I built this the day after
my daughter was born.

My name is Ben. I’m American, born in LA, lived in Austin for seven years. I married an Australian, and when we found out we were expecting our first child, we made the call: time to move to Melbourne.

Our dog Babka was five years old at the time. My parents were in LA, we were flying from LA, so I figured I could handle the whole import process myself and save the few thousand dollars an agent would charge. I read the DAFF website front to back. I asked questions in the Facebook groups. I made spreadsheets. For most of it, I was genuinely on top of things.

What I hadn’t understood was how hard it would be to get a quarantine spot at Mickleham. I thought you just picked a date. I was wrong.

What I hadn’t realised is that you can’t actually book your quarantine spot until your import permit is approved -- DAFF’s rules don’t allow it. By the time my permit came through and I was finally able to make the reservation, the slot I needed was gone. The earliest available date was two months later than we could manage.

My wife was pregnant and we had to be in Australia before her third trimester. We couldn’t wait. So we made a plan: Babka would stay with my parents in LA while we flew ahead, and we’d hire a transport agent to handle the final stretch. The agent we found came recommended. Had a good track record. We felt fine about it.

The day after our daughter was born, my phone started ringing. It was my dad. The agent had gone quiet. He couldn’t get Babka’s flight confirmed with Qantas. The vets he’d taken her to hadn’t produced the right paperwork. And when we started asking harder questions, the picture got worse: gambling debts, issues with suppliers, and he’d essentially taken our money and walked. Babka was still in Los Angeles.

I was in a hospital bed in Melbourne, holding our daughter for the first time, fielding calls about our dog being stranded on the other side of the world.

We weren’t the only family he’d done this to. Once we started looking, we found others. We tracked down a different agent who already knew the situation and was willing to step in. Within a couple of weeks, Babka was on a flight. A few days after that, she was out of quarantine and back with us.

Here’s what I actually learned from all of it: the process isn’t hard. The information is hard. The DAFF website reads like a legal document. The Facebook groups have contradictory advice. The agent blogs are trying to sell you something. Nobody has just laid it out cleanly.

From the US, if you do everything right, your dog spends 10 days in quarantine. That’s it. Ten days and they’re out. The process to get there is long, yes, but each individual step is completely manageable once you know what it is and when it needs to happen.

That’s where we come in. Bringbabka gives you the steps, in the right order, with real dates calculated around your specific situation. It won’t guarantee a transport agent won’t let you down. But it means you’ll know exactly what should be happening at every point, so you can catch problems before they become disasters.

The process ends the same way for almost everyone. Standing somewhere outside Mickleham, watching your dog come around the corner.

Ben, Babka’s owner. Melbourne.