Bringing Your Dog to the UK via PETS scheme

After months of planning, spending half of my bank account, and an 11 hour flight from Los Angeles, my dog, George, finally arrived in England on Saturday night! I began the process to bring George here back in April, so all in all it took nearly 9 months to get all the vaccines, paperwork, and finances in order, and it was exhausting, but worth it! He's now adjusting to peeing on the snow and getting to know his new house-mate, D's dog Mia, but being reunited has been great. I decided to share some of the finer points of the process for those of you considering moving to England or travelling here with a pet.

1. First things first: make sure that your dog is not on the list of prohibited breeds that the UK won't allow to be imported at all (currently includes Pit Bull Terriers, American Pit Bulls, American Staffordshire Terrier, Dogo Agentino, Japanese Tose or Fila Braziliero), or on the list of snub-nosed breeds that some of the airlines won't allow to be flown as cargo (all pugs, Boston terrier, Brussels Griffin, English Toy Spaniel, Japanese Spaniel, Pekingese, English and French Bulldogs or Shih Tsus). Check your dog's breed with the airlines who are qualified to fly into the UK on your chosen route (current list of non-EU routes here), as policies vary by airline. My dog, George, is a Puggle (part pug, part beagle), but only 1 of the 2 airlines that are qualified to fly dogs from LAX to London-Heathrow would accept him because he is crossed with a snub-nosed breed (pug). Virgin Atlantic accepted him, but British Airways would not, so I had only one option and no chance of price-shopping the flight.

2. Start saving money now! Although Los Angeles is one of the most distant points of entry into the UK from the US, I was blown away when I was told that the cost to ship George in his new crate would be over $900 for the one-way flight alone, plus a $175 handling fee in the U.S., and a GBP 310 ($470) fee for customs clearance on the UK end. In addition, the USDA charges $111 per dog for providing the required paperwork approvals, so in the end, the up front costs were nearly $1700. Add to that the cost of all the vet visits to get him micro-chipped, vaccinated, de-wormed and blood-tested (another $300 easily), the cost of buying him a replacement bed, leash, collar, and food bowl for the UK (since his US items couldn't come with him in the crate), and the money I paid my brother to feed and look after him for 6 months while I went ahead to England (another $600 at least), and the grand-total comes to somewhere around $2,500. Ugh, it actually makes me sick to think about it (since I only paid $200 to adopt him in 2007). The things we do for love!

3. Follow the P.E.T.S. scheme as closely as possible. This program from DEFRA involves 4 major steps: a) your dog must 1st be micro-chipped with a UK-approved brand (George had a 10 digit AVID Friend Chip); b) your dog must receive a rabies vaccine after being micro-chipped--no vaccines prior to the micro-chip insertion will qualify; c) 1 month after the vaccine, the dog must have blood taken and sent to the USDA approved lab in Kansas to check that the rabies antibodies are at the right level; d) if the blood test comes back OK, the dog will be approved for travel from the date that is 6 months after his blood was drawn. This means that you should start the PETS process at least 7 months before you actually want to leave the country; otherwise, your dog will be placed into quarantine at Heathrow, which sounds awful for the pet. You do not need a "Pet Passport" if your dog is coming from the USA--all you need is the third country Veterinary Certificate, which is available here for free. Do NOT be lured into paying for this form or a pet passport by some of the online pet travel websites.

4. Buying the crate. It was pretty easy to find an IATA-approved animal crate in Los Angeles because the crates have special labels at the pet stores, but it was a little harder to guess which size we needed because we didn't have the dog with us at the time. The general requirement is that the dog should be able to stand up inside the crate without his nose or tail touching either end, or his head touching the roof. This should allow the dog to stand up and turn around comfortably during the flight. The crate needs to be ventilated on all sides, and the roof, and must have a metal gate at the front, with an adequate water dish that attaches to the front grate. We also bought a padded crate liner to fit inside and make it more comfortable since he was going to be flying for such a long time. My brother started introducing George to his crate about 2 months before the flight, and put treats inside frequently so that George would think it was a 'good' place to be, and he seemed OK with getting into it for the flight.

5. The final days before flight. The final DEFRA requirement is having the dog treated for ticks and tapeworm by his vet within the 24-48 hour period prior to his flight. Additionally, the dog's paperwork must be taken to a USDA office for certification within 10 days prior to the flight, and the office locations are limited. The USDA office in Los Angeles is located next to the airport, and is only open between 7:30am and 11:00 am Monday to Friday, so we had to carefully coordinate the flight time around these other appointments. Be sure to check that all the paperwork is completed fully and to the exact requirements of the PETS scheme; we had to have our rabies certificate reprinted at the vet's office because it didn't have George's microchip number shown on the certificate, or the time of treatment (based on a 24-hour clock).

George's flight landed only 30 minutes late on Saturday (despite the snow), but our vet failed to fill in one piece of information on his Veterinary Certificate, and so we nearly missed our chance to pick him up on Saturday evening while we waited for the vet office to open in California and correct the mistake. It was stressful, but the DEFRA agent was very patient (thanks Andrew!) and the Virgin Atlantic rep was super helpful (thanks Dean!), so they helped us make it happen at the last minute.