I’m leaving for england on the 14th for 6 months. When I cone back, I’ll be getting married and moving there for good. I want to take my cat with me when I go and stay. British immigration laws say I have to have her microchiped with a chip that can be read in eroupe.
WHere can I find a vet that will do this, and how much will it cost. I also have a long list of things that need to be done for the cat to go to england, a vet thats fimilar with this would be a big help too.
Save me from my ignorance, and get my kitty to Enland
I’m not familiar with NY - but in my town, you could visit your local city animal shelter, and they should be able to do it at the lowest cost. Your local Petsmart may also provide an affordable doctor’s number. Good luck and congrats!
Any vet should be able to do it quickly - all three of my cats were done, it was about $30 per cat, plus $12 for activating the service. My vets sent in all the paperwork, but you might have to do that yourself. To microchip a cat, all they do is load the chip in a syringe, and inject it just like a vaccine. Easy peasy.
You should find this website helpful in providing all the details you need to know in order to ready your cat for entry into the U.K. Even if your local vet isn’t familiar with all the steps in the process, you should familiarize yourself with everything that needs to be done to avoid quarrantine and just ask your vet to take those steps. I’ve taken my cat out of the country and have never had a problem with a vet not knowing the proper forms and such that need to be filled out, etc. Just call your vet and ask, and if they’re unfamiliar, they should be able to refer you to another vet who can help you.
You’re also going to have to make some very specific arrangements with the airlines – you can’t just take any flight that’ll get you there and show up with your cat in tow. The above website outlines those requirements, as well. There’s also a handy checklist at the bottom to help ensure you haven’t forgotten any of the steps.
Thanks Shayna I’d seen that before, and in fact printed it out. BUt since I’d saved the link at work, and they moved me when my replacement arrived, I lost it. But I was also hoping some people in NYC would be able to point me to a vet more directly. you input has been a great help though
Any vet ought to be able to do pretty much everything on the list, except maybe the chip. Vaccines, health certificate for travel, and parasite treatment are all standard vet care, after all, any clinic should be able to get the proper forms sent to them and send off blood for rabies titers. The only thing that might be a hassle is the chip, because a lot of vets don’t chip, and a lot of chips used here in the States aren’t compatible with the systems used in the UK. Your best bet is to call the humane society and see if their chip system is compatible with what you need. If not, they can almost certainly direct you to someone who can give you the chip you need.
You don’t need a recommendation for a vet, just go see your kitty’s regular vet. Your kitty does have a regular vet, doesn’t she?
SHe does have a regular vet, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t do chiping. I wanted to get everything done at the same place to aviod any paper mix-ups and to make sure she doesn’t get quaritined. I was asking for recogmendations for a vet becasue I thought that would be a litte better then just randomly pulling one of the phone book.
Most vets in the US do not have chips that are acceptable to readers, say, in CANADA. When I got my puppy from WI, I had to have her chipped in a way that was acceptable to the Canadian Kennel Club (I intented to register her there too, even if she’s AKC/ASCA registered, we were going to compete in canada!)… for her to be registered, the chip had to be readable by a specific kind of scanner in Canada. This kind of chip was NOT the one the vets in WI had access to.
My advice? do what I did. Find a microchip supplier FROM THE UK. Buy the chip and the service, and have them ship the chip to your vet in the US. The vet will then insert that british chip into your cat, and you won’t have to worry about getting there and finding out they don’t have the right kind of scanner for hte chip your kitty has.
Hell, Zap is double chipped - she has a chip that’s super common in the US and a chip that was needed for Canada.
And remember, to bring your cat to the UK, it will have to be chipped, THEN vaccinated (because the chip number has to be put with the vaccination record, and according to the P.E.T.S. rules, the vaccination has to happen AFTER the animal was chipped) and then at LEAST 6 months must pass.
That’s to give time for diseases to come up.
Basically, what the UK is doing is their quarantine, in reverse. You are responsible for that old 6 month period, but at home.
Hell, Zap is double chipped - she has a chip that’s super common in the US and a chip that was needed for Canada.