Pip around the world: How a pup named Pipsqueak travelled 10,000 miles to rejoin her family

When the Eilbecks set out from Sydney, Australia, for their four-year, round-the-world sailing trip, they imagined they’d all arrive home together, too.

But as CNN reports , the journey became more complicated for their pet, Pipsqueak the wiener dog, who was about to experience the kindness of five far-flung carers, a transport service provider, an air carrier and many other helping hands along the way.

It was late March when Zoe and Guy, their sons Cam and Max, and Pipsqueak the dachshund reached South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island and borders started to close due to the pandemic, forcing them to abandon their trip, pack up what they could from their 40-foot-yacht and fly home. 

But Australia’s rules regarding pet imports meant that Pip could not come along.

The Eilbecks scrambled to make arrangements, believing they’d be able to return quickly to reunite with their lovable pup and bring her home. Zoe called her friend Lynn Williams, who ran a farm and agreed to look after Pip for what they imagined would be just six weeks. On March 27, Zoe rented a car and drove the eight hours to North Carolina to leave her precious cargo in her friend’s care. Then she drove back and the family flew home.

“Pip went from living on a sailboat to living on a bison farm,” Zoe told CNN. “That’s something that really tickles me.”

The dachschund was a fairly new member of the family, having been added to the small sailing crew in Messina, Sicily in 2018, part-way through their voyage.

Pip found her sea legs quickly, lolling about on the deck of boat — aptly named No Plans, Just Options — and enjoying time with the family. 

Zoe had always known that getting Pip back home would take some paperwork and patience. “ I knew we’d have to import Pip and that she’d have to do 10 days quarantine,” she told CNN Travel. The initial plan was to put the pup on the short flight from Vanuatu, an island in the South Pacific, to Sydney.

But as the world adjusted to its new reality and rules shifted to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, the Eilbecks quickly learned that very few of their plans would be possible. 

Williams kept Pip for several weeks, but with two dogs and plenty of other animals to mind on the farm, she needed to find a replacement caregiver. After placing an ad seeking a foster home, she found Ellen Steinberg, a resident of Hillsborough, N.C., who was happy to take in the little pup.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world in Sydney, Zoe was working through the endless calls and forms required to import a pet to Australia from the United States. She was also still keeping up her connection with Pip, doing video calls and sending messages, and dutifully posting updates to Instagram. 

“I was always taking photos all the time and posting them on social media,” she says. “Pip started to develop her own fan base,” Zoe told CNN.

The Eilbecks realized that COVID-19 would keep them from travelling back to the United States. They would have to arrange for Pip to come home alone. A challenging process was made more difficult thanks to new pandemic-related rules. 

“To export a dog from America, you need to get a U.S. declaration to say the dog is in good health and has had particular blood tests to do with rabies,” Zoe said.

“This was being done in New York, which was now closed. So trying to get anything like that done was extremely difficult.”

In Hillsborough, Steinberg was taking Pip for veterinary appointments and paperwork, vaccinations and blood tests, all to meet the requirements for her journey. As soon as they had obtained an import permit for Australia, the airline Qantas announced it was no longer flying dogs into the country. 

Their hopes dashed again, the family looked for a new option. Zoe discovered that if they first flew Pip into New Zealand, they could import her that way. She booked the little dog on a flight from Los Angeles to Auckland via Jetpets, an Australian pet transport company.

Steinberg had by now been looking after Pip for three months and needed to take a trip, so she tapped her friend Stacey Green to look after the dog. 

“When Stacey got Pip, she actually fell in love with her, to the point where I didn’t think I was going to get her back,” joked Zoe.

Pip was on her third home-away-from-home and now the family needed to figure out how to get her from North Carolina to Los Angeles. Air travel in the United States was extremely unreliable during this time, with flights often cancelled. Cargo, too, was now an issue, with many carriers not allowing pets to be shipped due to the increasing summer temperatures.

In a flash of inspiration, Zoe posted on social media in hopes of finding someone who was travelling from the east to the west coast and would be willing to take a furry friend with them.