This summer we are taking our dog Tiny to Europe. Although he is originally from the EU (he is a rescue dog from Ireland). We his owners are not – boo Brexit! Therefore his EU passport means nothing and now there are several things we need to do to take him to the EU.

Firstly, we checked the government website to see what is required. At the time of writing, dogs need the following to go to an EU country:

  • a microchip
  • a valid rabies vaccination
  • an animal health certificate

Tiny has a microchip already and is registered to our address so that bit was nice and easy!

We took Tiny to his local vets to get a rabies vaccination. It is important to get the timing of this right. You have to do it atleast 21 days before you travel. We also had to make sure that our vets passed this information on to the folk sorting out Tiny’s animal health certificate. Overall this was pretty simple and Tiny was a goodboy at the vets and they rewarded him with a treat.

You can get an animal health certificate from a lot of different vets – but they’re quite pricey! Our vet recommended PassPets in Havant as they charge £99 opposed to the usual £180. Again this was a simple and painfree experience. We booked an appointment with them, it needs to be within 10 days of leaving the country so we chose 6 days before leaving and then we had to fill out a form all about Tiny. After that we got our vets to send over the Rabies vaccination information required.

On the day of the appointment Jes and Tiny took the train to Havant. PassPets is a 2 minute walk from the train station and there is a direct train from Brighton. We walked to PassPets and were in and out within 20 minutes – along with our certificate.

PassPets is a really nice air conditioned place with friendly staff. My favourite part was the wall of photos of dogs (and cats) enjoying their foreign holidays. There were photos of cats on beaches in the med, dogs in various European cities but my favourite was a dog enjoying a kayaking experience in what looked like a Norweigan Fjord.

After the appointment, as the weather was lovely, we decided to go on a little walk. There is a route in Havant which goes all the way to Hayling Island called the Hayling Billy Trail. It was too hot to walk all of it so we created a circular hike from the train station via PassPets and along the Hayling Billy trail and back again. I highly recommend it to those using PassPets or visiting Havant.

This is all Tiny needs to go to Europe so I guess he is ready!

On top of this however we have prepared him by ensuring he has a cool mat, cool vest, a long lead, a usb fan for the van as well as a backpack to put him in for when we are in cities, shops or he is just feeling lazy.

I think he is ready for his European road trip!

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