Thanks, Cath!
This was a very interesting article. If what it says about the new UK passport is true, what a nightmare.
My experience getting an EU passport on a third-party country dog (US) was very different than what they describe in the artlcle:
"The EU pet passport (which cost between £30 and £60) entitled the pet to travel to and from the EU up to 28 times with no specified time limit, provided the rabies vaccination remained valid."
Brogan's passport was free (cost of vet visit only) and there's no limit of how many times you can travel. I can't remember what I paid in Spain, but it was minimal (free with the cost of a vet visit or less than EUR 30). Not sure where they get that '28 times' number: I know from experience that when you run out of pages, the vet will just add more.
"In France, a pet must be in the country for at least three months before a vet can register it on its domestic identification register.
Once this is done, or at the discretion of the vet, a pet can receive an EU pet passport. "This means that the pet owner must have a residence in France," a French agriculture spokesperson said. "
Not with Brogan: I just walked into a vet in Paris and asked if we could have a passport...and 'voila' we had a passport.
Anyway, just to say that if anyone is bothered by the new UK system (which it sounds valid to be bothered by!), it may not be that hard to get an EU passport for their dog. With the caveat being that my experiences were before Brexit. However, I've found French, Spanish and Italian vets to be very accommodating (i.e. they don't care much for bureaucracy and aren't adverse to ignoring it) in general when it comes to regulations, so worth asking the local vet where ever you go.
www.bbc.co.uk
