Louise M

Have had a good look through the old threads but cant seem to find anyone who has exported their dog themselves.

I had 2, (horrendous). quotes for my lickle cuddly German Shepherd.I knew it would be expensive but excuse me if I'm a bit cynical, I think these companies do bump up the prices as they are fully aware that we love our pets so much.
Have started the process myself by contacting Defra and AQIS. Frankly it doesnt look that difficult..........or am I living in a dreamworld?

Lou

Tiggs+Graz

i am sure that i read a thread a couple of weeks ago (tried searching but can't find it now) where someone said that shipping their dog themselves hadn't actually saved them very much money - so i would make sure you add all the fees etc before you decide as it may not be worth doing this yourself.

Also i would consider that if you get something wrong then your dog will not be allowed into Australia - personally i am not sure it is worth the risk

Tiggs

Nicky & Dave

Lou,

I've tried to do this with my cats, but I can only get so far before I have to involve a pet shipping agent as BA will not accept bookings for animals to travel to Oz other than through a shipping agent. Don't know if Quantas are the same.

But also consider that you'll need to arrange for a vet to do the final certification 4 hours before your dog flies. Given that animals fly out of Heathrow, I would have had difficulty arranging this myself especially if there was any delay in the flight leaving etc.

Nicky

Louise M

Thanks for your input. Have actually spoken to Meg at Overhill kennels in Bristol. She has explained everything and given me quite an acceptable quote. She has said what you told me Nicky that airlines will no longer take any bookings unless it is from an agent. Looks like the doggie will be going to them. She breeds Shepherds so I know she'll look after my baby.
Lou x

jemma_howle

we are hoping to go over in november, we have a 16 month old shepherd. had some quotes around the £2500/£2800 mark. just wondering if you have email address as if she breeds shepherds then might be a bit happier for them to have him!

Mally Lass

You'll not go far wrong here. This lady not only breeds GSDs but is very successful with them too and is highly recognised in the dog world. As an ex Bristolian myself and a dog exhibitor, I know she has a good reputation

Louise M

OMG. You show Mallys?
I showed my Mal in south africa. Arent they the most fantastic dogs! I will be butying one when I get to Oz. I miss mine so much.
Lou x

wintersgills

yea did all mine myself but used pine hawks to arrange light an box was ok he built box and is a pet lover himself , old timer not this call centre bullshit :scared:

PLANTS

Hi All,

We have just exported our Cat and Dog to Australia ourselves.... well almost.
This will go on a bit so I apologise now for its length and is about our experience in shipping the pets ourselves.

Like most people on this thread we though "HOW MUCH !!!!!", so after reading several threads on Expats thought 'this should be easy, maybe a bit of running around, but cant be that bad'.
So if you are all sitting comfortably I'll begin...

We arranged the import licence at the same time as the export licence, as you cannot book quarantine until you have a permit number. (Side note: Perth has about a 3 month waiting list and as such they RARELY have cancellations...trust me I tried!)

Spoke to my vet to arrange the blood tests for the dog, and final injections and put his name on the Export licence application. DEFRA send the licence to the nominated government approved vet (don’t forget to ask your vet this question) about 10 days before departure, this is for the 4 days before flight final inspection and checking they are up to date with vaccinations and relevant paperwork required by AQIS.

Here’s the first hurdle, the blood test has to be taken within 30 days of travel and no sooner than 14 days before travel... and yes because of having trouble getting quarantine spaces at short notice we ended up doing it on 32 days..(it was a bit of a gamble on our part as it was a hurriedly arranged return for a job offer), as we had a brilliant vet he arranged a second blood test before the 14 days and had next day delivery of blood samples and the Lab, who were also brilliant returned the results within 7 days.
Total cost for 2 blood tests for dog and frontline application (part of import requirements, see www.aqis.gov.au/dogcat) was about £140.

