Our cats finally arrived safe and sound.  They’re fine and delighted to see us.

Getting them here has been a high-stakes comedy of errors.

We did our research and learned that the UK is only accepting pets who are shipped on British Airways.  This sort of shipping is handled by a third party company, which in Spain is United Air Cargo.

You cannot make advanced reservations to ship pets, which was also true when they were shipped to Spain.  Approximately 10 days before we were due to fly to London, we called United Air Cargo.  Terran talked to a nice lady who said they preferred to work out the details in email.  We sent an email query and scans of all our documentation to two email addresses: hers and the guy we later learned was actually in charge of shipping pets.

Two days before we planned to fly, we still didn’t have a confirmation from United Air Cargo that everything was good to go.  Terran called again.  He got the same nice lady who seemed shocked to hear from us.  She immediately forwarded us to the OTHER guy on the email list, Daniel.

Daniel hadn’t actually read any of our documents.  He opened them up and read them while we were on the phone.  And he told us that we couldn’t get admission to the UK with the documents we had.  We had all the necessary tests, but they were on American AND Spanish documentation.  The UK would only accept all the information in the Spanish EU pet passport, and that meant that some muckity muck someplace had to look at the American docco for the rabies blood tests, transfer the information into the passports, and give them an official stamp.

It was now too late to do this because of the New Year’s holiday.

So, since we didn’t have much choice, we ended up boarding the cats with an English-speaking vet on Daniel’s recommendation.  Her name was Elizabeth Nave, and she was a part of IPATA: an International Trade Association of animal handlers, pet moving providers, kennel operators, veterinarians and others.  These guys specialize in international animal relocation.  And I didn’t find them on any web search or any question to any vet in the US.  So, hopefully we can help a little bit with web presence — if you’re looking to bring pets with you for long-term international travel or permanent relocation, work with IPATA.  It would have been awfully nice if we’d learned about them earlier, and it’s about the only thing good that came out of working with Daniel.

We flew out on December 31st.  We left the cats with Dr. Nave with the plan to get the stamps in the passports and ship them on the 2nd.  However, Spain celebrates the 12 days of Christmas, ending with Dia de Reyes on January 6, and it turned out that the muckity muck we needed was on vacation the whole time.  So we moved out to the 7th.  Woo, what a long time for the cats to be stuck in Spain.  And, of course, it took too long to get the stamp on the 7th, so we had to wait until the 8th

On the 8th, we made a reservation with a cab service to go pick them up.  THEN we got the notification that some official hadn’t cleared them in time to make their flight.  What’s the deal?  There are only 4 bits of information, and now they’re all consolidated in one document with all the stamps.  What’s to hesitate about?

Friday the 9th, the MADRID AIRPORT WAS SNOWED IN.  No, really.  It was some kind of record-breaking snowstorm.  And no service on weekends, so we were pushed to Monday the 12.

Which brings us to today.  Unlike the last story, there’s no dramatic ordeal to relate about picking them up at the airport.  The receiving end totally had their act together.  The cats were checked out and verified against their microchip numbers by the time we arrived, so literally we just signed a form, picked up their crates, and left.  The only hitch was that the cab driver was devoted to his GPS, which directed him into a restricted area, and he didn’t want to believe us when we told him to go back and just follow the road signs to get to cargo.  Ah, technology.

And all’s well that ends well.

BTW: More information on Dr. Nave, if you ever happen to be traveling to or from Spain with pets:

A.A.H. Veterinary Services
C/Pleyades 1
28023 Madrid, Spain
Tel: 34 91 357 4496
Fax: 34 91 307 1327
Mobile: 34 608 70 20 56
Skype:AAHVETLIZ
Veterinary Services-House calls
Boarding-Grooming
Worldwide Animal Transportation
www.aahvet.com