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We're considering taking our Dog into France from the UK on holiday. We will probably be travelling on the Eurostar.

Looking through the web site on getting a dog passport it all seems pretty straight forward:

When travelling to or returning to the UK from another EU or non-EU listed country your pet needs:

  • a microchip
  • a rabies vaccination (make sure your pet is microchipped first or the vaccination won’t count)
  • a pet passport or official third country veterinary certificate tapeworm treatment (for dogs only)

But then we bumped into a vet friend of ours last night and she mentioned in passing, "Yes but it's hard to find a vet in France". What? "Well you need a vet in France to sign the dog back into the country?"

I thought the procedure would simply contact our UK vet, get all the documentation and that would be it.

Does anyone have experience of this? Is it simple? Do we need to get a Vet in France to check us back into the UK?

Update:

I've scoured the gov.uk web site and cannot see any mention of this procedure. Makes me think the vet friend was wrong?

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Your friend was correct.

The problem is that your list is missing a line

When travelling to or returning to the UK from another EU or non-EU listed country your pet needs:

The first 3 you can easily get before leaving the UK and as long as your dogs rabies vaccination is up-to-date when you return you'll be fine. It's worth clicking on all the links anyway just to ensure that you've got everything right.

The fourth link, however, means that you may have to visit a vet in France:

Your vet must treat your dog for tapeworm and record it in the pet passport or third country official veterinary certificate every time you want to enter the UK.

The treatment must be given between 1 and 5 days (24 to 120 hours) before you’re scheduled to arrive in the UK. ...

There's more and I'd recommend reading exactly what has to happen. Essentially, however, what this means is that if you're going to visit France for more than 120 hours you must get your dog treated prior to returning to the UK. If you're going for less than 120 hours then you may be able to get your dog treated in the UK depending on when the treatment was given.

Vets in France are normally well aware of the procedure so you shouldn't have too much trouble booking an appointment prior to leaving but it's worth doing 2 things:

  • Ensure that the vet fills in the details in your pet passport correctly. It's not worth having your dog quarantined because of a bit of paperwork.
  • Book the appointment a 2-3 days prior to your return. If the appointment falls through for whatever reason you've then got time to book another appointment or find another vet.
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