Pet Travel Question: Importing Pets to the United States
Name: Jerry
From: Shanghai, Jiangsu Province, China
To: San Francisco, California, USA
Pets: Our dog, Jake, is a friendly 4-5 year old Collie, 30 or 40 lbs. Our cat, Mimi is a yellow Tiger colored cat maybe 5-6 lbs. Both of our pets are quite healthy.
From: Shanghai, Jiangsu Province, China
To: San Francisco, California, USA
Pets: Our dog, Jake, is a friendly 4-5 year old Collie, 30 or 40 lbs. Our cat, Mimi is a yellow Tiger colored cat maybe 5-6 lbs. Both of our pets are quite healthy.
We will be moving them to our home, but first they will be arriving at the San Francisco International Airport, probably in April. We want them to be safe & be with us when we deplane. How should we best prepare them... AND ourselves??? Nervous & quite concerned about them! (Concerned about the safety of our pets that we love.) How long before we begin traveling to the airport & giving them to the care of the airlines should they no longer eat or drink water & food? Please advise.
Thank you,
Jerry
Hello,
It's certainly normal to feel nervous about an international pet move -- hopefully we can be of assistance! First, in case you need more info, here are the pet import requirements for the United States. We also invite you to explore our blog to find out more about the process of picking out the correct travel crate, preparing the correct documents, etc. As far as preparing your pets, we advise plenty of exercise before the flight and recommend feeding them at least 3-4 hours before departure. Finally it's very important to choose a pet-friendly airline with established pet policies (we have some info on our blog about this topic as well).
Please contact us if you have more questions or if you'd like a free quote, and good luck with everything!