How to Get Pet Passport

To help with allowing pets in to the United Kingdom & also allowing them to travel around the European Union without having to go in to quarantine the government requires they have a pet passport. The passport is issued by a government-authorised vet known as a local Veterinary Inspector (LVI) if your local veterinary surgical procedure does not have a registered LVI working with them they ought to be able to give you the contact details for in your area.

At the time of writing this article DEFRA the government department responsible for the overseeing of pet passports does not charge a fee for the passport, although you ought to check this yourself as with all information it is subject to modify with out prior warning.

One time you have the pet passport you can leave the United Kingdom for any European Union country but you must wait for 6 months after the blood sample that showed clear was taken before you can bring your pet back in to the United Kingdom. This does not mean that you need to keep your pet abroad for 6 months it means that you ought to plan ahead, in case you know that you plan to go to Germany until the beginning of September you ought to have had the blood check cleared by the earlier February, it is a case of planning ahead.

To get the passport your pet must have a microchip fitted, this is lodged under the skin & allows vets & government officials to scan the animal to check that it is the same documented on the pet passport.
After the microchip has been fitted your pet must be vaccinated against rabies. There is no exemption to this requirement, even if your pet has a current rabies vaccination.
The final part of the procedure is a blood test; the check is to check that the vaccine has given your pet the correct level of protection against rabies.

Your vets ought to be able to help with all of the points outlined above, but I hope that this has given you a clearer guide to what you need to do, the passport is valid for years for entry back in to the United Kingdom from the date of the vaccination although some other countries only give a year, so it is better to get it done sooner than later, to check for the latest details the DEFRA net site is http://www.defra.gov.uk & there contact details can be found there.