Good Pet Moving Company

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  1. #21

    barryraymond

    I'm thinking of buying a Cocker Spniel pup, any ideas about where to look?

    Thanks Barry.


  2. #22
    pinkykarenn saun-fam/ Nelson blue:
    -wut kinda crate did u guys use for the dog?
    -how long in advance i need to start doing all the paperwork?
    Thanks so much!!
    In terms of the crate, call your airline ASAP to check what their requirements are. I was surprised to find out that they have specific requirements according to your dog's dimensions and will go through these with you (e.g. for Continental, the height of the crate must be 3 inches higher than the dog's head when standing, crate needs to be an 'international travel approved crate', need to have 2 empty bowls, no food or water will be given during the flight and so on) I ended up buying a premium crate online as could not find one in the stores but it was well worth the money spent!

    In terms of paperwork, the airline needed the paperwork to be validated by the USDA within 10 days of travel (while the HK authorities will accept 15 days) so based on that I worked out a time frame taking into account the time for HK permit application/processing/arrival, then meeting with the vet for their paperwork, then going to USDA for approval, then sending all of the approved paperwork to the HK authorities for their pre-screening program (highly recommend!) plus added a few days extra in case any unforeseen problems came up (which really helped in the end!) The whole process took us about a month (with constant follow ups)

    With that aside, something that you might want to start doing ASAP is to get your dog accustomed to their travel crate (e.g. use to being crated by itself for an extended period of time) if they are not use to being crated. Our dog was a 'free ranger' at home, so it took a bit of effort to get her use to being crated, but it worked out in the end (to the extent that we had to order her out of the crate several times while she was being checked in at cargo as she loved hanging out in it so much!)

    Hope this helps!

  3. #23

    so u mean getting the hk permit takes about 2 months? and how long it takes to process the paperwork that need to process in USA?

    Thank you!!


  4. #24

    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    281

    Import permit

    From the moment of application, 5 business days.

    What I suggest is getting a friend to apply and pick up the permit for you (you also need to pay HKD 400+, which is not a lot but annoying when you have to do a wire transfer or an overseas cheque) and DHL or Fedex the permit to you.


  5. #25

    This has been a very helpful thread. My wife is a vet and we are importing our pets from the US. We got the import permit from the hk govt, but it included all three animals on one permit. If the airlines only allow two pets at once, any idea how we can keep the originals and the pets together?

    Also, my wife was not aware of the USDA requirement. Can anyone provide some more details on that part? Do you have to go to your State's USDA office?

    Also, if we have to get the USDA stamp 10 days before the pets leave for the airline, then how do we have enough time to fax the forms to the hk govt to pre-screen the forms?

    Thanks so much! Obviously we're stressing over this...


  6. #26

    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    281

    tight timeline

    I'm afraid I can only advise on the permit and the pre-screening process as I moved my cat over from Europe, not the US.
    I'm sure the others can help you on the USDA question.

    I would simply suggest making copies of the permit - in fact, my pet transport company was so useless that they "forgot" to apply for a permit on my behalf. Very long story, but in the end, I came over to HK, applied for the permit, scanned a copy to the airline which then picked up the cat, the passport and records and shipped him over. I picked up the cat in HK with the original permit. You might want to check with your airline, but the permit only really comes into play when you are declaring your animals to the customs here.

    Once I had all the paperwork, I scanned a copy and sent it to the AFCD. I sent it at 10am and they replied 2 hours later.

    Best of luck!


  7. #27

    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    North Point
    Posts
    203
    Quote Originally Posted by prophet40:
    This has been a very helpful thread. My wife is a vet and we are importing our pets from the US. We got the import permit from the hk govt, but it included all three animals on one permit. If the airlines only allow two pets at once, any idea how we can keep the originals and the pets together?

    Also, my wife was not aware of the USDA requirement. Can anyone provide some more details on that part? Do you have to go to your State's USDA office?

    Also, if we have to get the USDA stamp 10 days before the pets leave for the airline, then how do we have enough time to fax the forms to the hk govt to pre-screen the forms?

    Thanks so much! Obviously we're stressing over this...

    Not sure how the airlines will handle the 3 animals at once. I think sometimes they allow more than one in a crate, or maybe there are more than 2 spots on the flight. You'll just have to call the airlines and ask. Be sure to attach the originals to 1 of the crates, with copies on all the other crates. The animals should all go on one waybill, so the airline will be looking for 3 animals. (the airline lost our originals since we had them in a separate envelope, not attached to one of the crates (2 cats)). The vet forms have to be signed by a vet that has a particular kind of certification- my vet said she just attended a day's worth of lectures, and she was done, but I'm not sure what precisely is involved. I don't think you have to have the USDA stamp 10 days out (we got ours on a Friday, and cats traveled on the next Tues), it just can't be several weeks old. There are specifics on the HK paperwork about this. Yes, you do have to go to the USDA office, unless there is a government vet official near you. Check the website, but you'll likely have to call your state office to get specific info. USDA - APHIS
    We were pretty sure we had all the forms right, and were crazy busy, so only faxed the documents to the HK folks for prescreen 2 days prior, they responded via email that all was okay the next day. More for peace of mind than anything, although you do have to let them know the animal is coming ahead of time.
    Good luck.

  8. #28
    This has been a very helpful thread. My wife is a vet and we are importing our pets from the US. We got the import permit from the hk govt, but it included all three animals on one permit. If the airlines only allow two pets at once, any idea how we can keep the originals and the pets together?

    Also, my wife was not aware of the USDA requirement. Can anyone provide some more details on that part? Do you have to go to your State's USDA office?

    Also, if we have to get the USDA stamp 10 days before the pets leave for the airline, then how do we have enough time to fax the forms to the hk govt to pre-screen the forms?

    Thanks so much! Obviously we're stressing over this...
    As Saun-fam said, talk to your airline about transporting 3 dogs together. Continental told us only 2 crates would be accepted per flight, but I am pretty sure I saw something saying they would allow 2 dogs in the 1 crate if both dogs were of a certain size etc. Not sure what airline you are using but CO was great as they have a whole division devoted to pet travel (including the fact that animals going via cargo get transported to the plane in an air cond. van so they are not left sitting on the tarmac getting stressed/hot!) - go to their website and find the tab for traveling with live animals, it contains a lot of info for what to expect, plus when you call their hotline, their rep is very well informed and will be able to answer any queries you may have)

    And even though the phone rep will tell you 'no food or water' allowed in the crate, the cargo check in rep was kind enough to let us put a small amount of water and snacks (not food) in our dog's crate for the trip - although she did not touch any of it during the trip!

    Also you need to go to the USDA to get the health certificate and vet supplied papers certified if your vet/wife is not a 'USDA vet'. I basically called my State's USDA office (can not be a different State to the one your vet is in) to schedule a time with the import/export unit to bring the vet supplied/completed papers in.

    I chose this method over their courier service as it would be faster (or so it seemed at that point! then we had the fiasco with the discovery that my vet had filled things out incorrectly...) - 1/2 hour to get approval.

    This way we could get the papers supplied/completed (we had a vet's appointment in the morning), then approved (we drove to the local USDA after the vet's appointment) and the plan was to forward that set to HK's pre-screening service in the evening all on the same day.

    While it sounds like a lot of work, it really helped that the HK authorities were so quick in getting back to us (we faxed the papers over and called them 1 hour later, and got a verbal confirmation everything was fine)

    Hope this helps.