Exporting Pets out of Taiwan

I’m in the process of sorting out my dog’s paper work so that the 6 months can tick by. I had a really hard time to find a vet willing to help me in Ilan, after 4 failed attempts I finally found one in Loudong.

I’m just a bit worried that they are not doing it completly right. I printed off all the Defra stuff, but they seem to think the UKs not that strict and they can do stuff in any order.

so far they took his blood, THEN gave him the rabies shot. It should be fine, because he had a rabies shot in April, when I first got him. But he was chipped in September. The vet says he’ll fill in the forms to say he did it the other way round.

The other problem is that he has two chips, a Taiwanese ( which they can’t read in UK) and an ISO standard on (they can’t read in Taiwan). I gave them the UK ditgits to fill the forms in. This must be the one to use?? :help:

Before they send the blood to an EU approved lab they are sending a certificate to the quarentine people in Su-ao. I’m not sure why. Does the certificate have to be a special standard one. I’ve had a look on the internet and I can’t find a copy to down load to take to the guy.

If anyone has taken a dog to the UK your advice and reassurance that it’s all going ok would be great.

[quote=“random”]I’m in the process of sorting out my dog’s paper work so that the 6 months can tick by. I had a really hard time to find a vet willing to help me in Yilan, after 4 failed attempts I finally found one in Loudong.

I’m just a bit worried that they are not doing it completly right. I printed off all the Defra stuff, but they seem to think the UKs not that strict and they can do stuff in any order.

so far they took his blood, THEN gave him the rabies shot. It should be fine, because he had a rabies shot in April, when I first got him. But he was chipped in September. The vet says he’ll fill in the forms to say he did it the other way round.

The other problem is that he has two chips, a Taiwanese ( which they can’t read in UK) and an ISO standard on (they can’t read in Taiwan). I gave them the UK ditgits to fill the forms in. This must be the one to use?? :help:

Before they send the blood to an EU approved lab they are sending a certificate to the quarentine people in Su-ao. I’m not sure why. Does the certificate have to be a special standard one. I’ve had a look on the internet and I can’t find a copy to down load to take to the guy.

If anyone has taken a dog to the UK your advice and reassurance that it’s all going ok would be great.[/quote]

Hi, Random.

Your vet does not know what he’s doing.

The UK is VERY strict; do not take anything for granted. Is he authorized by the government to provide a health certificate? If he isn’t, then you’re wasting your time, as the dog won’t even get an export permit.

You got the chip first, which is good, but why the hell are they taking blood before the rabies shot? The first rabies vaccination won’t count, as it was before the chip was put in, and the second shot needs to be shown to be around three weeks prior to the blood sample being drawn, as it takes a few weeks to build up antibodies; the UK customs know what it’s like in Taiwan, and if they spot that the rabies antibody test was done on blood that was taken too close to the rabies shot, they will know that the antibodies are not present from that shot and must be from a previous one given before the chip was put in, which would tell them that this there has been foul play.

You don’t want to mess around with UK customs. Wait for a few weeks, then get blood taken again and send it of to an EU recognized lab. The cha bu duo approach works in Taiwan, not the UK. Don’t let your vet tell you what should be OK; you tell him what must be done.

Re. the second problem, if you bought the second chip here, they can read it here, and therefore you’ll get the export permit. The UK will read the same chip, so all is OK. Take both passports to be on the safe side.

No certificate needs to go to the quarantine place until you have your plane tickets out, as the certificate is used to get the export permit. The blood needs to go to the lab now; the export permit, in six months’ time.

Maybe it’s different where you are, but I doubt it.

You should be fine if you insist on doing everything exactly as DEFRA suggests.

Good luck!

Sean

Hey, thanks for the info I didn’t realise it had to be three weeks after the shot. I am going to change vets. Do you know any in Taipei? I think I need one that has sucessfully sent a dog to England before.

The other thing is I didn’t buy the chip here, I bought it when I went home so the dog is registered by ISO standard in the UK and with the Taiwanese one here. The vets scanner here couldn’t pick up the UK chip. Is this going to be a problem?

On a happier note, the Ilan stray dog group is going to have a meeting after Chinese New Year. There were loads of people intrested that never use this forum. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the info.

Does anyone know the hours of business of the Bureau of Commodity Inspection?? We may have a flight for our dog to go to Canada on Tuesday, so we’d have to get everything done this weekend!

Thanks!!

AND…does the person flying have to go to the Bureau in Taipei, or can we just go with the dogs and bring her ticket??

You need her ticket and passport.

Not sure of opening hours - sorry.

