Dog Relocation

If you decided to move, become an expat and you have a pet, you can check here how was our dog relocation process.

Hiring relocation companies

If you are doing an international relocation, I strongly recommend that you hire a company to help you with the documents and also to follow your pet during the relocation.

The requested documents always change and those companies know all the modifications.

Depending on the airport, they are also registered to have access to some places that you can not go.

So, they could follow your pet better than you.

At least the first time, it is better to have help of an expert.

In my case, I hired a company in Brasil and another in Dubai.

The Brazilian company had a partnership with another one in Luxembourg.

They picked our up at my home in São Paulo. They went to Guarulhos Airport, they did all the process there, gave her food and water, walked, pee and poo time and followed it until the aircraft.

When my dog arrived in Luxembourg, they checked there, gave water, walked and followed until the other aircraft.

The same happened when my dog arrived in Dubai. The company also picked up and drop my dog of in my home.

At that time, I didn’t have license to drive in Dubai.

Everything was perfect and my dog arrived happy and fine in my new home.

Training your dog for relocation

Before move to Dubai, as you can see in about us, we lived in São Paulo, Brazil, with our dog, a golden retriever, called Jinx.

The relocation process was very long, it took one full day.

So, the process started with the training of our dog to be calm in a cage.

But, how could we do it?

We started giving snacks inside the cage, with open door. After, the current food inside the cage with open door. Then, the water and food with open door.

Subsequently, we started to close the door while our dog eat the food.

In the beginning, it was just while our dog eat, but after this time started to increase to one, two, three, four hours…

Then, the training started to pass a night inside the cage.

We also changed the food time, which first was twice a day. We reduced the amount of food of the first time of the day until we cancel it and our dog eat just once a day.

Our training process took time and we did it slowly, but you can do it faster according to the time you have for your relocation process.

Documents for relocation

The requested documents for a pet relocation depends on:

Origin: the country of origin requests to export the dog/pet;
Transit country: if your pet will not have a direct flight, you need also to check if is there some specific conditions in the transit country;
Destiny: the requirements to import a pet from the country;
Airline: the airlines have also their requirements.

The requirements could also change during the year, according to the temperature of those places and other climate issues.

The most common requested documents are:

Anti-rabies’ test by an official entity;
Import permit;
Export permit;
Vet health attestation;
Updated vaccine records;
Anti-parasite prove.

Some places require also a quarantine for the pet. So, you should be careful if that’s a requirement in your itinerary.

Kennel requirements

You can find the kennel flight requirements in IATA (click here).

But it is also good to check if the airline company that you will use have additional requirements. You can confirm it in the airline website. I recommend also to send an email to the Airline company to confirm it, in a way that you have it registered.

For example: some companies does not allow pets in the cabin. In order to transport them, they allow just as a cargo.

Sometimes the company allows to be transported in the cabin, but the destiny or origin country doesn’t.

Kennel stickers

It is always good to identify your pet and also its food and documents, in order to be preventive.

We did some stickers models for you to glue in the pet cage:

Itinerary: it is good to stick the flight itinerary, mainly if it is not a direct flight.

Pet Itinerary for relocation (By Ideas for Family)

Pet relocation captain alert: it is good to ask them to tell the captain, that your pet is aboard. Even if it is a procedure, it is good to remember. It is also nice to tell if your pet is aggressive, afraid of other pets or other characteristics, in order to prevent accidents or stress.

Pet relocation captain alert (By Ideas for Family)

Pet food relocation: it is good to send with your pet a zip bag with its dry food and identify it with your pet’s name. In case it fall down, they could find it easily.

Pet documents for relocation: it is good to have an extra copy of the documents in a zip bag, sticked in the kennel. In case the other copies disappear, it is easily to identify it.