Meredith
[ 00:00:06 ] Welcome back, Portugal Junkies! We are so glad to be back this week. Thank you guys so much for all of your support over the last few weeks as we have literally rolled out-I think this is episode 14; it's either 13 or 14, I think it's 14. Um, and we're just thrilled at the response. We're on a roll, yeah! We're excited each week so we've been traveling a lot over the past couple of weeks, so it's been um, a little challenging to do all the things we need to get done, plus enjoy the time away and get done what we want to get done, yeah!
MARK
[ 00:00:47 ] But we did.
Meredith
[ 00:00:48 ] So, we've been in last week, beautiful, beautiful Tavira. Oh, Tavira is dreamy! So, Tavira is very different. from porto yep would you say first of all it's like night and day different porto is you know the second largest city in portugal and it's very vibey like electric and energy and um just cool yeah right tavira is a small little fishing village yeah in the algarve it's a small i mean it's definitely not the smallest i mean it's vibrant enough oh yeah there's a lot there's still a lot going on yeah yes but it is a fishing village historically built up on from that yeah yeah but it's but it's dreamy and we went there on the recommendation of a friend of mine aaron parkinson shout out and um this was when like a few weeks ago so we went
MARK
[ 00:01:48 ] there for the first time and it was dreamy and um we were like hmm what should we do what should we do for the winter so we came out of tavira last week with a new lease yeah so we will be moving so that is our story of the day let me just clarify this it's not just like oh we've got a place in porto and we've just got a lease in tavira for like the summer no no we were only having that clarification just to be sure that yeah we are leaving porto yep and we are moving to the algarve and uh we'll do it at the end of the week so we're going to be moving to the algarve and we'll do it at the end of the week so we're going to be moving to the algarve about
Meredith
[ 00:02:28 ] Why we will definitely do that, yeah it deserves it itself but yeah it's its own it's its own episode for sure, so anyway, we're excited. Check out Tavira if you haven't already, if it hasn't been on your bucket list of places, yeah, on your radar just check it out.
MARK
[ 00:02:45 ] I think it's really good, though, I mean just very quickly, it's nice to have Tavira as a place to go um the you know when you look at Albufeira and some of the other party places on the Algarve, it certainly doesn't get swallowed up in that, it's a lot more chill, sedentary and quiet, and yeah just has its own historical beautiful vibe and it's absolutely, when I say beautiful.
Meredith
[ 00:03:10 ] It is absolutely gorgeous, like thinking whitewashed walls. There's a castle in the middle of the town surrounded by these beautiful gardens, and the river running through it, and Umíla de Tavira which is their beach, stunning.
MARK
[ 00:03:25 ] You take the ferry from the middle of town to get to the beach, it's like €50, which is ridiculous, it's crazy! Let's not give too much away, yeah, save it, save it for a rainy day, we'll save that for another episode, yeah, for sure.
Meredith
[ 00:03:42 ] But today, we are talking about something that you guys have been begging us to talk about, and we have, we have really worked hard to um prepare and kind of study and remind ourselves. Of this process, because we want to make sure that we're very clear um about how to get your pet to Portugal, your furry furry friend, yeah, it's so it's to us, I think. That this was one of the more stress-inducing of definite challenges and hurdles of the whole process, and I, I know that it's because we love our girl so much, we love our our pup Charlotte; she's a little Boston terrier, and she is our family, like she's our kid. And so, I told him in the beginning, I was like, 'The reason why we wavered so much about going to Portugal is how do we go? Yeah, was feeling like that, we could accomplish that, and you feel very overwhelming um because it's Not the easiest process to really consume and like totally get, and so it's been our mission for the past couple of days to think about how we might deliver this to you so that it is more clear than what we got. I feel like we just felt um like we were always double-checking ourselves about the timelines more than double-checking and the requirements to get the dog over here, and then a whole nother issue is actual transporting of the pet-right, like, flight or boat, or private jet? We're gonna speak on all that. But we are going to split it up so today we're just going to talk about the requirements to bring your dog or cat. over to portugal um and what things need to take place on u .