Following advice on a thread here I rang BA to find out what paperwork was needed (brother-in-law who works in Air Freight was going to arrange flights asked me to find out as he doesn’t normally handle animals). They told me they dont deal with Joe Public anymore, and completely and utterly refused to give me any advice or information bar 'talk to a freight agent' "but I am, they want to know about paperwork" and that’s where in a fuming temper I 'threw the phone down'. So forget trying to arrange flights through BA. The pets have to go via AQIS approved routes, the most popular is London-Singapore-Perth/Melbourne/Sydney. Some airlines can carry pets, and again the most popular is BA/Qantas.

After this little episode with BA i thought Ok, lets talk to the Animal Reception centre at Heathrow they will know what paperwork is needed, as they have to go there for the final check before boarding their flight.
Well the very nice lady gave me an idea of what was needed then asked do you have a vet organised to come and do the final check and seal the cages? But doesn't that happen automatically and by your vet? No, you have to arrange the vet to come here to see your pets 4 hours before flying out and then you have to take them to the freight companies cargo terminal.

Now as we were having to organise this within 6 weeks, I then decided that getting someone else to do the running around will be much better, as the four days before the date they would need to fly out to get into Aus for quarantine, we would be rushing around doing the final packing frenzy and loading the container.

So I spoke to Danielle and Zoe at James Cargo Services Limited, 01753 682244 and cant praise them enough. We decided to get James Cargo to board our pets for 5 days before the flight, so that they can arrange the 4 day inspection and then run around on flight day. They need to be given all the vets paperwork and blood test results as well.
This came to about £1500, this sounds a lot but as I'd had a flight only quote of £900 direct through my brother-in-law the extra was well worth paying to save the agro of stopping mid pack and rush down to Heathrow from Warwickshire and spend a day running around Heathrow. This way the pets would have time to chillout away from the upheaval and rushing about going on around our home.
James Cargo can supply containers for the pets as well I believe, but as we already had suitable containers we didn't have that expense.

Once they landed in Australia, they had to serve time...30 days quarantine, and there is no way to avoid this. The quarantine fees which include vet checks and boarding for our cat and dog came in around $1300. Oh yes, you may have to pay a fee for collecting from the airport out of office hours.

Now I hope you managed to get through this info without falling asleep. If there is anything I might have missed out just shout....

And we get the pets back next week...yaaaayyyy, we have all missed them so much.....


Mr P.

Louise M

Jemma, Have sent a pM.
Lou

Louise M

[QUOTE=PLANTS]Hi All,

We have just exported our Cat and Dog to Australia ourselves.... well almost.
This will go on a bit so I apologise now for its length and is about our experience in shipping the pets ourselves.


Thank you very much for taking the time to right your essay
Very interesting. May contact the frieght company too. One I contacted wanted £3000 just to arrange travel docs and flight. There is an incredible difference in prices and it definately pays to shop around.


Was the £1500 total inclusive of flight too? Just checking
LOU

home alone

Brilliant, Thank you so much for taking the time to write down your experiences, ref, your animals. We are much happier with the whole process now. Thanks again x

PLANTS

Yes the £1500 included flights, vet fees for the 4 day pre flight check and the 4 hour check and 5 days boarding for both cat and dog (small/medium).

PLANTS

Mally Lass

yes, work and show 4 of the buggars have you got a breeder in mind in Oz. I don't know any, but would be interested to find out about breeders if you knew of any

PLANTS

No Worries, Mate!! oh my word.. I've slipped straight back into life here in Aus....hehehe

Its far easier to make an informed choice when you've read other peoples experience. I searched through all the other pervious threads, and found one that had a list of things to do, (murphy's law: cant find it now!!).
The biggest change to that list is that BA no longer takes bookings from plain old us.

One thing I will say is read the AQIS import certificate requirements as they need certain paperwork submitted to them. They will take the application as a scanned in PDF document. And when they return it they will send it as a PDF directly to you. They told me the application takes around 10 working days. And we got ours in 2 weeks.

The Export certificate has specific requirements as well. Our vet said that to prove that the pets are vaccinated you have to ensure that the microchip number is on the vaccination documantation, this is important for the import application too.

The process isnt complicated as long as you read all the associated paperwork from the DEFRA and AQIS site. And I rang both up to explain certain bits I found unclear and they were both helpful and informative.

Mr P.