Moving to West Indies – Taking Our Cats with Us

Moving our three cats to Nevis with us caused us the most worry and had the most nit-picky steps of anything we had to do. We were far more anxious about getting them to the island than we were even about selling our house. After all, selling the house was money, important yes, but far less so than our friends’ lives.

Pet Vaccination and Disease Testing

If you decide to move to another country, or want to travel with your pets, it is imperative that you find out the rules first and allow enough time for all the painstaking steps. You should be able to find the requirements from websites of countries you intend to visit and be sure to confirm on the US Department of Agriculture website, https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/pet-travel. (Don’t rely on the USDA site for most current requirements.)

I recommend you check with the country’s head vet to confirm that you have the latest and correct requirements. I found 3 different documents on the St. Kitts & Nevis website that covered pet imports and the differences among them could have derailed our plans. I called and emailed the vet here several times, first to confirm I understood what we needed, then later to follow up and be sure they had gotten the test results and finally to tell her our inbound travel plan.

Talk to your vet and schedule out the tests and visits you need with plenty of lead time. Our vet was terribly busy and typically scheduled non-emergency visits 2-3 weeks out, thus the only way we could get through the 4 vet visits required in 4 months was to schedule ahead.

Countries have different rules so do not take the rules for St. Kitts & Nevis as applying for your plans; I include them to show the complexity and timeline. There are 7 main steps:

1. Make sure your pets’ vaccinations are up to date. Get shots if needed. If you need to get a rabies shot you may need to wait before step 2.
2. Get pet microchipped. Record the chip number; the St. Kitts vet will use this.
3. First blood test is a rabies titre, where the vet draws a significant amount of blood and sends to University of Kansas veterinarian school to test. The lab or your vet should send test results to the St. Kitts & Nevis vet; I sent scanned copies too. If the titre shows the pet is inadequately protected you will need to have him revaccinated.
4. At least a month after step 2 have a second titre drawn and tested. Again wait for the 5-6 weeks for the test results and make sure these are sent to the government vet. Keep a copy too.
5. Have cats tested for FIV and FeLV. You must keep copies of results and send to the St. Kitts & Nevis vet.
6. Your vet sends the titre and FIV and FeLV results to your state’s Department of Agriculture site for a APHIS certification. Send the certification to St. Kitts and Nevis and apply for the pet import permit.
7. Within 3 days of travel you need a final vet check. Get hard copies of all the test results and all vaccination certificates at this time and make sure the St Kitts vet has everything she needs.

The chief veterinarian officer met us at the airport in Basseterre and checked the cats’ paperwork and peeked at them. It was like meeting an old friend since we’d emailed each other dozens of times! Once here we had to keep the cats indoors for 30 days away from other animals and the local vet was to have checked them once a week. St. Kitts and Nevis has no rabies on the islands and wants to keep it that way.

These steps are time-consuming and expensive. The steps that caused us the most trouble were the initial rabies titre and the final APHIS certificate.

St. Kitts and Nevis had changed the rabies tire requirements from prior pet import requirements documents. Earlier they had allowed an alternative, faster and cheaper test that could be done at other testing labs but that was no longer accepted. The import document noted the lead time was about 3 weeks but it was over 5 weeks for us. Be aware and allow plenty of time if you must get similar tests.

The APHIS certification problem was basically a couple mix ups about the fee. The vet at the Michigan State University who does the certification recommended we provide a pre-paid overnight envelope for her to send the results back to us. It was a good idea since with the mix ups it took over 3 weeks from the time our vet sent everything over electronically to when we got the results.

I emphasize that you must make sure you have up to date requirements and that you and your vet understand what you need to do and schedule everything out. We called our vet the end of June to make the first titre appointment and we barely finished with the tests in time to leave the end of October, 4 months later.

Remember that these steps were specific to the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis and may be quite different where you intend to travel. Always double check with the chief veterinarian officer of all destination countries to be sure you know the requirements and allow sufficient time

Travel Arrangements

You may be able to take your pets with you if you fly or you can contract with a pet transportation company. Since we had to meet the vet in Basseterre and had 3 cats we decided to move them ourselves. From what I found online we couldn’t take them on a boat and had to fly. We took American Airlines who has special rules (and fees) for pets; I had to call a special reservation line that checked to be sure we wouldn’t exceed their limits on the number of pets allowed per flight. We had to pay for each cat.

Since we had three cats but only two of us were moving to Nevis we had to find a third person to come along as a cat carrier. The airline would not allow us to purchase a third seat and leave it empty. The cats in their carriers were our carry-ons thus we checked our luggage and of course paid for the third person’s round trip.

We allowed extra time to get through TSA security with the cats. At the advice of our vet I asked to have them work with me in a small room. They had me take the cats one at a time out of their carrier and hold them while they ran the carrier through the X ray machine, then they swabbed my hands and tested the swab. They did not put the cats through the X ray, thankfully. Our cats were already quite scared, all hunkered down, and I wouldn’t have wanted them to go through that too.

Costs

I never added up the total vet bills, APHIS certification fees, overnight mailing fees, testing lab fees, pet import application fee, pet import check up fees, airline pet fees, third person travel costs. It was a hefty amount and I didn’t want to start seeing dollar signs when I see our cats!

Tips

Be sure to have hard copies of all test results and certificates of vaccinations with you or with whomever is escorting your pet. I took hard copies of the cats’ vet check ups for the last year too.

Be sure to allow plenty of time. Read the country’s requirements, add up the time span and allow a few weeks extra for each step. Schedule vet visits ahead of time.

Allow time for TSA security checks.

We had the cats in harnesses and attached the harness to the carrier. I had visions of Billy Bob getting out of the carrier and running through Miami airport dragging his cage behind him.

Communicate, communicate, communicate. Explain what you are doing with your vet, give her copies of the country requirements and go over them together. Talk to the country’s vet officer and email copies of all certificates and test results and confirm they have everything.