I have no personal experience traveling with pets. I do live in Belize for three months every winter and have lots of friends who bring their pets with them for the winters.

Make sure and read up on the airline and Costa Rican requirements for bringing in your dog.

I see pretty much every breed of dog here, from tiny chihuahuas to St. Bernards. They all seem to handle the heat pretty well.

Tick fever can be a problem, do some reading about it. May not be a problem at higher elevations.

Not crazy at all! We brought our 70lb mutt down for 2.5 months and stayed right near the beach so it was quite hot, we webt april -july so it got cooler towards the end of the trip. You have to climatize the dog and we kept her in the house during the peak heat hours, she was outside early morning and in the evening usually. Costa rica is extremely pet friendly most restauants allow your dog inside. Strays are usually all very small and not aggressive. We took our dog to swim in rivers and waterfalls vecause the salt water did make her have diarreah a once or twice. We got her all her shots probably above and beyobd we needed and got er full flea, tick and worm (advantage i think) she got a few ticks in between her toes but she has short hair so other areas never happened. Make sure ou get all the neccesaary paper work, it takes time and the whole thing is not cheap. Two years ago it cost about $1000. 100% worth it though!!