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You are here: Home Family & Kids Pets Expat Story: Relocating a pet, it's a dog's life

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12/12/2011Expat Story: Relocating a pet, it's a dog's life

Expat Story: Relocating a pet, it's a dog's life It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, writes Marius Benson, than for a border collie to jump through the bureaucratic hoops between Berlin and Sydney.

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Pet relocation 101

As I write my border collie, Tana, is about 30,000 feet above some part of South East Asia. I hope. When last seen she was looking forlornly out through the wire mesh door of a large wooden crate which is her home for the return journey to the land of her birth.

That last backward glance at the enmeshed hound was the final moment in a drama which has extended over six months and cost close to EUR 2,000. Well, I thought it was the final moment. Tana's last day in Europe had been spent shuttling from vet to vet to get the various final checks and documents certified for takeoff.

Having carefully checked all documents and copied them so duplicates could go with the dog, while the originals followed official channels, I packed all that was needed — and Tana — into a cab and took off for Lufthansa's cargo depot.

Imagine my dismay when on returning home I looked down at my desk to see the distinctive blue and white cover of the canine inoculation record, without which Tana would not be admitted to Australia. Another frantic cab ride and all the documents were in place.

pet relocationThat error was my own way of complicating a travel arrangement which has been the most drawn out, expensive and complex of any in my experience. On a leash of red tape The regulations for pets travel within Europe and across the world are varied.

But Australia is, with New Zealand, at the top of the list when it comes to setting high barriers for pets to return. Problems are there to be solved, and it will all be worthwhile when (after a month of quarantine in Australia) Tana leaps into my arms again — but, dear oh dear, it has been an ordeal.

It is an ordeal because the requirements are complex, they are conducted by people across four countries, in two languages — and nobody, not one person, can tell you everything you need to know. To begin at the beginning — more than six months ago I went to the vet to get the return journey preparations rolling.

The vet, who has been excellent, laid out a plan of attack with a chronological list of the tests and checks that had to be carried out. There were the tests required 150 days out, those 40 days out, 30 days out, within four days and on the day of departure. All of these had to be certified by the vet and then certified again by an 'official' vet.

With three days to go Tana's file was as thick as the phone book. Things had been time consuming, but everything seemed OK. That is until the lab lost the blood sample needed for two tests, two days out from flying. A half day of panic and the sample was found and the results provided. On the day of departure Tana, always a nervous patient, spent the best part of two hours watching two German vets, with patchy English, go through the dense prose of the Australian Quarantine Forms.

While they are very good vets they have no familiarity with the forms and you know that a single missed question, or an absent stamp, can imperil the return trip — and the dog's life. Anxiety If you had been dealing with, say, your furniture, the process would have been exasperatingly slow and boring. With the revered pet as the focus of proceedings there is also a level of high anxiety added.

The final checks were punctuated by short moments of terror as vets asked: "Do we have the brucellosis result?" or muttered "I can't find her microchip." The bright moment for Tana came with a run in the snowy expanse of Grunewald between appointments. Then a final meal and drink and it was into the cab, and soon after into the box.

What advice flows from this experience?

Firstly, confusion is unavoidable when you receive advice, sometimes conflicting, from different cities, different languages, across two areas of expertise (transport and veterinary science).

To handle that confusion I recommend: Start early - and keep everything in a file. Ask questions of all officials - several times over, feel no embarrassment. Take the name and contact number of everyone you deal with, each time if necessary. If there is a professional service on offer (none in my case) which will only cost a reasonable margin more than doing it yourself, go for it - it's an awfully hard way to save a buck.

There the sad voice of experience runs out of suggestions. Apart from mentioning that dogs generally handle even a long trip well and no drugs are needed. Now I'll go back to counting the hours until I can ring the Sydney quarantine station to check if the border collie that was gambolling so happily around Grunewald just a few hours ago has survived a day in the box and hit her home turf of Australia running.


1 reaction to this article

A. Cameron posted: 2011-12-12 11:06:00

Well done! I'm glad to see they've reduced the quarantine time in Australia to 1 month. It used to be much longer (6 months? 1 year?). On the other hand, bringing our cat from Sydney to Belgium was a doddle. Getting her into the UK for a year in the middle was a nightmare of mindless bureaucracy. So pleased to be back in Belgium!

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1 reaction to this article

A. Cameron posted: 2011-12-12 11:06:00

Well done! I'm glad to see they've reduced the quarantine time in Australia to 1 month. It used to be much longer (6 months? 1 year?). On the other hand, bringing our cat from Sydney to Belgium was a doddle. Getting her into the UK for a year in the middle was a nightmare of mindless bureaucracy. So pleased to be back in Belgium!

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