PETS Passport Scheme

The dogs are on a plane on their way over as we speak, so it seems appropiate to cover requirements for travel between Australia & the UK since I have regularly been asked about quarantine etc.

Basically, the dogs are travelling over under the Pet Passport scheme. The PETS scheme was set up for travel of animals between the UK and europe (EU countries) without the requirement for quarantine but some years ago it was extended to include several other countries including Australia. Full details for the PETS scheme are found on the Defra site. Under the PETS sceme there is no quarantine heading into the UK when they would otherwise have to spend 6 months in quarantine.

The pet passport requirements take about 8 months prior to travel to complete. The dog needs to have 2 rabies vaccinations a month apart, a rabies titre blood test a month after that, and then wait for 6 months. In Australia, the vaccinations and blood test have to be done by an AQIS accredited vet. It can be arranged for it to be done by your normal vet who would act as a third party for Aqis but it is more paperwork on the vets behalf, and they will probably not be aware of where to start (I know I wasnt!).

One query that I had early on was whether there was a maximum time frame for the requirements being done. This was an issue for me as I wasnt sure when I was going to be travelling, but it took a while to get a straight answer. But put simply, if the dog has rabies vacc annually 12 months after the titre test then it will all still be valid.

6 months after the titre, the dogs are just about able to travel. They need to be vet checked by AQIS, wormed, tick prevention etc within 24-48hrs of travel and will be issued with a permit for travel. There is alot of paperwork involved in the final weeks, and the dogs can only fly into the UK on specific flight routes into Heathrow. My best advise is to use a pet transport company to fly the animals and they will take care of all this for you. I think it would be extremely difficult and stressful to try and do everything that is required by yourself. I have used Dogtainers Canberra and they have been fantastic. I warn you it is far from a cheap process though.

So here we are now, however many months later, and the dogs will arrive at Heathrow early tomorrow morning. I just hope they handle the flight ok!