Affordable Shipment of Pets to Europe?

I have purchased a house in Hungary and will be expatriating there in Late November. I have run into a unexpected snag in taking my 2 dogs with me on an airplane, that snag is the outrageous fees to bring my Beagle and a Terrier with me. They are too big to fly in the cabin which I already knew would be the case. They will have to fly in the cargo hold during the flight which I expected would be the case. I have already bought the shipping crates and was going to get their health certificates, updated rabbies vaccinations and microchips done next week. I just about had heart failure when I got the pricing for transportation from British Airways subsidiary IAG, American Airlines and 3 different service providers that basically broker pet transportation. I am on a fixed income and expected the fees to probably be around $1000-1200. I had estimates around $3500 just to get them from the DFW to Frankfurt Germany. Apparently, the cargo holds on many of the airplanes that fly into Budapest Hungary are too small to handle the 500 series airline shipping crates. Have any of you dealt with transporting larger pets internationally and what did it cost you? I feel like I am being hosed. Both of my dogs were rescues and I really do not want to rehome them because they had rough lives until I adopted them. I do NOT want to break their hearts once again.

I know that some military folks travel from station to station with their pets so I know it can be done, I am just trying to not get taken to the poor house. I really love my dogs as much as most people love their children, these 2 girls are my children.

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Affordable Shipment of Pets to Europe?