From personal experience, I can tell you that travelling internationally with a dragon is not easy.
Airline regulations for Class D “Hazardous” creatures require owners to supply fire-proof travel crates and to fit a special muzzle so that the dragon can’t breathe… you know …. fire.
Talk about discrimination !
But I refused to believe that any of this applied to me or my dragon.
The particular dragon I was transporting overseas was smaller than a peacock and larger than a loaf of bread, and almost as scary as a Labubu doll. To comply with airline regulations for dragons, we had removed all its claws and pulled off its terrifying tail and wings. And it couldn’t breathe fire because, after watching numerous Youtube dragon videos, we had extracted all the button cell batteries. Then we boxed it up securely and tied it up with ribbon. Yes, it was a toy dragon for the grandkids. A perfect toy: a bit scary, but perfectly safe (unless someone swallowed the button batteries in which case they would …).
But isn’t that what dragons are all about anyway? Menacing as a mongoose but actually lethal as a lizard?
So we landed safely in our favourite Asian nation with our dragon. On the customs declaration form, we disclosed the full truth and wrote “Dragon” in the section marked “Animals to declare”.
But the customs guy just looked at the gift-wrapped box and waved us through with a weary smirk. Clearly he saw dragons at the border crossing every day of the week.
But all that stuff about dragons was almost at the end of our traveller’s tale. So now I must backtrack to the start of our journey to describe another element of fear and excitement that involved a real risk to human life.
No, it wasn’t a near miss with a billionaire’s private jet trying to cut in front of us as we took off. Nor did the cabin begin filling with smoke from illegal cigar puffing in First Class.
It happened just before the flight at the baggage check in.
We had been told by a well-travelled friend that we could actually check-in our baggage the old-fashioned way: with a human being at the airline check-in counter. However, the check-in assistant (I’ll call her Gertrude although her name may have been Murgatroyd) really didn’t want to bother scanning our barcodes and printing the baggage labels. She tried to insist that we carry all the bags back to the fussy little electronic bag scanner 50 metres away and do it all ourselves.
But we stood our ground as paying passengers and placed the first bag on the weighing machine. Eventually Gertrude gave in and weighed the bags, attached some baggage claim labels and pushed the button to send each bag speeding into the abyss that leads to the loading dock. However, possibly due to her lack of practice in checking in bags, she forgot to put a label on our last bag. She weighed the suitcase but then immediately pushed the “go” button for the conveyor belt to whisk it away. But with no label, the bag could have ended up anywhere in the world – and it contained our all-important dragon!
To her credit, Gertrude’s basic instincts and high-level training kicked in. Realising what would happen if she forgot to attach the label, and seeing the bag disappearing into the black hole of the unclaimed baggage department, she sprang into action. Though she was a person of comfortable dimensions, she leapt full length onto the high-speed conveyor belt like a rugby player diving on a loose ball. She just managed to grab hold of our unlabelled bag by her fingernails. Then she heroically hauled herself and the bag back to the counter, red faced and panting, while the other airline staff applauded. But Gertrude adopted an expression of fixed nonchalance, as though diving full length onto a moving conveyor belt and wrestling a delinquent suitcase back to the counter was part of her everyday exercise routine.
We thanked her for her above-and-beyond bravery and offered to write a note of praise to her manager to boost her next performance review. However she apparently wanted to forget all about it. She slapped the label on our bag and sent it speeding on its rightful way and turned to the next pesky passenger.
After that drama, we shuffled through the airport security check where we had to be scanned for dangerous items with a magic wand. This required me to hold up my arms as if I was about to be arrested and simultaneously hold my pants up (as we had all been ordered to remove our belts with their suspicious metal buckles). My frantic antics to hold up my arms and my trousers simultaneously made me look like a deranged aerobics instructor and set off all the alarms. As a result, I was “patted down” for suspicious items – a first-time experience for me.
Meanwhile I was delaying the chaotic queue of beltless passengers who were shoving all their personal possessions into little plastic trays to be scanned further down the conveyor. However, we successfully passed all the scanning and patting down tests, pulled ourselves together and headed towards the departure gate. Eventually, after several strong coffees at the “Last Grind” cafe and a debriefing with the airport counsellor, we boarded the plane.
Then we flew across the endless deserts of Australia and over the Timor Sea and finally landed in our tropical destination and safely delivered the dragon to his new family.
After he was reassembled, the dragon settled really well into his new home and immediately resumed his normal occupations: scaring children and skirmishing with his sworn enemies – the cat, the Christmas tree lights and the robotic vacuum cleaner.
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© Geoff Milton 2025
Image: Based on AI output and refined by hand
