jopottie

Hi guys
Well things are finally getting underway and it is looking like the big move over to Florida will be in May / June (providing everything continues to go well with the L1a application of course).
Anyway, my query is, I have a dog I would like to bring over to Florida with us. He has a pet passport so I called my vet today to find out if we needed to do anything else prior to traveling. To cut a long story short, he was only clued up on travel within europe and believed the different States in the US had different requirements for bringing in pets. He gave me a number for Defra who were no help at all and told me I would need to speak to the British Consulate in Florida. I spoke to the Orlando office and was told to visit the direct.gov website in the UK which has no information at all.
I am confused! I figured maybe someone on here had been through the same process of bringing a pet into Florida and could point me in the right direction?
THANK YOU!!

Bob

The dog has nothing to do with visa's...there are plenty of threads, current ones even, in the main US forums, you might want to search them out.

Even covering bringing a dog to Florida, so you should find the info you are looking for pretty quickly.

jopottie

Whoops. Posted in the wrong section. Sorry.
Will check out the threads in the main US Forum.
Thanks

Fred16

We brought our two dogs and cat to Texas
We had to have rabies vaccination, that was mandatory

They were Boarded at Gatwick and I picked them up at DFW later that day
Easy Peasy

Cost of pet flights were more than human flights
Our Jack Russell was a mess and had to be sedated

FL may have different requirements
One thing for sure is get them into vets asap when arrive in USA for heartworm test. This will be negative as from UK, but allows you to purchase heartworm prevention tablets that you give monthy.
Heartworm is nasty. Prevention easy, cure is horrible.

Jerseygirl

Who sedated your dog? Several vets have told me that it is too dangerous to allow sedatives to be given to a pet when flying unless a vet is in attendance during the flight.

Weeze

Hello

Florida rules here:
https://www.flrules.org/gateway/read...e=5C-3.009.doc

You will also need to check out the airline rules for whichever airline you plan on using.

Our experience of moving our dog to Texas is here:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...deen+Amsterdam

My best advice is to try and get everything in writing, what the airline says, print outs of the travel requirements etc.
Good luck.

Fred16

Should have been more clear on the sedation...was sedated when came to pick dog up for travel to airport and not prior to boarding
Our JR hates being left with anyone outside of family

megalaser

I know quite a bit about this, I brought my dog (25 pounds) from London to Orlando on Virgin Atlantic. Send me a message if you would like to know any information, I am happy to help.

IloveAlaska

Haven't brought a pet into Florida, but we brought our dogs back to the US, twice once to CA, once to OR, it's a few years ago, but you will definitely need a health certificate from your Vet. The certificate is only good for about 10-14 days, something like that. But it basically is a quick health check, to make sure your pet is healthy and fit to travel, and that all vaccinations are up to date. Bordatella or kennel cough is pretty important, as it is quite contagious. I didn't get Rabies vaccinations before we left, as it is pretty expensive in the UK. In the US it is much cheaper.

Just to let you know, it is much cheaper to fly with your pet, and not send them separately, other wise you end up spending mega bucks for someone else to take them on the plane, take them off the plane! The last time we took them back to the States we flew with United and it cost like 120GBP for both dogs. If we had sent them separately from us, it would of been well over a grand!

We flew out of Heathrow via Chicago to Oregon. We were able to let our dogs out of their crates in Chicago for a potty stop, before they got onto their connecting flight to Oregon. It made me feel a lot happier to know that they had been let out for a bit of a leg stretch, before being put back in the crate for another 7hrs, or whatever it was.

Hope this helps a little

ellendarvell

Hi

We brought our pets to California last year. It was very straight forward as they had the pet passports. For California all they needed was theirt rabies vaccinations. DEFRA were useless with advice. Try the Florida goverment website as they should state what the criteria is for bringing pets in.

We flew with Virgin and they were great. We were able to book direct with them (BA you had to go through a specialist pet courier firm).

If you want any more advise just message me.

Ellen

Jerseygirl

Why should DEFRA be involved in or have knowledge about transporting dogs to the US?

ellendarvell

You are told by the vets and the airlines to check with DEFRA for the latest advise on taking dogs out of the UK. They have a section that will tell you what requirement there are. They mainly tell you though about what requirements there are to get them back into the UK.

Jerseygirl

Yes they are only interested in animals entering the UK.

margaretmwilson

We brought our dog from the UK to Florida in 2009. He had to have microchip, rabies jab then a rabies titre test. Then I think 10 a few days prior to travel he had to have a fitness to fly certificate by the vet. We flew into Sanford Orlando with Thomson and we used Animal Airlines. The dog returned to the UK last week and we used JETSET PETS. Both shippers were awesome and I had no problems whatsoever. If you need any further information just give me a pm. The dog suffered no ill effects especially when going back to UK.