Vets in France

[Sue843]

Hi
We are about to go to France for the first time with our caravan and border collie dog. Can anyone recommend an English speaking good vet near Poilly in Gien (loire Valley area)? We will be required to book an appointment to see a vet before we return to the UK with our dog>

Many thanks
Sue

 

[chrisbee1]

Hi Sue, we’ve taken our border collie to Europe for the last 6 years and have never booked a vet in advance. I have always found that if you visit a vet in the morning, if they can’t see you straight away, they will be able to see you later in the day. There always seem to be plenty of them around. As for an English speaking vet, the DEFRA website does an excellent translation sheet where, if you print it off and take it with you, you can just point to the relevant question/statement and the French translation is written underneath. I’ve only needed it once for a receptionist but found the vet’s English a lot better than my non existent French. I must admit to being a bit anxious the first time, wondering if I would get an appointment within the time frame required, but now I have no worries. However, as it's you first trip booking may allay your worries.

 

[Sue843]

Hi Chrisbee

Thanks for the advice, I will print off the sheet you mentioned from DEFRA, I feel I need to arm myself with everything as it is our first trip.
Sue

 

[loadsadogs]

Hi Sue!

We went to France with our dog for the first time last year, and got very close to the return date before realising that we'd need to visit a vet on a Sunday if we were to go home on the Tunnel crossing we'd booked - duh!!! What a puddin', can't believe I'm so stupid, spent ages working everything out and *still* got it wrong.

We only do schoolkids' French, so the lady at the local Tourist Office kindly rang ahead to our next town and sorted out a vet's appt for us. Changing the Eurotunnel time was easy (English-speaking), but we found the vets - and hospital staff too (another story!) - had no better language skills than we did.

I must say the actual experience of going to the vet's was good tho. This was at Duclair, near Rouen. Too far north for you unfortunately. They knew what to do with the paperwork, kept checking that we'd got our timings right, understood what medication the dog needed etc. We came away feeling much more confident and not a little relieved.

This time we are going to email ahead, using the DEFRA translations, to get an appt so that we can relax a bit. It was on our minds throughout the holiday last time, worrying whether the vet would be booked up/closed/otherwise unavailable.

BTW, have I read somewhere that French vets are often closed on a Monday? Anyone know about that?

Enjoy your holiday. We took lots of photos of our chap paddling in the river, playing on the beach etc and made them into a nice calendar to remind us of the good times.

Jenny