TAKING YOUR DOG FROM INDIA TO UK

First things first, Thank you so much for taking the decision not to abandon your pet. It's not an easy decision but I am so glad you took it. But the fact that you're here reading this means that you are clueless as to what should the next step be because it seems like a daunting and extremely expensive process, well let me clear some doubts. Yes, the process is expensive. Although I've come to a realization that the smaller the pet the lesser the expense but that's just my theory. ( If you do have a small dog then yay you! but if you happen to have a St. Bernard then good luck with the expenses. JK)

Let me tell you how we started off our journey, in the summer of 2020 when the world was in chaos and no one knew what the future had in store for us, I and my husband were busy planning our journey to the UK He had taken the decision of studying in the UK and hence we were scheduled to move to the UK in the fall of 2020 but the pandemic delayed that plan. But with us moving to another country, we also planned to take our dog along. Once he received his acceptance letter from the university we started our research on how to take our pet to the UK with us. We came across a tone of blogs and testimonies of people talking about how the firms who do this process for you had ripped them off and it's very expensive and it can be done on your own. And to be honest with whatever I have read it does seem like you can do it on your own. But neither of us had it in us to do everything on our own and trust me when you read further you'll know how difficult it must've been had we done it on our own. While researching I came across two firms that cater to pet traveling ( there probably are more firms in India that I am not aware of ) which were Furry flyers and pawsome.

Read reviews about pawsome and gave them a call to check what the process is like and the quotations. Neeraj from pawsome picked up the phone gave me a tiny glimpse at how it's done and how much it costs. Let me be honest here In retrospect when I think about my first conversation with pawsome I remember being a very aggressively obsessesive dog mother who was worried about how things are going to go for her baby. Neeraj handled that very well and told me that if I go ahead with the process and give them the contract everything will be taken care of and pawsome will help us every step of the way. and let me tell you they came through.

Every dog is different and so the cost of taking different pets will vary every step of the way so in this blog I will only mention the prices of things that we had to pay for our dog and not the service fee that was paid to pawsome because what they quote to each client might differ depending on a lot of factors. 

Here is an overview of how the process looks like if you are taking your dog from India to the UK:-

• MICROCHIPPING: If your pet is not microchipped yet then he has to be before traveling to the Uk as the law there expects every pet to be chipped. So our process started with microchipping our dog. After getting our pet chipped we had to send the scanned copies of the microchip certificate signed and stamped by our vet and a photo to see if the chip is working or not.
• VACCINATION: As it had already been over a year since our pet's last dose we were supposed to give him the rabies vaccination and send the signed stamped copy of the vaccination record to pawsome.
• TITRE TEST: Afer the vaccination we had to wait for 30 days before we could do the titre test. Titre test is nothing but taking your pet's blood sample, separating serum from the blood, and sending your pet's serum sample to a lab in the UK to check if he has been vaccinated or not. (in the most layman term i could explain)
• WAITING PERIOD: After the sample is sent to the lab we have to wait for 90 days before the pet can travel. The test results come back in 10 days or so if I'm not wrong.

The process is literally as straightforward as I have mentioned above. There were tiny hiccups in our process like our dog's serum sample reduced in quantity and turned cloudy when we sent it the first time but that was our case-specific given our dog was not in the best shape when we found him and adopted him which led to some complications in getting his serum but that should not be the case for you. 

So after the 90 days period had passed we got on to the next phase of the process that is getting our pet travel-ready. If your pet is already crate trained then kudos to you, you don't have anything to worry about but if your pet is not crate trained then you might want to order the crate at least a month before your travel date so that your dog gets accustomed to the crate. People at pawsome told us that you need not force your pet to be inside the crate all the time you just need to get him used to the crate until he knows that it's a safe space. Now depending on which airline you choose to fly with the crate size and prices will differ, we chose emirates.

It took me around a week or so and my pet knew that the crate is his space and I never had to hire any help to crate train him. 

There can only be a total of 5 days of difference between your travel date and your pet's travel date. This means you have to book your ticket first or at least have a tentative date of travel. Before traveling to the UK pawsome helped us book an agent in the Uk who carried out all the documentation and import clearing that was needed to be done when our pet arrived in the UK. The pet has to be present in the city where he is going to fly internationally 5 days prior to their flying date for final documentation before flying. So we were given the option of a pet taxi service from our city to mumbai, which would've cost us 25k. So we chose to save some cash by taking on a road trip with our pet to Mumbai. Pawsome also helped us choose a pet boarding in Mumbai for our dog. 

On the day of our dog's documentation pawsome sent their pet handler to our place to pick up our dog. Their pet handler knew what he was doing and had a lot of experience which really made me feel safe.

Pawsome made sure that our dog was safely picked up from the boarding on the day of his travel and dropped at the airport. The pet handler was with him until his final documentation at the airport. 

Pets while flying in the cargo are always the last to be boarded on to the flight the first ones out. Our dog flew via emirates and he had a layover in Dubai which meant he reached a day later. On arrival, we had requested for delivery to our place and after the agent had cleared our pet she sent him to us visa a pet taxi which cost us about 100 Pounds. 

And that was it, our dog was back with us safely. 

here is a rundown on all the costs :

• Microchip ordered via pawsome online site: 1,500 INR
• Rabies titre test : 20,000 INR
• EMIRATES AIR FREIGHT WEIGHT CHARGES + AIRWAYBILL BOOKING: 98,933 INR
• Pet Travel crate: 16,500 INR
• Vet charges for all the signatures he gave us on our dog's documents: 500 INR ( not sure if all vet's charge for signs but our vet did) 
• Road trip with the dog from Nagpur to Mumbai: 10,000 INR
• Pet boarding for 3 days: 2,100 INR
• IMPORT CHARGES IN THE UK: 350 GBP
• Pet delivery to our place in the UK: 100 GBP

Taking your pet with you to another country is not an easy task but having pawsome by our side made it a tiny bit less nerve recking than it is in reality. Everyone at pawsome does a fantastic job and Devyani who was handling our case made sure I knew everything that was happening behind the scene and was very patient. 

It would've been a much difficult journey had we not hired these guys to do this for us. And thank god we came across pawsome.

It Goes without saying I was not in any way paid to say this, whatever I have mentioned in this blog is solely my opinion. 

If you are a dog parent looking for a travel agent for your baby then pawsome is a one-stop shop!

Also if you're interested here is the link to the video of us reuniting with our dog wrin after all this traveling. 

PS. Please share this  blog if you found it helpful and comment below if there is anything specific you'd like to know about travelling with dogs.

PPS. don't forget to follow me on Instagram @rasiikaaa 

cheers.