MARK
[ 00:05:33 ] s soil yep and then when you get here that that's what we're going to talk about in this episode and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about part two in another episode which is the actual physical like logistics of yes going from a to b airlines what happens if there's just all kinds of things but the actual transport of yeah so again that that's something that i'm i'm looking forward to to do because that's more sort of in my wheelhouse of logistics as opposed to some of the other stuff that that you i'm just like big picture get it done okay great let's do it so this this this episode specifically as you said it's about um the the nuts and bolts of getting the approval yeah the requirements by country yeah so this is a couple caveats so this is essentially talking to people with their own pet their domestic dog or cat yes it doesn't it doesn't apply to commercial into commercial into any other animal it's literally your dog or cat domestic domestic only yes um also as of today that we're aware of there's no requirement for um for quarantine um in portugal uh other countries sure but we're not talking about that we're very specific about being portugal yeah and that's as of us recording this i don't i haven't heard that anything is changing with that but just so that you know when we record this today there is no quarantine in place we just have certain requirements which is what we're going to talk about if you meet the requirements no quarantine you're good um and the third thing really is making sure that you know everyone's got their own vet everybody has their family vet that they've gone to for 20 years or whatever it is and they've got their own vet and they've got their own vet so you know in order to do this particular piece um your vet has to be a certified usda it has to be Cannot you know, you might love them to bits and they might be absolutely fantastic and I'm sure they are; but if they're not USDA, you need to find another one or somebody that you know, work with or both of them, or whatever. But for the paperwork element, you have to use USDA. I can't stress that enough, so make sure that you're doing your job due diligence um and checking and making sure that you know that they've got the credentials because if they haven't, you're going to come up against a wall; well yeah, they won't be able to do it-it's not going to be a problem, it's going to be a problem.
Meredith
[ 00:08:09 ] I'll also say this: it's not just finding any USDA. Vet it, finding one that has done this, yeah, um, or at least has more than just general knowledge and certification like a checkbox, right?
MARK
[ 00:08:26 ] That's not my certification, but I haven't done one yet, right? That's not going to really be, you know, not being funny, and then it's not necessarily always the right thing, but I would venture to say you want somebody that isn't green in completing this paperwork. I agree, and being on your side each step of the way. If you've got somebody like that, it's, it's not difficult; it's very straightforward in in the in the approach to the paperwork, but at the same time, you've just got to
Meredith
[ 00:08:55 ] trust and rely on what you're being told by them that usda vet yes i think that overall this process is not as complicated as it may feel um but it's the timelines that can be confusing and we're gonna we're gonna really work today to try to make that as clear as possible and we've got some resources that um i've built out there so that you guys can have a visual reference of a timeline as well that was what i was missing and we were missing i feel like when we went through this process and we had our hard time getting our arms around all of this because we maybe we're just visual people um and we we didn't have that and we wanted that And so, we built it for you, and we'll link it, and all that jazz. But we'll come back to that, yeah.
MARK
[ 00:09:42 ] And before you sort of get into the specifics, the three main requirements are microchipped, uh, rabies vaccine, and uh, have a health exam certificate from the USDA vet. If you've got those things, three things, it's a new word, uh, if you've got those things in place, um, then you're good to go, yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:10:06 ] Now it's talking about now it's like when do you do all of these things because there are timelines that apply to each one of those, in order for those, um, three requirements to apply properly for your pet, so let's hop into it, we're going. To talk through all three of these, and then we will get you some key resources. Number one is the USDA website, that's your hub-they're going to tell you exactly what you need, um even further and more detailed than this podcast, so that is your main reference point. And I will also get you guys the the timeline as well, that we made, and tell you where to find that too. So, okay let's talk about it. The first piece of this is a microchip: your pet is required to have a microchip inserted-not only that, but it also has to be a certain type of microchip, it's called an ISO 11784 or 11785 microchip. I believe that most Of these or most of the modern microchips meet that requirement, like we got our girl microchip before we even met. I got her microchip, so this was eight years ago and not knowing about any of this, I was like, 'Oh gosh! Is the microchip that I had her implanted with eight years ago gonna meet what they're asking for?' And they did. Um, so I have a feeling I don't know much about them; I have a feeling that it's just a standard, you know, type of chip that they use currently.
MARK
[ 00:11:40 ] But ISO is International Standards Organization. Thank you, thank you! Going back to my hydraulic days oh God, okay.
