Traveling with your pet can be great! It can also be very frustrating and costly. They airlines have restrictions for routine pet travel, emotional support animals and service pets. In addition each country has its own regulations for pet import and export. It can be very tricky to navigate through the hoops that you have to jump through to bring fluffy.

As a veterinarian, I have a lot of experience with pet travel. As an owner, I have traveled frequently with my heart dog (Lilly) within and out of the country. Here is my advise for you

#1 call/email the airline to inform them you will be traveling with a pet. You will have to pay additional charges for in-cabin/out-of-cabin pets and ESA dogs. Emotional support animals are charged for with recent regulation changes. Service pets do fly for free with most airlines. Make sure you have the correct forms. These do change from time to time so always verify requirements before travel.

Service Animal Form is available through the Department of Transportation website.

Make sure you pet is up to date on vaccinations and preventative care (including heartworm, flea and tick prevention). Keep a record of your pets vaccine records on hand. You vet will need this information to correctly fill out health certificate and travel documents for your pet.

When in doubt about regulations, please check the USDA Pet Travel Website.

Travel around the United States

To travel from state to state, you will need a health certificate. This is required by the United State Department of Agriculture for pet travel. Many of the airlines I have traveled with have not asked for this for state-to-state travel, but is a requirement. You will also need necessary forms for service/ESA animals to present the airline at check in.

Make sure you contact your veterinarian in advance to schedule an examination for a health certificate. Not all veterinarian can write health certificates so make sure your veterinarian able to perform this service. General health certificates are valid for a 30 day time period, so getting them in advance can avoid last minute issues.

Traveling between states is much less complicated, minus one state… Hawaii. As much as you want your pet to come along to the beaches, it may not be worth the headache. Hawaii requires Rabies quarentines and/or FAVN Testing. The Fluorescent Antibody Virus Neutralization (FAVN) test measures your pets immune response to the rabies vaccine. It is a way to determine adequate level of rabies antibodies following vaccination. There is also a quarantine that is required for pets. You can pay more to have you pets quarantine time shortened but it is very expensive to do for short trips. Make sure you visit the Pet Travel website to see current Hawaii regulations. I would also recommend scheduling a consultation appointment to make sure your pet is current of vaccines ahead of time. You will want to make sure the vaccine dates align with the timeline for your travel dates.

Traveling Out of Country

Please see your veterinarian to have a consultation appointment to discuss the location you plan to travel. Your veterinarian will want to put together a timeline of what vaccines are needed and services are needed. This can take a lot of time so be patient with your doctor. Give your vet a heads up that you are coming in for an international health certificate. Some countries are extremely difficult to import your pet. The timeline will have to be follow to the exact requirements of the country. Each country has its latest import requirements listed on the Pet Travel Website.