Links: How Expats Move with Their Cat or Dog

A cat and dog, the two most popular animals kept as pets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My son and his family just moved from Shanghai, China to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and not only did the children and wife come with...so did two dogs! Only a few years ago I would have thought it was impossible to move the dog from the house to the back yard. It had never occurred to me that animals could follow a family half way around the world.

In the case of my son and his wife, the moving of pets just did not seem to be a problem. When they left the Middle East 8 years ago, they brought a cat named Lester and a dog named Jake with them. The dog was a given I suppose but the cat was...well just a cat. (I'm sorry RV, my cat, and all the other cats in the world. That is just mean I suppose.)

But, you see, Lester was an Arabian cat that had gone through a terrorist attack on their compound in Saudi Arabia. He got himself locked out of the compound for several months and turned up one afternoon sunburned, bald and generally unrecognizable. The thinking was that any cat that was that brave needed to be taken care of for the rest of his life. He was not "just a cat". Not at all.

While there are many websites that offer information, I thought that Mary Richardson over at Matador Network had the best information I had seen. She said:

Moving abroad can take a lot of preparation and planning ahead, especially if you hope to bring your pet with you.

She decided to leave her cat behind when she moved to Japan...a choice she regretted. In the list below her's is the 7 Tips for Moving Overseas with Pets.

So, want to take the cat/dog with you when you leave the states or even fly across country? It requires some jumping through hoops and not a little expense is involved. There are vets, consulates, and airlines to be dealt with. Start a long time ahead to get all the information you need. Here are a few websites that will help you:

We plan on flying with our cat when we do not take our car to Arizona anymore. He is a stinker so I suppose I will need to do a little reading and make a visit to the vet for tranquilizers for him and my doctor for tranquilizers for me.

Have a wonderful day.

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