So, you made the decision to take your pets with you. You need information, lots of it.
Search on the internet, get specifics from the airline of your choice, and prepare to spend money.
The basic requirements for moving pets from the United States to an overseas locations can be summarized as follows:
1) They need to be microchiped.
2) They need to have up to date vaccinations (six to three months before the trip).
3) They need a health check within 10 days before the trip.
Regulations change, so check early, and check often.
For us, item 3 on that list became tricky. Because the regulations say that a USDA vet has to certify the critters' health. You may find yourself on the phone wading through an automated system in your search for a local USDA vet. And then you will find one located close to your airport.
But that is not the one you want. You want a USDA-certified vet. He can do all three of these things, and you will not sit in some industrial zone a couple of hours before the flight, with stressed animals, and you sweating and panting as much as they do.
We are lucky. Our vet was a certification junkie in the best sense of the word. You know, you have a great vet when he is certified in treating animals that you cannot legally own in your state.
As the big day approached, we had two tags per cat and paperwork about an inch thick.
One tag was for the microchip, one for the vaccinations.
Two tips:
a) clip the tags to the pet taxi
b) keep the paperwork on your person, do NOT put it in the checked baggage
Get sturdy regulation pet taxis. Our airline let us have two cats per pet taxi. Which was great for the animals because having company lowers their stress levels.
Finally, book that flight. In order to do this, make sure you have two, yes, two, working cellphones ready.
We had a booking agent on one line and a freight agent on the other. The tickets for the humans were about double the generic internet travel price, the cats were shipped by weight.
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