Moving a Diabetic Cat to Oz

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Christine & KR

Christine & KR

Member Since 2012
Hello, everyone. This questions is specifically for all our Australian friends:

DH is looking at a job offer in Oz. I am now investigating feline immigration rules. What I've found so far is not encouraging: one- to six-month quarantine (depending on when KR had her rabies test), cat must arrive in cargo (not in the aircraft cabin), and absolutely no mention of accommodations made in the immigration/importation process for a less-than-perfectly-healthy animal.

I foresee a phone call to AQIS to try and sort this out, but in the meantime can anyone offer any advice? If you know who, specifically, I should talk to at AQIS that would be incredibly helpful.

Leaving Kitty Rabbit behind is not an option (DH knows this). She's been with me 17 of her 19 years.

Thank you for your help,

Christine
 
I found a lot of information on this website Pet Travel Information. There are a lot of helpful links you can click on and they have a bunch of email addresses to contact them with questions Contact Information which I would encourage you to do, and let them know about Kitty Rabbit's special needs, and that leaving her behind is not an option.
Best Of Luck to you.

You can also try to send a PM to Serryn, Vyktors Mum who is very knowledgable and helpful on this board, and lives in Australia.
 
I did a search for flights from Los Angeles to Sydney and not all appear to be operated by Qantas, so maybe another airline will allow an in cabin cat on their plane. I would check the different airlines out. I used May 1st as you don't want to fly when it's too cold or too warm I wouldn't think. flights from LAX to SYD May 1st would be mid autumn there, I think.
 
Dyana,

Unfortunately the airline used doesn't make a difference. Everything I've read from Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) is very specific that the imported animal MUST travel as cargo. It's not the airline's rules that are giving me fits right now, it's Australia's!

Thank you for identifying a member in Australia. I'll give it at least 24 hours (so our Australian counterparts are actually awake to read the board), then PM Serryn to see what, if anything, she can tell me.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Christine
 
Okay, but I would send a PM to Serryn now, as I think she is in Melbourne, and it's 6:00am there now, so she can read it maybe respond back to you sometime this afternoon or evening. I would also email the contact people from the website I linked to you. If she has to be quarantined, then you will want to find a quarantine place that can monitor her 24/7, otherwise, I guess it's going to be a long commute for DH.
 
Thanks for the laugh, Dyana. I'm with you on the long commute for DH, but I don't think he's too keen on the thought!!

I'll PM Serryn,

Christine
 
I'm in Melbourne - I've not spoken to Serryn lately. She doesn't look at her home emails too regularly (or she didn't used to). I know australian quarantine is formidable. You won't have much luck getting by their rules. There is a long process of quarantine and they are unshakable. I wouldn't be able to put a kitty thru it - unless the kitty was young and heathy.

I think the quarantine people would charge a small fortune to inject and blood test regularly - and giving correct diet would be another issue. My dearly departed kitty was looked after by feline specialists for a month in March and no one looks after a FD kitty the way an informed owner does.

Maybe you need to consider other aspects of moving to Australia? Very high housing costs here - house/apartment in Sydney is very expensive. Taxes are high on high income earners. Great life in OZ but there is much to be weighed up when you will have a great deal of angst moving your kitty over here.

I note the age of your kitty. OMG she's too old to put her thru a move to Australia.

wish you well with your decision making. If you want me to call anyone on your behalf - give me the Aussie numbers and I'll call and find out the deal for you.

Kind regards
Marilyn

kind regards
Marilyn
 
fwiw, we were going to move there back in 2000 as my fiance's family lives there. as a matter of fact my fiance and 90% of our stuff did move there. he and it were there for 5 months and he changed his mind and came back. as he says, it's a great place to visit.

i agreed to go as long as i got to take my cats with me and i will be honest, the idea of them being in someone else's hands for a month scared me to death. i stayed behind here for the 5 months to minimize the length of time they would have to stay in quarantine, 30 days being the minimum. i figured that would lessen the chances of losing any of them and would drop quarantine costs down from about $10K to $2-$3 if i remember correctly. along with the vaccination/quarantine requirements, they also required that the cats all be microchipped and there were certain blood tests that had to be done to satisfy australia, 1 of which wasn't even done here in southern california. i had to pay to have the cats' blood shipped in dry ice to some place in missouri i think it was to have this one blood test done they required. fwiw, that was 12 years ago so some of this might have changed. ( i might have some of this paperwork still in my files)

also, they would not feed wet food in quarantine, only dry so i had to get all my cats used to eating dry so they wouldn't go on a hunger strike once there.

fortunately for me and my cats, 1 week before i was to buy the cats' tickets, fiance changed his mind and shipped himself and our belongings back to the States. :-)
 
I like how they bug spray the cabin of the planes when we land in from overseas. I never use that stuff in my house. Moving countries is difficult for loads of people - a visit is different to living. WE moved to HK in 1985 and what a shock that was. Eventually I grew to love it there - and then found it difficult to return to OZ. It's what you get used to and many people who come here are looking for a better life. So if you are happy where you are it's much harder to make such a big change in your life.

We have a lot of unique animals to protect. We don't have rabies in this country and we've lost too many of our unique species to the short sightedness and stupidity of man. I am not sure how horses get to come and go for horse racing with only a few days in quarantine - and they fly them around the world. Just so people can bet on them - which is more important than having our pets cared for apparently. :cry:
 
Thank you, everyone, for your help. My original impression after reading AQIS' rules was, "No way am I putting my cat through that!" You've all pretty much convinced me it was the right reaction from the beginning. I'll still try to convince the powers-that-be that a well-behaved 19-year-old house cat isn't a threat, but I'm not holding out much hope I can talk sense into a bureaucracy.

Christine
 
Just a bit of (possibly pointless) lateral thinking here - is the cargo hold only rule just for animals from certain countries? Would it be possible to circumvent that restriction by traveling via another country with less strict import/ quarantine regulations, and then going to oz?

As I said, just a thought, and the customs and excise guys have probably preempted this, but it may be worth exploration.

H
 
Is the quarantine different if you come in from New Zealand, Indonesia, or Papua New Guinea? These appear to be the closest countries.
 
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