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

zaksmum

I would love to take my dogs touring Europe with us, as this would free us up to spend several weeks there next summer. But it all seems so daunting when you have to get them wormed, tick treated and vaccinated when I always do that anyway. Is your own worming and vaccination programme in any way acceptable for taking the dogs abroad, or do you have to have more treatment from a vet as well?

loobyloo2

Hi zacsmum,
You only need to have them treated before you come back into the UK.
There is a time frame in which to do this, 24 to 48 hours before you arrive at the port check in/passport control. Once you are checked in on your return journey, even if there is a huge delay, it doesn't matter, you have passed technically into the UK and there would be no problems.
I always get mine done 26 hours before my planned crossing to be on the safe side, just in case the car breaks down:eek:
You don't need to do any worming, flea or tick teatments before you leave the UK, just the rabies, plan to start this approx 8 months before your trip, it takes that long, though they can leave the UK before that time, just not return until the 6 months clear date.

dorsetlass

We've been taking our dogs to France since the summer of 2000. We've used Brittany Ferries Portsmouth-Caen, and Poole-Cherbourg, and once went via Eurotunnel. Does anyone have any experience of the on-board kennels (we always leave our dogs in the car), as I can't find any pictures of them to see what they're like?

loobyloo2

dorsetlass, never done these crossings with the dogs, if no-one gets back to you soon, I will email a friend who did last summer to find out.

I'm looking at the Harwich- Hook of Holland 4hr crossing for this year, the kennels are free to use, but I have no idea what they are like either, so if anyone knows?
I wouldn't usually use this route, but will be driving from southern Poland, so will be tired, the 4hr crossing means I will get a decent rest before continuing in the UK.

pboae

loobyloo2 wrote: »

So my advice on passports is
check, check and check again that everything is in the right place and dated correctly.

Ditto! My vet listed my dog as a smooth coat, and he's a rough coat. It's a trivial thing, but the two types look totally different, and anyone who knew that would have pulled us up if they noticed. The vet had to reissue his passport for me.

zaksmum wrote: »

I would love to take my dogs touring Europe with us, as this would free us up to spend several weeks there next summer. But it all seems so daunting when you have to get them wormed, tick treated and vaccinated when I always do that anyway. Is your own worming and vaccination programme in any way acceptable for taking the dogs abroad, or do you have to have more treatment from a vet as well?

I was in a right tizz the first time, it seems so complicated, but it's really not. The worst bit is getting the vaccination over here. Once that paperwork is done, all you have to do is get the rabies booster every 3 years, and if you go abroad, see a local vet and have the worm and tick treatment, which is really straightforward.

Some French vets will let you take your own worm and tick meds, as long as they watch you give them. But I never bothered because it used to be a lot cheaper than tick and worm stuff here, but it's probably not now with the current exchange rate. Plus I can't speak French to phone up and check, as not all vets will let you do that, some insist you buy from them.

The rule is there to stop you bringing foreign ticks and worms back to the UK by accident. It has to be done 24-48 hrs before you come back, so if they are carrying any they will be dead before they can infect a new animal here. My dog has come back with ticks a couple of times, but he is prone to them anyway.

If I were going for a while, say 2 months+ I would tick and worm treat before I left as well as having the vet do it before returning, just to make sure my dog was protected while he was away.

Also if you are going to the South of France there are other parasites you need to be aware of, and you should speak to your vet about meds for those before you go, but in the North, it's pretty much the same risks as here.

The vets there are fine with it, they speak English, you are typically in the surgery less than 10 mins. No fuss.

Coming back on the train, the admin centre is well sign posted. The biggest queue I have ever seen was maybe 15 mins, and I went in and waited, OH stayed outside with our dog, the room is a bit small if it's very busy. They check your paperwork, give you the scanner and you scan your dog yourself (they never touch or handle your dog, they stay behind the counter), then you hand the scanner back to them. It takes 5 or 10 mins, then you are done. You drive onto the train, sit in the car during the crossing and drive off again once you get back to UK.

dorsetlass wrote: »

We've been taking our dogs to France since the summer of 2000. We've used Brittany Ferries Portsmouth-Caen, and Poole-Cherbourg, and once went via Eurotunnel. Does anyone have any experience of the on-board kennels (we always leave our dogs in the car), as I can't find any pictures of them to see what they're like?

I was looking at the Santander ferry once and couldn't find any info, I got someone to take some pics for me, but they were on another forum and they have gone now :-\ but the kennels were disgusting. They were absolutely filthy, with visible urine and faeces in several of them (this was at the start of the journey, when the 'new' dogs hadn't been in yet). They were also cramped and very close together.

