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13/05/2004Rover and the Spanish bureaucrats

Rover and the Spanish bureaucrats For British people wanting to 'live the dream' of a new life in Spain, taking Rover with you can be a big worry. But if you were expecting a bureaucratic nightmare when you take your pet abroad, you may be in for a surprise.

Anyone who has ever been tempted to complain about Spanish bureaucracy has a simple method of providing a contrast: Try to travel with your pet and you soon find out that British bureaucracy can be ten times worse.

The Pet Travel Scheme was introduced around five years ago in Britain to make it 'easier' to take your pet abroad and to replace the old quarantine system. Maureen Lindhurst, 58, a widow from Solihull, in the West Midlands, used the scheme to enable her to bring Holly, her labrador, out to Spain when she moved to her villa in Calpe in the southeast.

"First of all I had to get Holly micro-chipped," Maureen told us. "And then she needed a rabies vaccination. A month later she had to be tested again, but they warned me it would be six months before I could re-enter Britain with her." 

"And I had to get two forms, PETS5 to authorise Holly's journey abroad and PETS1 for her re-entry. Then I needed a Residency Declaration Form to show that Holly hadn't been outside of the list of approved countries."

But Maureen eventually had all the paperwork completed and duly discovered that none of it was inspected when she entered Spain.

"I could have had a tiger in the back of the car for all they cared."

Nonetheless, Holly was in Spain and all was well until Maureen decided to go back to the UK for a few months, with Holly, when her new grandson was born. Then the paperwork reared its ugly head again.

"You have to have your dog treated against ticks and tapeworm between 24 and 48 hours of returning to the UK," she said. "A Spanish vet can do this, but if you're delayed in France by five minutes you have to do it all over again. And most Spanish vets don't have copies of the official form saying the dog has been treated, and they won't let it back into Britain without one."

Sure enough, Maureen was slightly delayed and missed the 48-hour deadline. That meant finding a vet in Calais.

"The vet in Calais didn't have the right form and had never heard of it. Neither had the ferry company, and the relevant UK government department was closed. In the end, a friend in the UK got a British vet to fax one over, and the French vet covered it with official looking stamps."

"Then we had to put a special sticker on the car to show we had an animal in the car. And when we got to Dover, they just waved us through – nobody inspected anything!"

Spanish vet Miguel Ordenez Lozano, of the CentroCan group, said: "My advice to any British person is bring all the documents with you from England. I've been a vet in Spain for 12 years, and I've never even heard of a case of rabies here."

We spoke to the PETS scheme Helpline, run by the British Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (www.defra.com).

"All foreign vets in the approved countries have the required forms," an unnamed official told us. "If they haven't they can easily get them from their local authority."

But not, it seems, in Calais. Very few vets have the right forms the UK Customs insist on, and in any event it seems that the average customs officer is far too busy checking for illegal immigrants or terrorists to worry about checking a dog's papers. 

Regardless, an officer could still send him off for six month's quarantine if the papers aren't in order. Jackie Houseman, 36, formerly from Suffolk works for Torrevieja animal sanctuary SAT in southeast Spain.

"We send a van loaded with stray dogs to Germany nearly every month for re-homing," she told us. "And all we need is the vaccination against rabies certificate. So long as it's issued and stamped by a Spanish vet, the German Customs people accept it quite happily.

"I can't help thinking that the authorities in Britain are going over the top a bit."

Like so many things when you live abroad, there's a lot to be said for just paying someone else to do it for you. Ask your vet, or there are several companies that organise all the paperwork for you for a moderate charge. Many firms will fly your pet to the UK for not much more than the cost of a standard flight.

Further information is always available from the Ministry in London (DEFRA) on 08549 33 55 77, or www.defra.gov.uk, or try Dogs Away, who can organise the whole thing, on 0870 201 2501 or www.dogsaway.co.uk.

Ian Frewer / Expatica / 2004


1 reaction to this article

Alan posted: 2010-11-24 13:56:00

I don't know about the rest of Spain, but in Madrid all dogs have to be microchipped and have rabies injections every year (the vaccination normally lasts 2 years anyway), so rabies here should be very rare.

As for the ticks and worms treatment, that is for things that do not exist in UK, and can cause illness and death in humans, so the UK authorities don't want to risk introducing it. Yeah the 24-48 hours timing sucks though!

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1 reaction to this article

Alan posted: 2010-11-24 13:56:00

I don't know about the rest of Spain, but in Madrid all dogs have to be microchipped and have rabies injections every year (the vaccination normally lasts 2 years anyway), so rabies here should be very rare.

As for the ticks and worms treatment, that is for things that do not exist in UK, and can cause illness and death in humans, so the UK authorities don't want to risk introducing it. Yeah the 24-48 hours timing sucks though!

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