The Great Kitty Migration

I recently took my cats from the UK to Germany by ferry and train. I knew this journey wasn't going to be easy, since my house cats are particularly anxious creatures and post-Brexit there would be more bureaucracy to navigate - what I was not expecting was firstly the cost of this recently imposed paperwork, and secondly the utter incompetence of the UK staff whose job it is to handle the Brexit bureaucracy on our side of the border.

The last time I took a pet overseas, in 2017, UK pet owners were still able to acquire an EU pet passport. I took Alba, my White German Shepherd, to the vet for her rabies vaccination and got her EU pet passport at the same time, which I recall costing less than £100, and it was as easy as that.

In place of the EU pet passports, UK pet owners now have to get an "Animal Health Certificate" (AHO) - these documents are valid for only 10 days (meaning you have to get one every time you travel, unlike the EU pet passport which can be used repeatedly) and they are country specific. Meaning, if you need to change your plans last minute and enter the Schengen area at the Netherlands, or Spain instead of France - you will need a different AHO. And they are not cheap. The vet I usually took my cats to for their routine treatment was going to charge £300 for one pet's AHO, and £150 for an additional pet, on top of the £135 per cat rabies vaccination (which are mandatory at least 21 days before travel, along with microchipping - which I had done already) this would have cost a total £720 - just to take them over a border. When the veterinary receptionist told me the prices, adding "you can thank Brexit for that" - my jaw dropped. "Some of our customers have holidays homes in the South of France and they have to pay £300 every year to take their dog with them", she added. I went home and google the cost of an EU pet passport - one website informing me that they cost around €15.

I decided to shop around for a cheaper option, and discovered the Mobile Vet Company (a veterinary company that comes to your home in a van) operating in the Sheffield area, who quoted £470 for the rabies vaccines and AHOs. I could have got the total price down lower, but that would have involved treking up to a company in Leeds (2 hours travel each way by public transport) to get the AHOs and decided it wasn't worth causing the cats additional stress less than 10 days before their long journey overseas. In the end, the Mobile Vet Company were extremely friendly and helpful when further problems arose (more detail on that below), so I was extremely gald to have chosen them.

The next problem was planning the actual journey, looking first for a route by plane to minimise the cats' travelling time. It quickly became apparent that most commercial airlines will not take pets in the cabin, the only option I could find was KLM and that would have involved connecting flights (with the risk of significant delays in case of missing the connection - which has happened to me on KLM before), followed by a 3 hour train journey - hardly minimising the travel time for the cats. Other airlines require you to put them in the hold (which I was not prepared to do in any case), using a 3rd party service to manage the pet travel, the cheapest quote coming in at £2124 (my flight ticket, and the train tickets being on top of that cost) and that also would require me to travel from London - again hardly minimising travel time. So, I decided to take them by ferry and train, only to discover that on short-trip ferries from UK to France you cannot take pets as a foot passenger - as they are not allowed in public areas, they must be transported in a car (and I do not drive). Starting to get frustrated, I asked friends to see if anyone was travelling over the Channel by car that I could hitch a lift with, but eventually found an alternative solution, when I discovered that overnight ferries would allow you to book a pet-friendly cabin as a foot passenger. So, I decided to make the trip via Newcastle-Amsterdam as this was the cheapest option - the total journey (including two overnight stops) coming in at around £600.

Everything seemed to be going to plan, the cats (previously microchipped) were given their rabies vaccines more than 3 weeks before travel (note: the rabies vaccinations have to happen after microchipping or they are invalid), and they were booked in with the vets for their AHOs five days before we were due to travel. Then, I received an email from the ferry company, one week before depature requesting an additional document, "a signed and dated veterinary certificate showing your pet has been microchipped" which was not stated as a requirement on their website, nor is it a requirement stated on the government website. I immediately tried to contact the ferry company to ask whether this document was actually needed and if so, what information was required. It proved impossible to actually speak to a person on the phone, so I emailed and sent a WhatsApp message. After a while they replied on WhatsApp, asking me for my booking number, which I had already provided in my message, before telling me that "you would have to check this with your vet". Flabbergasted, I emailed the vet who rightly responded that it wasn't up to them to know the required documents of the ferry company - which I then relayed to the ferry company on WhatsApp - only to be asked for my booking number two more times before finally being sent a link to the government website. I was left to assume that the email which was sent included incorrect information - but the vet kindly offered to provide additional stamped and signed letters stating the dates of microchipping of both pets, to clarify it was done before the rabies vaccines were given. I bought the vets some chocolates to say thank you for their help and patience with this bureaucratic nonsense.

I arrived at the ferry port with 18 pages of paperwork for the cats (which seemed somewhat excessive), and was met by a staff member who first asked me for their pet passports and I responded that we had AHO certificates because it wasn't possible to acquire pet passports anymore. She looked at the documents and seemed incredibly confused that there were 2 pets listed together on their AHO (which is permitted) and had to seek assistance from a colleague before issuing our boarding cards. In comparisson, the Dutch customs officers who processed the cats at the border seemed perfectly competent and accustomed to dealing with the Brexit bureaucracy, and I was left with the overwhelming impression that the UK has imposed this totally unneccessary, sometimes Kafkaesque, Brexit bureaucracy upon ourselves and then not properly trained our UK staff who are responsible for handling it.

Anyway, I am pleased to say that after a lot of stress and military-operation level of planning, the journey went off without a hitch and the cats (who would only eat hand-fed cream treats for the duration of the journey, due to being slightly traumatised by the noisey engine on the boat) arrived at their final destination safely. Here are some cute photos to end this blog post on a positive note: