Pets to France from Cyprus

[cypruslady]

Cyprus is an EU member, and I was interested to read a posting that stated pets were taken to France ( I assume from UK?) on a Health Cert and not the full Pet Passport. I plan to leave Cyprus ASAP and reading up on the Passport scheme I was advised to allow 8 months for the process.

Can I bring my healthy animals to France without the Passport, and therefore sooner? I can then have them anti-rabied etc.. in France? I'm happy to keep them housebpund in Franceif necessary, but not in quarantine. Theyare fully vaccinated against all the usual things and I can have them microchipped immediately.

I'm going to phone my vet tomorrow but here it's very difficult to get any info that related to outside Cyprus--and even the info for inside Cyprus can vary accorsing to the day of the week!
Many thanks. This msg board has been a godsend.

Pauline

[PossumGirl]

Check with the French consulate and airline to be sure, but we brought our dog from the States, and we didn't have any problems.  She needed a microchip that was the European Standard (which she had), current rabies shot as well as the other "regular" shots, a medical certificate filled out within 48 hours of departure (I think that was the timing, but you'd need to check) and a flea-tick treatment such as Frontline.  That was it.

Of course, no one, except the airline, every checked her paperwork at all, so I suppose in the end it was moot.  We simply picked her up at baggage claim and walked out through customs without the slightest question.

I don't see why coming from an EU member state should be more complicated than that.

Good luck.

PG

[diotima]

She wasn't just dumped on the belt (in her box) and left to her own devices, I hope? I'll be flying two cats to France next year, I hadn't actually thought to ask that question of the firm I plan to use.

[PossumGirl]

No, no, no!  We flew Air France (only company with non-stop flights from Los Angeles to Paris -- VERY IMPORTANT consideration for us!).

When we got to CDG, we went to collect our other luggage, and the Air France personnel paged us when she was brought up from the plane.  Her crate was on a luggage cart and she was brought by a representataive of Air France to their office in the luggage area.  She was never left alone and seemed to have been handled as gently as possible.

You do want to get a non-stop flight if you can, as the most risk for the animal is being transferred from flight-to-flight, with luggage personnel perhaps not being as attentive as possible.  Also, I think multiple take-offs and landings are much more stressful for the animals.

Clearly, Maggie was stressed out, and it was a very long flight (over ten hours in the air, probably a total of 12 hours from on-loading to off-loading), but she seemed to have come through it okay.  She was quite jetlagged, which I suppose makes sense as we always are too.  But, they don't dwell on things and once they know they are back with their pack, I think they put it out of their minds.

PG

[diotima]

Thanks for that [:)]

The three of us will be flying from southern England to (probably) Nimes, so the flight won't be as long as for Maggie, and it will be direct. It just occurred to me that I hadn't actually clarified that particular point, I'll go back to the company on Tuesday. The move's still at least 12 months away, but I like to get as much info as possible as early as I can.

I'm glad Maggie had a good flight, I guess she was on your mind the whole way!

[PossumGirl]

[quote user="diotima"]

I'm glad Maggie had a good flight, I guess she was on your mind the whole way!

[/quote]

I'm pretty sure the flight was way worse for us than it was for her, as I don't think dogs can tell time (even if she is a border collie!), but we felt every second crawl by. I think I asked the flight crew to check on whether she'd gotten put on the plane about five times.

Mr. Possum asked if he could fly in the pet area with her, figuring it was actually more comfortable than cattle class where we were flying.  But the meanies wouldn't let him!

PG

[ninahookins]

Hi

We look after dogs in our home and are looking after 2 retrievers at the moment, they came 6 months ago from Cyprus without a passport, their owner is now in the Uk. They cannot travel on to England obviously without a passport, so they have been staying on their holidays with us.

Hope this helps

Regards

Nina