Bringing your pet to Peru

After I decided to bring Emmaline with me to Peru, I began the tedious process of trying to figure out exactly how to bring her with me. I was coming from the United States and most likely the regulations vary a little by country, but I imagine that most of the rules are similar.

1. Check with your airline before purchasing a ticket. Some airlines do not travel with animals to South America, or they only do so certain times of the year. They are various rules related to animal type, whether they are traveling in cabin or in cargo, origin and destination and time of year. So check with the airline first.

2. Also, you need to make a reservation for all animals, especially in cabin travelers. Most airlines only allow up to five per flight.

3. Contact your vet and let them know you will be needing an International Health Certificate. For Emmaline, we updated all of her vaccines the week before we left. She was vaccinated for rabies and FVRCP. Peru requires a recent rabies vaccine, if I remember it correctly it was within ten days or your departure.

4. She was also given a microchip pet ID, we decided to go with Home Again.

5. At this vet visit, your vet will fill in the required information regarding vaccines, microchip and general health. Then you must take the completed IHC to the local USDA office where it is authorized by the State Veterinarian.

6. Once arriving in Lima, we had to stop by the SENASA (The Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture) office before going through Customs. Here I presented her IHC and paid a S./65 fee. After they looked her over, we were good to go!

It was a fairly straight forward process once I discovered all the regulations. The hardest part was finding reliable and recent information about bringing a pet into Peru. Once I was beyond that, it was very easy and I'm glad she's here with me.

This list is just a start, please check with your vet to see if any changes have been made. Peru is notorious for constantly changing rules.

What was your experience with taking a pet to another country?