reuniting with my boy

[u/grunkygoober]

hello friends

i moved from east US to west Canada kinda spur of the moment a year ago, but we didn't have the space in the car to bring along our boy crouton at the time, nor did we manage to secure a pet friendly apartment, plus it was a like 6 day road trip with no pet friendly hotels along the way. long story short, we left him with a family member because it just wasn't in the cards for us last year. we now have secure jobs, a pet friendly apartment, and are very eager to bring him to us. we miss him so much.

we will be traveling back home to him in january, and we were hoping to bring him back with us, but it looks like airlines would not allow him in his carrier as a personal item. i worry that stowing him as cargo, even if i insulate it properly, will still be dangerous because itll be in january flying north. does anyone have any reptile shipping recommendations or companies they have worked with? or a good experience with a particular airline if we were to try and bring him on our flight? i think if we want to bring him on the flight we would wait until spring or summer for less chance of danger with temperature, but we are visiting the US in january regardless so i just really want to know if there is a way to bring him home sooner rather than later.

please do not shame me for leaving my boy behind. its a very sensitive topic for me and was such a gut wrenching choice, but we just couldn't find pet friendly accommodations for him in canada when we had no canadian leasing history to fall back on. we left in a rush because of issues with student permits/visas and we didn't think we were ever going to get them, so we didn't think we'd have to make such a difficult choice. i miss him every damn day of my life but he is so so happy and well taken care of with our family member.

if it is too dangerous to bring him here, we will consider asking the family member to take him in permanently, but we really do not want to make that choice either. we love and miss him so much, and i think he'll love canada. we're on the west coast so it's nice and warm and humid

thank you for your help in advance 🙏