Taking Cats to Brazil - Part 1

It’s Never Easy

My wife and I had decided that on our next trip to Brazil, we’d take our cats with us and leave them with my mother in law for the time being.  As was to be expected, it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t cheap; in fact everyone involved seemed to want a piece of the action.

When I booked the trip, I was in the UK on business, so after lengthy planning discussions over the phone at odd times of day, we settled on the American Airlines option; San Francisco to Curitiba via Miami with the cats in the hold.  Most planes have a pressurised compartment in the hold for transporting animals and this was the only option for getting to Brazil with American Airlines (United would allow cats in the cabin, but they couldn’t guarantee the rules for another airline to get from São Paulo to Curitiba.)  Sheila researched the requirements for taking cats into Brazil while I researched the requirements for taking the cats on the plane.

The travel advice varies according to the country you are travelling to as well as the country you are traveling from – always check for the most recent requirements, as they may change.  When travelling from the USA, the best place to get travel advice is the USDA (US Department of Agriculture.)  They advised us of the requirements for taking cats to Brazil:

• Rabies vaccination (the USDA recommends at least 30 days before departure, but this is not officially stated by Brazil)
• Treatment for external and internal parasites within 15 days of departure.  The USDA recommends you have the treatment done when you take the cats for the health certificate examination
• Health certificate examination (recommended within 10 days of departure)
• USDA endorsement

We made our appointment with the vet for 9 days before departure – do this as early as possible before the flight in case of problems or delays – with an appointment at the USDA in San Francisco the following day.

The USDA sent us a pdf copy of the health certificate for us to print out and take to the vet.  For some bizarre reason (in 2015, in the heart of Silicon Valley…) the vets did not have e-mail, so we could not send it directly to them.  If taking two or more animals and they will be on the same flights, you only need one certificate to cover them, although our vet kindly charged the $84 dollar certificate completion fee (I’m in the wrong job) twice, one per animal.  I suppose it takes a lot of extra effort and ink to write a letter 2 in place of a 1.  One of the cats, Kiwi, had a slightly high temperature during the exam, so we had to return with him the next day when the practise opened.  Fortunately, his temperature had dropped by then suggesting that it was stress, as opposed to fever, causing the elevated temperature.  All other results were good, so Sheila made her way to the USDA with the completed certificate.

I say completed, but that’s not quite true.  At the USDA, the official pointed out that the vet hadn’t completed the consignor and consignee fields.  Sheila asked if she was supposed to fill them in and told no.  The official was quite angry explaining that by not filling out those fields, the vet was signing an official document that would allow anyone to take the animals anywhere.  She completed the form, stamped it, then our two cats – Kiwi and Pretzel – were officially on their way to Brazil!

The requirements for the carrier or kennel that would be allowed on the plane are very strict and they vary depending on the airline.  Basically, they need to be made of a sturdy material, not collapsible, have a metal door that can be doubly secured with cable ties and can be bolted together.  I strongly recommend anyone travelling with animals to check with the airline before buying a carrier.  We also bought a couple of pet travelling kits, which included “live animal” stickers for the sides of the carrier, an information sticker, a food and water dish that could snap onto the door of the carrier and cable ties for the door (although the airlines provide these.)  We also put in an absorbent pad (in case of accidents), a cushion, a blanket and a small tray with cat litter.  In the event, the cats didn’t use the litter tray and actually proceeded to sit in, spilling half the contents.  It’s probably better to have it though.  In preparation for travel, we printed photos of the cats to stick to the box in case they escaped, taped copies of the paperwork (health certificates, vaccination certificates etc) to the box and attached a bag of dry cat food, as per the requirements of the airline.

We hired a large car to get everything to the airport, loaded up and set off.

To be continued...

Kiwi

Pretzel