Moving Our Dog to the UK

After months of preparation (and with A LOT of help from our dear friend Chris who watched Lilo when we first moved here), we have FINALLY been able to move our dog Lilo to the UK with us! She seemed to do fine on the flight from what we can tell, although she has slept a lot since then! She is adjusting well to her new home, and we are adjusting to having her here again. It's definitely harder to have a dog when you don't have a backyard though!

Prior to beginning this process, we read a lot of articles about moving a dog to the UK. If you think it's hard to move a person here, just try a dog. We read that a lot of people don't even do it, but I couldn't imagine leaving Lilo behind. Here are some of the tips we learned:

• Throughout the process, DOUBLE and TRIPLE-CHECK every step to make sure you have everything you need. There are checklists, but you are coordinating with so many different people and each of them makes you feel like they've never done it before. Don't rely on anyone - make sure YOU know the information and get what you need.


• The first step to moving a dog to the UK is to have a microchip inserted that meets international standards. DOUBLE-CHECK your vet uses the correct kind. Our's didn't even though she said she did, so we either had to start the 6-month process over or rent our own microchip scanner to bring with us (which is what we did).


• After the microchip, your pet has to go through a blood rabies test (the bloodwork is sent to a testing facility at the University of Kansas) and if that is all clear, they can enter the country 6 months later. Note - another option is for your pet to go into quarantine in the UK during this time, but we didn't want to do that so we left Lilo behind with a friend until her waiting time was complete.


• Now comes the fun of paperwork. You have to get certain papers done within very specific timeframes based on when the dog will fly into the country. For example, your dog has to be evaluated by a vet within 14 days of flight and then you have to send the vet's certificate to the USDA for their stamp (oh yeah, and you have to overnight everything because you need this before you can fly).


• Within 10 days of flight, you need a general health certificate for the airline saying your pet is OK to travel.


• Within 48 hours of flight, your pet needs to go back to the vet for a tick/tapeworm treatment.


• Then of course you have to make sure you meet the airline requirements for transporting your pet, which in our case meant buying a new crate and accessories (including Live Animal stickers) for Lilo.

We had to drop Lilo off at the World Cargo center 4 hours before flight (all dogs have to travel cargo on the British Airways international flights). You have to put them in the crate and they won't get out until after the flight. I had a really hard time with this so Brian actually handled this part. When we got to the airport, we were able to see them loading her onto the plane so we knew she would be with us. Check out the video below:

So as you can see, moving a dog to the UK definitely wasn't easy, but for us, there wasn't any other choice. It can be done - you just have to be diligent, patient, and have a little attitude at times. ;) In the end, it's worth all the trouble...