Meredith
[ 00:11:49 ] Boring. Okay, so anyway, that's the first thing. Um, this to me is the very first thing I'm going to show you is that something has to be in place and the only reason why I say that is because the second piece of this which is rabies vaccinations has to be done after the microchip has been inserted. So if you've got a pet that never had a microchip and you're getting them microchipped specifically for travel or moving to Portugal, then you need to do the microchip first and then proceed with part two, which we're going to get to in just a second. The microchip number has to be on the rabies certificate, so therefore you got to have the microchip inserted before you do the next step. which is the rabies so here's what they're going to want in terms of documentation it's simply the microchip certificate it will tell you you know describe the name of your pet the breed the weight the the microchip number the company who did it all the tracking all of that stuff so it's the official document certificate of the microchip that you will get after that so that is number one document that's the only thing you need for microchip the other bonus thing that I did was when I saw that they were very clear about the ISO number I actually went to the company that that tracks the microchip for Charlotte and in the FAQs It actually said this is an ISO blank blah blah blank, and it matched the numbers that are part of the requirements so I just printed the FAQ to go along with our certificate, just as backup in case anybody just to support the fact that yes, these guidelines are correct. Okay, so that's microchip, pretty easy right? That's the first thing if your dog or cat does not have a microchip, that's the first thing you're going to do. Second requirement, mm-hmm, rabies vaccine vaccinations have to be updated, yeah, um, and so again, this is stuff that you likely are doing already for your pets, um, but it is something that in long in terms of the timeline. need you need to pay attention to so rabies yep after the microchip number one yes okay follow along it you all they also must be vaxxed within a year prior to your travel so basically they want an updated rabies we do this every year right for our pets so if you're traveling in January they want the rabies updated within that year prior but you cannot get the rabies update and vaccinations done within three weeks of your travel so againяти pre informed it's just little caveats they don't want you to vaccinate right before you travel act two but it needs to be within the year so it needs to be an updated rabies so when you talk About it, and you give context, it makes sense. But like reading this on the page sometimes you're like, 'What the hell?' So for instance, for us, we ended up traveling in January or December; well, with her in January, okay? Just like it's still extra alone, okay? And we started this process with our USDA vet in August; um, and we did her rabies vaccine in August, and it was a one-year vaccine. We could have done three years, but then you have to collect paperwork for boosters and all that other stuff. To me, it just is more simple if you just choose the year, move forward, and also just talk to your vet about it. I can't really recommend all of that based on Your dog or cat, but I can say in terms of the paperwork, it simplifies things because you have a one-year and that's it; you have the rabies certificate that has the microchip number on it and the date of your rabies update for each pet, and that is your documentation for rabies. That's the second requirement. So, so far, we have the microchip certificate, and then the rabies certificate, vaccinations certificate, vaccination, and then um, that has the microchip number on it, okay! Third one, so far, so easy, so far, so easy, okay?
MARK
[ 00:16:32 ] We can say so far, so easy because number one, we've done it; uh, number two, we've lived the pain of having to try and
Meredith
[ 00:16:39 ] take 20 000 pieces of information and put it into three simplified things i literally cannot tell you how stressful this was for me this was more stressful than collecting some of the damn paperwork for us to get it yes it's just yes okay but so far hopefully we've made it easy okay third and final thing this is where you start to involve your usda vet basically what we are trying to accomplish is that a usda certified vet is going to give your pet a health exam they want to know that your pet is healthy that's it they want somebody from the usda certified vet to be able to get a veterinarian list to certify and say i have examined This animal, and they show no concerns for me; no signs of anything that's essentially what it is. But here's the thing: a health exam needs to take place within 30 days of your travel-not more than 30 days before you travel, so you can't be doing a health exam six months before; what good is that, right? So, within 30 days of your travel, yeah, they do the health exam. Yeah, this is where it gets a bit sort of right: the vet is going to communicate the health exam results to the USDA on a portal and then the USDA is who issues the health certificate; and that is the third document that we're looking for here. They are going to issue that certificate. within 10 days of your travel so the goal is for them to fedex you that three to five days prior to your travel so no more than 10 days out but you want to get it in your hand within three to five days you don't want to be getting it in your hand jumping in a car and then driving to your 7 a . m like we did that's a whole other story that that actually happened to us but we i think our planning is going to be a little bit different than what we were planning with this even though we literally stared at the timeline over and over and over was that we didn't we were in the middle of january it was martin luther king holiday and we ran into delays on getting that fedex certification back anyway we had a flight yeah and we were like staring down like oh my god or is it really we're gonna have to move our flight um so anyway i digress but that is the process that should be happening health exam happens within 30 days within 10 days usda should be issuing issuing you a certificate and then you have that in hand and usually get it by fedex within three to five days before you travel so that's your third document so you have microchip certificate you have the rabies vaccination certificate you have the health exam basically health certificate from the usda yeah and the
MARK
[ 00:19:51 ] three documents that portugal needs when you enter the country with your pits yeah i will say one other thing as well which um you know with the usda certificate it's if you have it if your vet is close to you and everything works from a logistics like airport before you fly you know you can collect that from your vet you may be able to you may be able to it depends on work like in in person is what he's saying it's just one of those things where if we could have arranged to and they would have been fine with it on the usda fair to pick it up in person then we would then it's like oh okay great but logistics didn't quite work out yeah
Meredith
[ 00:20:34 ] as we'd hoped but um yeah so ask that question you know of your event you want to take out as much stress points you do right and you want to make it as easy on yourself as possible um it just and again as i say it out loud it's not as confusing as it felt when we were in the middle of it yeah um and that is our goal here is hopefully that it's clear to you through us because of our experiences with it and understanding it more and it's all about to me it's all about the context it's like you know you can sit here and go well this is 30 days but you got to do with this within 10 and blah blah if you think about the reasoning behind why they were Supposed to take it out loud and then maybe putting those timelines in place makes sense. Right, right. So, um, those are the three documents. I would also say the earlier you start this process, the better. I can't stress that enough because you're going to be working with a USDA-certified vet who should be up to date on these things. But think about it: they could be certified, but they might have helped somebody get their pet to England or Croatia or Port, right. And so everything is going to be different by country. And so don't expect them to literally be the expert immediately, but they are charged because they're certified to know more than you, hopefully. Um, but I also think that being prepared and going in and knowing that you're going to be a certified vet, knowing these timelines, according to the USDA website will help. Right. So ask a lot of questions, plan together, um, talk about the timeline, talk about, and we had to reschedule our health exam for Charlotte multiple times because we were waiting on our visa much longer than we expected. So you have to be flexible; Portuguese patients, you have to be, you have to know that that might happen. And it's all going to depend on your visa, uh, email saying, 'Hey, you've been approved.' Right. And then you can literally go, okay. And now I need to book my travel. And now based on that, I need to back into when the health exam has to happen. And so it's really just about being ready and knowing what the next steps are. Once you get your answer.
