Under the UK & DEFRA’s Pet Travel Scheme, the former onerous quarantine of pets for six (6) months in the UK no longer exists; as long as the following five steps are followed.  They are:

1. See to it that your pet dog, cat, or ferret is microchipped.
2. Administer a Rabies immunization after microchipping.
3. After a period of time, i.e. as little as two weeks and generally four weeks after the Rabies jab; have a blood sample collected by your veterinarian — this is the “blood draw date”. The required blood test is known as the FAVN-OIE Rabies antibody determination.  Please note: the ferret does not require the rabies antibody test, yet requires the six month waiting period.
4. Patiently wait the six months post “draw date”.
5. Your pet is ready to go the UK quarantine-free, provided the Rabies antibody test results are greater than 0.5 I.U.’s (international units). Lastly, have your veterinarian issue the EU#998 form attesting to the health of the pet dog, cat, and ferret; along with both internal & external parasite treatment as defined by the protocol.

All pets & animals enter the UK as booked & manifest air cargo.  Sorry, UK & DEFRA law does NOT allow pets traveling in the aircraft’s passenger cabin; nor as checked nor accompanied baggage.

And “voila”!  Your pet lands in the UK.  After a brief period of time with Her Majesty’s customs and veterinary services, your pet is on its way to its UK home.

Tags: airline pet travel., blood draw date, cats, dogs, EU#998, european pet travel, microchips, moving advice, Rabies, relocation

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.