Do Animals Traveling along an Owner Require a Passport?
Do Animals Traveling along an Owner Require a Passport? Traveling is especially fun when you can bring your pet along, but you will need to do some planning first. When it comes to travel, pets are easy to deal with, but the people are not because there are a lot of rules and regulations when it comes to animals in general being transported to other countries.
Many of these issues will greatly depend on which country you are going to, because they all have different requirements but one common, a valid pet passport. You can get a pet passport made from a regional passport office under The Pet Travel Scheme.
The Pet Travel Scheme (“PETS”) is a system which allows animals to travel easily between member countries without undergoing quarantine. A Pet Passport is a document that officially records information related to a specific animal, as part of that procedure. The effect is to drastically speed up and simplify travel with and transport of animals between member countries, compared to previous procedures, if the regulations are followed.
PETS was originally introduced for the benefit of animals entering or returning to the United Kingdom from other European Union countries, since historically the UK had very strong controls to safeguard against rabies including a compulsory six-month quarantine period on imports of many animals.
On 1 October 2001 several European Union countries introduced the PETS scheme; under which animals from any member country may freely travel (with the correct procedure) to any other member country on approved carriers. Over time the scheme has rolled out to other countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The pet passport itself comes in multiple forms, sometimes a pink A4 sheet, sometimes a small blue booklet. It contains the microchip or tattoo number of the animal, the certification that it has had a rabies vaccination, and needs to be signed by an officially approved veterinary surgeon.