We had an emergency and couldn’t make it to the bureau, but they let us get the export permit at the airport - get there early if you want to try that avenue. You need the dog’s vaccination record, the passenger’s passport and tickets, and a health certificate from your vet.

Hope that helps - looking forward to seeing pics of the dog in her new home!

Sean

[quote]M & M wrote:
My girlfriend and I have finally found a home for our retriever mix stray, named Naicha, in Canada. What we need to find now is someone that is flying to Toronto, Ontario anytime after January 18th that would be willing to take Naicha along for the ride. We got her 8 in 1 plus rabies shot on the 18th of December and must therefore wait 1 month before she can leave.
We would also be able to drive you to the CKS Airport and would be with you while going through any necessary red tape before check in. If you are interested please PM me.
Thanks!!
Mehmet
[/quote]

Well, Hendrix and Janis finally found someone to bring Naicha as luggage to Canada! She flew on the 17th - I actually started a post that night, but then our piece of shit computer zapped me after 3 paragraphs…grrrr :fume: I didn’t have the gumption to start over.

We got her export permit at the airport instead of the bureau in Taipei, as we didnt’ have time earlier. Things were a bit hairy at the airport, to say the least. We were told where to go (a different building) for the export permit, but when we got there, no one could direct us to a door, there were no signs in English and no one spoke english who could help out. It was basically in one of the (dozens) of cargo bays, but which one, …who knew?! Some security guards and 2 ladies from a different airline tried to help, but didn’t get any answers for us. With about just over an hour left before our friend’s flight, we gave us, she hadn’t checked in yet. Hendrix gave it one more try at terminal two again, asking the office WHERE exactly we were supposed to go - and who could help us there. Luckily (a twist of fate I think), there was a guy from the office where we needed to go. He actually got in our car and took us back to the cargo bay where we had previously been. He then took us into a cargo bay, up a rusted flight of stairs to a messy and down trodden floor of offices, garbage and paper stewn about. Never would we have found this place - Unbelievable.

Initially the guy in terminal two had questioned (at 7:30 am) as to whether or not there was enough time to even get the paperwork done. This guy in the cargo office had the paperwork filled out in less than ten minutes, and sent us on our way back to Term 2, so we could check in. We had enough time to do that, pay the extra baggage fee of about 3400NT, and say bye :cry: to Naicha.

We are so happy for Naicha and have already heard from her new family in Canada. There’s snow there, so I’m sure Naicha had some interesting surprises. They asure us she’s doing well, and already being her loveable self. They promise to send pictures asap, and I’ll post them when they do. We were really bummed when we thought Naicha wasn’t going to make it on the plane on Tuesday. With a stroke of luck she did, and although we feel good about it, we miss her alot and are still wondering how we managed to give up such an incredible, perfect dog. I figure she’s just too special to keep to ourselves. Her new home has no kids, 40-something owners who live in Port Perry, so she’s lakeside in a cottage country type environment. Her new owners plan to open a bed and breakfast, and currently are able to bring Naicha to the office with them! How much better can that get?

Mixed emotions for us, but a great outcome for Naicha - who now hopefully has the best life that she certainly deserves.

on the same note…
having done all that, it will be UNBELIEVABLY easier next time around. We have plans to go to back to Canada (this isn’t in stone yet, keep in mind), maybe April or May. If so, we would absolutely be willing to bring any animals we could as excess luggage if they have potential homes in Canada.

EVA has turned into a rip-off for taking pets out. We have 2 cats to take and EVA will charge around 8000NT/cat versus 3000/cat on China air.

[quote=“goinabroad”]Well, after nearly four years, it’s almost time to take my American cats back home. I am in Taichung, and from the earlier posts I guess there is a Bureau of Commodity Inspection and Quarantine in Taichung, but I’m not quite sure what or where it is.

When we came into Taiwan, we took our cats to a quarantine prison/facility at a university near the train station (the name is escaping me currently). Is that where I should go? Also, there is mention of an approved list of vets for getting their paperwork together, but I haven’t actually seen a link to the list. Are there any vets in Taichung? There must be!

I had been planning on going home on EVA since it’s direct to Seattle, but their fee seems to be higher than the US carriers. Does anyone have any idea what the pet fee on China Air is? I sent them an email and got a long-winded autoresponse that didn’t answer my question, as usual.

Thanks for the help!

Karen[/quote]

The vets tell us that our cats need to be chipped to leave Taiwan even though the USA does not require implanted chips. Is this true?

Yes. The cats need an export permit, and, to get that, they need a chip.

