How a Sherpa Carrier Changed Our Small Dog Travel Days

The first flight I took with Pico, I got to the gate holding him in my arms with no plan whatsoever. He is a nine-pound Chihuahua mix, eight years old, and at that point he had never been inside anything that zipped.

I had spent a week on sizing charts and reviews and gotten nowhere. The hard-sided kennels looked like something you would ship pottery in. The soft bags on the rack at the pet store felt flimsy enough that I could fold one in half with two fingers. What I wanted was narrow and specific: something that would fit under the seat in front of me on a flight to Sacramento, and something Pico would walk into on his own instead of being stuffed into like a sweater.

I bought the Sherpa Original Deluxe in the small size. The listing gives it as 15 inches long, 10 wide and 8.5 tall, a little over a pound, with a zipper closure and a liner included. Pico is nine pounds and he fits with room to turn around. I want to be clear that none of this was love at first sight for him. I left the carrier open on the bedroom floor for two weeks with an old T-shirt of mine inside, dropped a treat in it every morning, and did not touch the zipper once during that stretch.

By the end of the second week he was napping in it on his own. That is the whole reason this worked, and it had nothing to do with the carrier and everything to do with the two weeks. Sherpa makes a good bag. The two weeks made it his.

Three round trips to Sacramento, three times under the seat in front of me, and nobody at the gate ever asked me a single question about it.

That guarantee is worth something and I want to be precise about what it means. Sherpa backs the carrier with a one-year limited warranty, and the airline approval is the part that matters at the counter. It is also true that the guarantee depends on your dog fitting the size you bought and on the airline you are flying. Measure your dog standing up, nose to the base of the tail, before you order anything.

Here is what the airport part is actually like. The rear of the carrier has a spring wire frame that pushes down several inches. That is the difference between a bag that slides under the seat and a bag that sits in the aisle while you apologize to the row behind you. I push the back down with my foot while I am settling in and it stays put for the whole flight. Pico rides in front of my feet, not in the overhead bin, and he sleeps through most of it.

Carrying it is fine, not elegant. There is a padded top handle and a detachable shoulder strap, and I use the handle through the terminal because it keeps him level and against my side. The strap goes over my shoulder when I am also dragging a suitcase. I would not want to carry him that way for an hour, but for the walk from the parking garage to the gate it does the job.

Two things it is not. It is not a car restraint, and I have never used it that way. In the Forester, Pico rides in the back seat in his booster with the seat's own straps, and the Sherpa stays on the closet shelf between trips. It is also not a fix for a dog who panics in a confined space. Pico still grumbles for the first ten minutes of a flight. He just settles, which he never did in the hard-sided kennel I borrowed to test against it.

One more thing nobody mentions. You take the dog out and send the carrier through the machine at security. So you are standing in a busy line holding a squirming nine-pound dog either way. Put the harness on before you reach the front of the line, because I learned that one the hard way in Tucson and I am still a little embarrassed about it.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you to measure your dog before you look at a single review, including mine. Standing, nose to the base of the tail, then add an inch. I would tell you to check the specific airline's rules, because they do not all read the same way and the counter agent has the final say no matter what the tag on the bag says. I would tell you to buy it a month before you fly, not a week, and to leave it on the floor with something that smells like your house.

And I would tell you the unglamorous part. It is a soft bag. A determined chewer will get through it, a dog who has never been crated will need time, and there is no version of this where you skip the time. What you get for your money is a carrier that fits the space under a seat, holds its shape when you set it down, and has survived three round trips and a dozen vet visits without a pulled seam. For a nine-pound dog and a woman who does not want to drive to Sacramento every time, that has been enough.