a hamster."
Oh-oos: "You have rabbit?"
Me: "No, it is not a rabbit. It is smaller than a rabbit. They are called Cavies. Let me get my Turkish Dictionary..."
Oh-oos: (unintelligible phraseology)
Me: “It is not a ‘kobay’ but it is in between a rabbit and a hamster, it looks like a hamster, but it is the size of a small rabbit.”
Oh-oos: "We will need the vaggeenes for that"
At this point, I knew that vaggeenes meant vaccines - I am not sure why the folks speaking with me, who called mosques "mos-cues" in an emphasis to say things with their American letter sounds - would think that pronouncing a c like a g would make themselves at all understandable.

Me: “You mean for like rabies, where they go crazy and bite people? There are no shots for guinea pig- I mean, cavies – they cannot get shots.”

Oh-oos: “It will need vaggeenes”

Me: “They do not have shots, they will not have shots, I talked to the vet who said there are no shots for them, and if they get shots, they might die. So they are not, not going to have shots. Is that a problem?”

Oh-oos: “Hmm. Ok, we can arrange for your cat to come in with no vaggeenes. They will come and you will come here before that so you can get them.”

After the Flight

So my cavies, or cats as oh-oos so accurately noted, got on the flight and got to Turkey. Here, things get interesting. To begin with, Oh-oos is a huge, huge, liar. He indicated he would speak to me in English and that he knew English. On the phone and in person, at first I just thought Oh-oos was exceptionally stubborn, or dumb, and probably both. At the end of the first day of my interacting with them – this should be important, as there are several days involved with interacting with them – I realized that it didn’t matter, and that I just needed to bring someone who spoke Turkish. I brought my friend Liz, who at first pretended not to speak Turkish (so I could figure out if they were saying anything about extorting more money than the $100 that they had already demanded from me). Incredibly quickly, she realized that Oh-oohs was not actually stubborn, and although dumb, he actually understood almost no English, which was why his replies never actually corresponded to my questions about his statements.

Oh-oos is also a big, filthy liar because he had told me that he was with customs, and I would be dealing with them to get my guinea pigs – er, big hamster, ‘buyuk hamster’ – after their flight. When I walked into the office, it was obvious that British Airways had a contract with a company, Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, whose goal was to bleed as much money out of rich foreigners as possible. Fine, and expected in Turkey, but the folks in the office did not seem to appreciate that I was not actually rich.

The second day that I went there, as I began to realize they were going to keep asking for more and more money, and as they started to demand an additional hundred lira, putting my grand total of money paid to them at 500 lira, or about $410 USD at that time, they told me that it was ‘only another 100 dollars’. I do not know what realm they come from, that they think a recently graduated student thinks about an additional hundred dollars extortion/bribe as ‘only’, but their extreme naiveté about Americans being filthy rich and able to independently support their crappy existences, outside of the reasonable salary provided by the company, resulted in me sobbing in the office because I literally had no more money, not anywhere, and would not be able to pay. As they negotiated the price downwards, I became angrier and angrier, realizing that the suspicion I had they were just extorting money from me was true – they refused to give me a bill and told me I was paying for services I had already paid for. Luckily, through a great deal of Liz and my running around, seeking out signatures and paying for stamps on documents (documents, mind you – not actual vet checkups, but instead an official looking at us, not understanding the documents, and thinking that we are cute little foreigners and shouldn’t have to run around any more), and with the help of a very nice young boy who we paid 50 dollars to secure the stamps, we were able to get enough documents together to get the guinea pigs out.

The third day, I had to go back to the airport to get an additional stamp and to get money back from the cargo hold in the airport (as we were getting the guinea pigs after hours, it would have normally cost an additional fee. I was incredibly distraught and did not want to leave my pets with the people at cargo who thought it was funny that they had no food and that my guinea pigs had eaten all the food I had given them the day before, so we were able to pay the extra fee and then just take the pets, but I would have to go back to check out the next day and get the difference back). It was extremely obvious at this point, as I was issued a bill for renting the cargo space from an incredibly reputable looking person and company, that I had basically thrown all of my money down the huge money pit that is British Airlines and Hellmann Worldwide Logistics.

What Are the Lessons in this for International Travel with Guinea Pigs?

1. A simple cat carrier should be fine for the cargo personnel, but check with them first. They are the ones who actually determine whether you can bring your pets on the flight, and they are the ones to listen to about the requirements for pets – even compared to the ‘pet-line’ or ‘pet-booking’ folks, the cargo people are the ones to impress and the ones to ask questions to.

2. Do not, I repeat, do not fly British Airways if you have a pet. No matter what. If you need to rebook, do, because it will almost certainly be cheaper than having to pay the cargo fees in the US (starting at $500) and will have to pay an additional bribe/extortion fee. Other airlines, notably Turkish Airlines, will let you take your small pets on the cabin with you. British airways classifies their animals in Cargo as ‘agriculture’ so the second you get to turkey, you have to deal with the Turkish department of agriculture and livestock, which is obviously unnecessary and hideous to deal with when you just have two guinea pigs.

3. If you are going to Turkey and want to bring your guinea pigs, call them buyuk hamsters. Self explanatory.

4. If you are going to Turkey and are not able to be on the same flight as your pet due to customs regulations of timings of flights, bring pet food with you to the airport each time you go. The people at the airport were extremely irresponsible and lost all the food I had given to my pets each day before, and could have cared less whether they died. Even if they say that you can certainly get your pets out of the airport, that is almost definitely a lie. Each and every day that I went there, they had assured me beforehand, sometimes several times, that when I went there (or went there next) I would be able to get my pets out.

5. Speak Turkish, or bring a friend who can speak it. There is no way to explain how many people have said they understand English but do not. If you cannot speak Turkish, bring a friend. If you do not have Turkish friends and cannot speak Turkish, and cannot get out of your British Airways flight, I would strongly discourage bringing the pets with you. There is no telling when you will get them back – the helpful boy who brought us around told us we were lucky, that the people at Hellmann often had foreigners who had to wait weeks to have their pets approved (a fact that Oh-oos did not mention to me when I was booking their spot), and each time you go in is another chance for them to bleed money out of you, not to mention the eight to nine hours you waste in the office.

So, that is the rather long first installment of Squishy and Mushy’s adventures in the big city.

Stay tuned for my next post, where Squishy and Mushy’s cage + me = hospital visit.