Well, I thought I had this figured out, but I guess I didn’t.

Here’s my situation.
I have two cats, IN TAICHUNG, which we brought with us from the US four years ago. They endured their three weeks of quarantine and adjusted to the weather here nicely. Now it’s time to take them back to Seattle. We want to take them as CARRY ON luggage, so we can’t fly China Air (they don’t allow cats as carry-on). So, it seems our best options are United and EVA.

Now what I’m understanding is that TAIWAN requires that the cats get microchipped and Rabies vaccinations? Is that right? The US doesn’t require either of these things (though the airline might).

I know that they will need a health certificate from a vet no more than 10 days prior to departure.

I also understand that I need to go to the Bureau of Commodity Inspection and Quarantine to get the export documentation ready, no more than 10 days prior to departure.

So, here are my questions:

  1. Do I really have to get my cats microchipped???
  2. I know that only SOME vets are approved by the Bureau. Where can I find a list of these vets IN TAICHUNG?
  3. Does anyone know where the Bureau of Commodity Inspection and Quarantine is IN TAICHUNG??? Or can someone please write it in Chinese so that I can ask someone to look it up for me?

I think those are all my questions for today.

Thanks a lot!
Karen

Some vets tell us that the cats only need the chip(300NT) and dont need to register it with the govt(1000NT). We then called the airport animal quarantine center where they inspect the outgoing animals and they told us that [/b] only dogs need to be chipped and cats dont need it unless our destination country requires it.[b]

So does anybody know whether or not the USA requires it?

[/b]

I am looking at the “Pets and Wildlife Licensing and Health Requirements” brochure that I downloaded from the US Customs website.

From what I can tell, cats require NEITHER rabies shots NOR microchips for entry into the US. They just need to appear healthy. It doesn’t even say that they need a health certificate from a vet, however, I know that the airlines require this at least.

For dogs, it says that thye need to appear healthy, have an english health certificate from a vet, and be vaccinated against rabies–unless the dog has spent the last 6 months in a rabies-free country. It says NOTHING about microchips.

(Note: The rules are different for Hawaii, Guam and for puppiesless than 3 months old.)

It also says that dogs, cats and turtles are free of duty.

So, with this in mind, we have three different groups with three different requirements–The destination country, the airline, and Taiwan.

YIKES!!!

Given that you are getting different reports from different authorities, why not just go with the one that guarantees safe-and-sound export and import of your pet?

If I were you, I would get the cat chipped, give it a rabies shot, and get a health certificate from your vet.

I’ll do the rabies shot and the vet certificate, because the airlines require them, but I’m not interested in putting a useless foreign body in my pet. Once we leave Taiwan, the chip will be a random piece of metal floating around in her body, and even though it is a small procedure, EVERY procedure has a little bit of risk.

I’d prefer to skip it.

Meanwhile, does ANYONE know where the Bureau of Commodity Inspection and Quarantine is IN TAICHUNG? Please? I need to talk to them to find out which vets are “approved” so that I can get the export certificate!

Thanks!
Karen

An ID chip is anything but a useless foreign body. Check out the people trying to find their pets in the Katrina aftermath. My own friend is tearing himself apart that he never put a chip in his pet, who, despite being an ‘indoor’ pet, escaped and has been missing for weeks. He has to search the shelters twice a week because he is the only one who can identify his pet.

An ID chip greatly increases the chances of you being reunited with your pet should you ever become separated, for whatever reason that may be. It is not rare for pets to escape during transit, for instance.

All my pets are chipped, including the cat. I wouldn’t have it any other way, because I witness first hand the devestating and unnecessary result of not doing it.

Even though Taiwan is rabies free, you need your pets to get the rabies shot when taking them to a rabies present country like the USA just for your own pets protection. Also the shot is much cheaper here than in the USA.

I agree on the rabies shot. My cats are purely indoor cats, and have never been outside except on a few rare, supervised occasions, but I will still get them their rabies shots, just in case. There’s a good reason for shots. When we get back to the US I’ll get the updated on their FIP shots, too.

Many moons ago, we got a kitten who died six weeks later of FIP. Fortunately, our other cat had been vaccinated. Since there will probably be other kittens and possibly puppies in our future, I will keep my indoor kitties fully vaccinated. :slight_smile:

I guess my feeling on the microchip runs deeper than just the piece of metal. I would never microchip my kid, so I’m not going to microchip my cat either!

My wife just got off the phone with the govt office in charge of animal documentation and exportation and they confirmed to us that cats do not need to be chipped if destination country doesn’t require it.
This comes from the office that issues the export permit.