So if you do go for it, take cleaning stuff with you just in case. I have no idea if that was a one off or if it's a common situation. They were nowhere near big enough for my dog, so I never looked into it again. But if I had turned up expecting to use one of those I'd have been furious.

dorsetlass

Thank you pboae - I admit to being slightly nervous about the 'kennels' on-board, which is why we've always done the shortest/easiest crossing. Someone once told me that they thought the kennels were just dog carriers/cages - but I can't remember where they got that information. We have been tempted to do the Santander route in order to see Northern Spain, but the thought of our pups in grotty kennels for 24 hours is a complete no no.

With regard to the paperwork involved - it is so much easier now that the blue 'passport' is in place compared to the early days when it was an A4 sheet - but to reiterate a comment from above - do Check, Check, Check - that the dates and times that the French vet put into the passport for both tick & worm treatment are absolutely 100% correct, or you could get held up and miss your boat/train. We did miss a train once because the vet put a 7 instead of a 1 for the microchip number! but luckily we had absolutely every single piece of identification that belonged to that particular dog - which all had to be faxed to Defra and eventually we were allowed to continue our journey.

We take our own Frontline Spot-on to the French vet (prices are now pretty much the same in the UK and France - so if you can get a good deal here before you go - take it with you) - and our vet administers it - and he provides the Drontal injection (our French vet doesn't offer the option of the tablet).

Even 10 years on I still get slightly nervous that something might go wrong and I double/triple check all new entries in the passport. On the whole, as long as you check every single detail of your pet's passport - all should be ok.

pboae

In the end I figured that as long as the rabies stuff was absolutely right, and the details in the passport were (and I could check all that info before I left). Then the worst that was going to happen is that we'd be delayed for 24 hrs if we messed up and had to get the worm/tick treatment repeated. There are a couple of vets in Calais that are used to dealing with that, so although it would be a pain, it wouldn't be a total disaster. And that helped me relax a bit about it.

From what I remember of the kennels, they were like the wire crates they have in vets. There were sturdy looking and there were panels on the sides that were more solid, but the dogs would still be able to see each other through them. I wouldn't swear to any of that though, it was a few years ago now.

dorsetlass

You're quite right pboae - and I think I worry too much about what 'could' go wrong. However, we now only have 2 girls (we sadly lost our lovely old boy in November 2009) which will be much easier hotel-wise if we were to be delayed by 24 hours (we have small terriers, but hotels don't like more than 2 dogs per room - we've tried to explain that 3 small terriers are probably about equal to one large labrador - but rules are rules!) - so I imagine I'll panic less this year. We've been taking 3 dogs across for 6 years - so it'll be quite a different situation for us this year.

loobyloo2

dorsetlass wrote: »

You're quite right pboae - and I think I worry too much about what 'could' go wrong. However, we now only have 2 girls (we sadly lost our lovely old boy in November 2009) which will be much easier hotel-wise if we were to be delayed by 24 hours (we have small terriers, but hotels don't like more than 2 dogs per room - we've tried to explain that 3 small terriers are probably about equal to one large labrador - but rules are rules!) - so I imagine I'll panic less this year. We've been taking 3 dogs across for 6 years - so it'll be quite a different situation for us this year.

please tell me if I am wrong but I thought on the calais/dover crossing it was a maximum of 2 dogs per car, so are 3 allowed on Brittany ferries?

Awaiting reply from my friend (dial up connection, so may be a while), but if you google Brittany ferries kennels, a couple of pictures come up.

dorsetlass

loobyloo2 wrote: »

please tell me if I am wrong but I thought on the calais/dover crossing it was a maximum of 2 dogs per car, so are 3 allowed on Brittany ferries?

Awaiting reply from my friend (dial up connection, so may be a while), but if you google Brittany ferries kennels, a couple of pictures come up.

We've never had any problem taking 3 pups on Brittany Ferries Portsmouth/Poole to Caen/Cherbourg - BUT we could (until this year) only book 2 dogs online, then we'd have to phone Brittany Ferries to add the 3rd. However, this year you can add up to 6 dogs when booking online! Sorry but don't know about the Calais/Dover route as we've never tried it.

Thank you for the suggestion of looking up Brittany Ferries kennels on google - they do look ok - and if I was to go that route I would probably book a large kennel for my 2 small terriers and take loads of bedding (& cleaning stuff!)