Cretaphile

The sum quoted, £1,500, would go a great deal further if spent within the UK on looking after some of the thousands of stray dogs we have here in the UK.
I know, I work with a dog rescue group.
This sort of decision is a personal one, and as a frequent visitor to Crete, I am aware how the number of stray dogs can appear to a tourist.  
But it is irrelevant for those of us who would, who can and do, take our pets with us to comment.  Taking a loved pet with you is absolutely the right thing to do – a pet is for life not just for Christmas as the famous Dogs’ Trust logo says.  
Frankly, I am surprised the cost is so low – flights cost over £1,000, then there will be quarantine costs, and the poor little creature will have to put up with being in a quarantine kennel throughout a British winter!  It would not be my choice.
What surprises me most is that the question would be asked.  Most "ex-pats" are people who have chosen to live outside the UK because they deem their life-choice values to be closer to the country they have moved to, rather than those of the UK.  They have left the ‘nanny state’ – and now? Are we to assume they wish to alter the mores and moral values of their new abode to match the one they left?  
Dare I ask if they think the Brits do better with animal welfare in the UK?  If that is so, they need to look at the puppy farms, the thousands of animals destroyed because they have no homes, and at the number of people (who although they could well afford to use a paid vet) who use the RSPCA or Blue Cross or PDSA – organisations who exist solely because of the terrible way we treat our pets in the UK.