All you need to know for an enjoyable dog friendly holiday in Europe

loobyloo2

Just thought I would start this as many of you will be taking your beloved four legged friend/s on holiday this year, and traditionally start making plans at this time of year.
The first time taking your pet with you over the channel can be so stressful, so I was hoping we could have a list of tips for travel,accomodation, camping, hotels on route, food, reasonably priced vets for the return trip, and anything else you may have discovered to enable a stress free holiday.
And anything to be aware of ie local laws to observe.

So, feel free to add all your best tips so we can all benefit from your discoveries.:beer:

loobyloo2

Ok, my first snippet would be if you fancy going to Futuroscope for great day out (Poitiers,Fr), they do have excellent kennels by the car park.
Just 5 euros for 2 dogs kenneled together, and you can nip in and out as often as you like thru the day, open right up 'til the park closes at gone midnight in high season. And very friendly staff who speak English.

elsien

My tip would be to not take the dog!

Seriously though, if you have a breed that can be considered aggressive, check if it's banned in the country you are travelling to. According to my dad who recently went to Germany, I wouldn't be able to take mutt with me. The rule varies, so check first.

"Certain breeds of dogs present special problems. The rules vary from state to state in Germany, but most consider Pit Bulls, Staffordshire Bull Terriers and American Staffordshire Terriers too dangerous. Their import is banned. Several of the states, including Bavaria, Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, also have what they consider a Category 2 Kampfhund, and this includes the Rottweiler.
There is no outright ban on the import of Rottweilers, but they must be submitted to a viciousness test. If they pass the test they are treated like any other dog. But if they fail they are subject to the same rules as the Pit Bulls and Terriers. If they are not outright banned from the state they face a high licensing fee, must be neutered and must be muzzled and kept on a leash whenever they are off the owner's property.
For more detailed information on which breeds may be banned and in which states the ban is effective it would be wise to contact a specialist in importing pets. You can also go to www.zoll.de/english_version/a0_passenger_traffic/e0_vub/h0_dangerous_ dogs/index.html for a detailed list of banned breeds and other information about restrictions on dangerous dogs. "


A quick google also shows that although staffies and staffie x are not on the banned list for France, in practice some owners have hit problems.

This might be a useful starting point.
http://www.ledogstop.com/ledogstop/LAW.html

loobyloo2

I had seen this once before( ledogstop.com) and was most surprised to see the Briard on the cat 2 list, very useful sites to read, thanks.

pboae

Unless the law has changed again very recently Staffies and Staffy crosses are effectively banned in France, technically they are just restricted. They are category 1 on the dangerous dog list, along with tosas and all of the mastiffs and bull breeds (including pitbulls). It is illegal to import a category 1 animal, and that includes tourists taking their dog on holiday.

If your staffy is a pedigree and registed with the breed club, you can apply to officially import it, and it will then be a category 2 animal. It would have to be insured, muzzled in public and registered locally. You cannot just take one in under the normal pet passport scheme.

Of course people do, and it's very rare to get caught, and if you were caught they would probably just insist on you returning home with your dog immediately. But by law they would be entitled to seize it and put it sleep. The punishment for the human is 6 months in jail, and 7,500E fine. Though it's incredibly unlikely they would do anything like that to a tourist, unless there had been an 'incident'. But that would be the theoretical risk.

Rotties and Rottie crosses are category 2 dogs as well, again they can be formally imported, if you have the right paperwork, but not just on a normal pet passport.

Unfortunately France followed the UK example of using the phrase 'of the type' which covers not only crosses but dogs which look like a cross of a restricted breed. So if you have a dog that looks 'type' you need to be careful.

The offical info is here
http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/sections/a_la_une/toute_l_actualite/demarches-administratives/permis-chiens-dangereux/downloadFile/attachedFile_1/Chiens_dangereux_depliant.pdf

Google translate does an adequate job of most of it.

Having said all that, we had many fantastic holidays in France. My advice is use the eurotunnel. The admin at the terminal is very simple, there is lots of doggy facilities around, a walking area at the admin center, and doggy toilet blocks all over the place.

The actual crossing is very fast, and you get to stay with your dog, rather than leave them below deck in the ferry with car alarms going off everywhere.

miamoo

We looked into taking Mia our Dobie to Ireland last summer and decided against it as she has to me muzzled in public poor thing, so we didnt go.
To be honest I had no idea Ireland classed a doberman as a dangerous dog

MrsTinks

pboae - how was the return? Was it easy to find somewhere to do the worming etc for the return trip? We're thinking of a trip in summer with mutt and child but I don't speak much french so dread the thought of trying to find a vet etc for the return... Doubt many of them speak German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish or Italian so should probably learn some french

pboae

MrsTine wrote: »

pboae - how was the return? Was it easy to find somewhere to do the worming etc for the return trip? We're thinking of a trip in summer with mutt and child but I don't speak much french so dread the thought of trying to find a vet etc for the return... Doubt many of them speak German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish or Italian so should probably learn some french

I don't speak any French and it was fine. The first couple of times I was really nervous, got recommendations and phoned in advance to make appointments, but after that I used to just find a surgery when we got there. We usually stayed in cottages and the owner could often recommend somewhere, but I never had a problem finding a vet.

