People travel not only with their husbands, wives and children, but also with animals. On the average about 100 animals pass through veterinary station in Kiev airport Borispol daily, most often cats and dogs, and also decorative cockroaches and elephants.
1. Before you decide to take your animal abroad, call or go to the consulate of the country you are traveling. It is possible that to import your animal to that country will be so complicated that you’d better leave it at home with your aunt, uncle or grandmother. Don’t travel to the UK with your pet: once you land, say, in London Heathrow, as it will be taken away and sent to quarantine for six months and furthermore you will have to pay for that 2.5 thousand pounds. In France it is prohibited to travel with a pet younger than 3 months. In order to bring the animal to Argentina, you must have a the veterinary certificate issued and sealed personally by Consul. And to travel to Sweden with an animal you must obtain a permission from the Ministry of Agriculture of this country.
2. If the above-mentioned customs rules haven’t scared you enough, then you will come across with the strict rules of the airlines. Depending on the rules of the carrier, they will let your pet either stay with you in the cabin, or they will make you keep it into the luggage compartment. Animals heavier than 8 kg will be transported together with suitcases on flights of “Aeroflot” and “Alitalia”, heavier than 5 kg – “Air France”. “Aeroflot” takes extra charges for each kilogram of live weight, as a kilo of excess baggage. On transatlantic flights by Air France or Lufthansa you will have to pay about $ 130.
3. If you accept all these rules, take care of papers for your pet. You need a veterinary passport (issued to purebred at birth) or form number 1 (issued in any veterinary hospital). Records in the veterinary passport as well as the form must be filed no earlier than 3 days prior to travel. Do not forget about a rabies shot a month prior to the travel – you’ll get no papers without it.
4. If everything’s ok with your papers, take care of a container: in this case it is as important, as the documents. The container should be roomy, durable, have a waterproof bottom, with strong locks.
5. If your container meets all the requirements, you can go to the airport. Leave earlier: before registration you should go to veterinary station, and there are often queues there. The veterinarian will examine the animal for a fee and seal “export allowed”. It is enough to travel to Ukraine. To travel abroad, you must exchange you Form 1 to Form 5a – exactly same piece of paper, in English only. If you give the animal to the luggage compartment, then go to the cargo terminal. You should take a way-bill and register your animal as a live load.
6. On the day of travel, do not feed your pet and don’t give it water. You should take a long walk with your dog before the flight. Vets do not recommend giving the animal a sedative – drugs have an unpredictable effect in the air. In general, it is proved that animals behave well on takeoffs, landings, and the flight itself. So often travel with a pet is more stressful for the owner than for the animal – you might need a sedative, not your pet.
7. After leaving the pet in the luggage compartment, the owners begins to fear: an animal is transported piled with suitcases, it flies out on the conveyor, and it is kicked and thrown like a cheap bag. Airport workers claim that this is a vile lie: the containers are placed in a quiet place and they don’t not touch them without need. On “The Ilyushin” the pet can be even visited in the luggage compartment during the flight, on “Boeing”, although it is difficult – the entrance to the cargo compartment is located on the outside.
8. If you think that a trip by train with the animal is less exhausting, you are mistaken. You won’t manage to transport it as a stowaway: the trainman will not let you into the car without the note of payment (and you won’t get this note without a Form 1) for the transportation of the animal. If the trainman let you in, everything’s in your hands. Usually it is possible to agree with a trainman so that the dog travels with you in the coupe, if the neighbors do not mind. If not – you will have to send the dog in a remote hallway of the first car. In general, it is better to buy up all the places in the coupe in advance.
9. If you like an animal abroad when you are abroad so much that you want to bring it with you, then you should register the papers in the reverse order: an international certificate, at home you should exchange it for the form number 1. Ukraine has its own rules on the importation of animals: you can not take animals from the countries where the foot and mouth disease was reported 2 years after the epidemic. To come home with some wild animal – a parrot or a turtle – you need to get a permission from CITES administrative body (Convention on international Trade in Endangered species of Wild Fauna and Flora). Without this permission your high priced animal may be taken away on the border, and you may be accused of smuggling.
In general, a trip abroad with an animal is perhaps not simple, but quite feasible. You just have to want it very much.
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