Going on holiday to Europe with a dog

4 replies

AMerryScot · 24/12/2006 14:33

Looking for simple information compared to the gobbledygook on the Defra website.

Say we wanted to go to Centreparcs in Holland next year where pets are welcome, what would we need to do now?

My dog is microchipped. If we plan to go away in August, we have a month to get vaccinations and blood test sorted.

How does the return to the UK work - does the dog travel in your car with you? How is the Customs handles?

OP posts:

RoskvaTheRedNosedReindeer · 24/12/2006 16:34

You need to get your dog a passport - your vet can submit the paperwork for this once your dog has a microchip (which he has already) and has a rabies vaccination, which has to be followed by a blood test, if I remember rightly six months after the vaccination, to confirm that he has the rabies antibodies. Either that or the blood test is earlier but the dog cannot come back to the UK until six months after the the blood test - it's something really weird, anyway. If your dog hasn't had a rabies jab already, get it done ASAP if you are planning to go away in the summer.

Coming back into the country, you have to take the dog to a vet in the country you are visiting between 48 and 24 hours before you return to the UK for a health check and parasite treatment - it's a really nasty injection that stings and a dose of frontline. The vet that does that has to fill in the details in the dog's passport. Then the dog gets checked by a Defra vet in the port that you leave in Holland or wherever, who basically scans the microchip to check the dog's ID and checks that the dog has had the parasite treatments in the right timescale.

RoskvaTheRedNosedReindeer · 24/12/2006 16:36

BTW, speak to your vet - he or she probably knows how the system work. At my vets, it is one of the nurses who is the pet passport expert, and is reputed to know more about it than most of the staff at Defra!

Original poster

AMerryScot · 24/12/2006 21:25

Sounds like it is easier to board the dog while we are on holiday.

OP posts:

twoplusone · 29/12/2006 21:10

To get my dog prepared to fly back to the uk, we had too...
Get her Rabies injections done, (two lots with in a month of eeach other, then I think it was a month after the 2nd jab she had her bloodtest.. and it is 6months from the date of bloodtest that the dog can travel..

( Not sure how long the results will take in UK took 6 weeks for my results but we weere in CYprus and the bloods had to be sent to Greece..

All other jabs need to be up to date to and logged in the passport..HTH

(we moved 2 months ago.. )

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