Europe with dogs

[JoannaLesley]

We are recently back from an 8 week trip through France and on into Spain to visit family. For the first time we took our dogs, as we felt it was too long (and expensive) to leave them with someone else. The dogs are whippets, aged 2 and 3 and adapted wonderfully to caravan life. We had a method of fixing them on long leads so that they could reach most of the pitch and get into the caravan wherever we stayed. The only thing that they never really got to like was travelling in the car!
For two country dogs, they adapted wonderfully to a more restricted way of life, behaving beautifully when being walked through towns and villages, sitting outside bars and so on.
The real (and unexpected) bonus for us was the number of locals who stopped us to chat about the dogs. It is the first time we have had this amount of interaction with the "natives" on holiday. It seemed clear that whippets are a breed that very few had ever seen and, indeed, we only saw 2 throughout our travels. Bar staff brought them bowls of water and one small bar/restaurant insisted that we took them inside while we had our "menu du jour" on a very warm day.
My advice is that if you are debating whether to travel with your pet, try it. I think you will be surprised how friendly everyone is.

 

[Willi-Wonti]

We are weighing up the pro's & cons of taking a dog abroad
I know that you have to obtain a pet passport & that certain injections are needed
Can someone give me advice on getting a passport etc please

 

[JoannaLesley]

I was a bit anxious too, Willi-Wonti, but all was easy peasy in the end.

You will need to visit your vet to get a rabies innoculation and a pet passport. I think there is a short delay after the vaccination before you can travel, but I can't remember now how long this is, as it has changed since the beginning of the scheme, I think. The DEFRA website has all the info. The dog will also need a microchip, but this will be law in 2016, so is a wise move anyway.

We then found that no-one was the slightest bit interested in our dogs' paperwork either travelling out or at any of the campsites we visited. There were no special arrangements for those with animals on Eurotunnel. We used Eurotunnel as it is quicker and the dogs could stay with us - a couple of hours alone on the car deck of a ferry with all the noises and movement would have totally freaked them out.

Coming back you will need to visit a vet between 5 days and 24 hours before you travel in order for the dog to be wormed and the vet to sign and stamp the passport to say that this has been done and that the dog is fit to travel - he/she will give it the once-over to check. That done all we then had to do was follow the signs at the French side of the tunnel to a little cabin where the dog passports were checked and the micrchip read to ensure that they were the right animals. That done, we then went through the toll booths and onto the train in the usual way. No checks this end.

We asked the campsite to make our vet appointment and I think most of those in the Pas de Calais will do the same if you are unsure about booking it yourself.

One further tip - as we were travelling in the south of France and into Spain we got our dogs Scalibur collars as a protection against ticks and lice. Sandflies carrying lishmalia disease are also a problem in these areas and the collars offer some protection towards that too. The collars can be obtained through your vet or (much more cheaply) on line.

Hope this helps.
Jo

 

[Willi-Wonti]

Thank you for your assistance

 

[carolynS]

Hi, can I just add that heartworm is endemic in Europe and my hubby and I have been travelling on the continent for the past 6 years now, usually twice a year for 6-8 weeks at a time and use scalibor collar but also apply advocate drops monthly ( on the dog I mean !) It was scarey at first but now second nature and have done ferry and tunnel. The fantastic thing we have found is that so many more cafes and restaurants are dog friendly. I would recommend taking a pet with a passport on holiday.