Almost all the vets spoke English, in one case a receptionist had to translate for us. I had one mildly unpleasant experience with a vet who was very bemused that my dog was castrated (not that common in France) and I also felt he was very rough in handling him. My dog wasn't bothered, but I wouldn't go there again.

They do have to see the dog take the wormer, so if you want to use the pills rather than the jab, take something tasty with you to stuff it in (if your dog is anything like mine). It saves the embarrasment of having to wrestle it down them in front of the vet.

And you do have to get the timing right because of the 'window' to travel back after worming.

Oh, this probably isn't such an issue now, but early on I saw a few people having trouble coming back because the passport wasn't filled in properly, especially if the time wasn't in there. I think vets are probably more used to it now, as I didn't see it happen later on. But I can try and post a scanned picture of some of the pages if people would find that useful.

loobyloo2

Pboae, it would be great if you could scan the pages showing what must be filled in:beer:
I always panic, so I find a vet in the region I am staying in, and phone them before leaving the UK. That way I know the cost (as long as you know the weight of your dog),that they have a scanner to read the microchip, and that either they speak English or understand my very basic French.
I find vets are cheaper by far, further away from the ports.

pboae

Ok, I hope this works:

First this bit is done here before you go:



The rabies vaccination must have the batch number on it. Also, the vax schedule in UK is now 3 years, but even though it's exactly the same vaccine it's still 1 year in France, (there was talk of this changing to 2 years but I am not sure if it did). If you choose to use the full 3 years, your passport is still valid to come back to the UK. But if it is more than 1 year since the vax/booster, then France will consider your pet to be unvaccinated. This can cause problems if your dog needs emergency vet treatment that requires it to be kept in overnight, or if there was some accident/emergency that required it to go into kennels, if you had a car accident and were hospitalised, for example. If you are worried about that, you need to get the booster done early. E.g. a week or so before you go on holiday.

But for the purpose of the actual passport, 3 years is fine, if that's what it says on the passport. If you go even 1 day over, the whole thing is invalid and you have to start all over again.

The second important page is the serology test results.


This is the results of the blood titre test that proves the vaccination took. As well as this stamp, ask your vet for a copy of the results sheet. They may choose to blank the prices out! But as long as you can see the results it's fine. If the passport gets lost or damaged it'll be much easier to get a replacement if you have a copy of the serology results, so keep it safe, but not with the passport.

The following pages get filled in in France

First is the flea/tick treatment,



The important thing here is that in the centre column the vet fills in the date on the top line AND the time on the bottom line, including specifying am/pm. If the time is not filled in, it is not valid. Also the vet needs to stamp and sign the last column.

The next page they fill in is the worming info


Again, it must have the date AND time AND am/pm, and be stamped and signed.

Both the tick and worm pages must be completed.

The last page



is a record of the clinical exam to say the animal is fit to travel. This isn't complusory, but once a vet didn't fill it in for me and they did query it at the customs/admin place. I played dumb and they let it go, but since then I have always ensured it was filled in just in case.

There are pages in the book for regular vaccinations as well. I used those, but you don't have to. I just figured it was easier than having to vax records to not lose. If you do have a seperate vax record, do take that with you as well, just in case anything unexpected happens and you need to prove your dog is up to date.

Finally, keep your paperwork handy after you are checked in. You know how customs randomly pull people over to check they aren't smuggling? There is a similar, but seperate scheme for animals. We got pulled out twice. Once it was very cursory, they looked at his passport, looked at him, and waved us through. The other time they took his passport away to an office, and we had to scan his chip again and they asked a lot of questions about where we had been. AFAIK it's just a random thing, but it did spook me the first time it happened.

HTH

loobyloo2

Pboae, the post above is great.
Trying to understand it the first time you go away can be quite difficult, but this has taken alot of the mystery out of it.:beer:
One extra word of caution, check the dates your UK vet have put on the rabies expiry, mine messed up and last summer, with only a couple of days to go before the holiday, we discovered he had put the Nobivac expiry as 1 year not 3, would have gone to France fine, but would not have got the dogs back into UK:mad:
At the time I discovered this, my vet was on holiday, and only he would be legally able to alter it. Managed to get around that by using another vet from the same practice but different branch, fortunately. So my advice on passports is
check, check and check again that everything is in the right place and dated correctly.