MARK
[ 00:23:11 ] You know, as you alluded to earlier, we've created a timeline. It's a freebie. It's a freebie. So if you visualize, uh, the timings, here's your travel date and then work back. Uh, I think that's probably the easiest way to explain it without trying to describe it.
Meredith
[ 00:23:26 ] Yeah. And I'll put a link here to, um, in the podcast notes. And also, if you're watching on YouTube, it should be in the link description. Um, but our Stan store is stand-out store slash Portugal junkies. You can also find it on our Instagram page in the, in the bio. Um, but feel free to download that. In fact, um, I would recommend it even if you're not a fan, if you're not quite sure about your timing yet.
MARK
[ 00:23:50 ] Um, just have it pinned to the fridge.
Meredith
[ 00:23:53 ] I mean, again, we wouldn't be here if Charlotte couldn't come. Like I've said that to him so many times during the process. And I think that's why we wavered back and forth for so long because at the beginning, and we'll go into this more next week when we talk about the actual getting the dog and cats here to Portugal, because we kept running into concerns about her breed. She's a Boston Terrier, she says she's a snub-nose dog, and her size was; she's small for Boston. And I just wasn't comfortable with some of the other options, other than having her in the cabin with us, which really limited what airlines we could work with to even get her here. And so when we ran into those things with that had nothing to do with these requirements. It was more about her breed, her size, and what we were willing to do to get her here. I was not comfortable with cargo, and then cargo didn't wasn't even an option for us because she's a snub-nose dog. And so then I was like, well, that means that if she doesn't fit in the cabin, then what? And she can't go in the cargo. Then what? We have to go private jet. We have to go on a transatlantic boat. Like all of these are options that we will talk through. Exactly. We got lucky because she did fit in the cabin and she was able to come over here. Um, in the way that I felt most comfortable, thank goodness. Um, but those are things that we'll talk about next time. But I did say, I mean, this was like, we, this was probably the reason that we didn't jump on going to Portugal earlier. It was not feeling comfortable about the process with the dog.
MARK
[ 00:25:45 ] It's definitely one of those things where if you take a breath, as we said, with so much of this process, if you, if you just walk up to it and approach it in a methodical way, and that sounds great to do, um, sitting here now in Portugal, having done it, then what we really did was bang our head against the wall and you know, what the heck, how, how do we achieve this? What do we do about that? They're asking for this. What is it? I haven't got a clue. Um, but this, this is, it's, it's, it's not as difficult or scary, you know, as it sometimes portrayed.
Meredith
[ 00:26:21 ] It’s like we say, honey, everything is figureoutable.
MARK
[ 00:26:24 ] Yes, everything is figureoutable.
Meredith
[ 00:26:26 ] It's true though. It's like if you approach it with, um, a positive outlook, like we can, we can figure this out. We're not the only people in this world who have tried to get this right. You know, it's been done before.
MARK
[ 00:26:39 ] How have they done it? Yeah, it's like anything. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that’s, that’s really what, um, what I’d say is, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s just, again, approach it in a methodical way and approach it with some hope and some understanding and some, you know, like this is, you can do this.
Meredith
[ 00:26:55 ] You absolutely can. And, um, not saying that it's not going to be without its challenges and, um, probably a little bit of fear. You love your puppies and kitty cats. Like it's scary because they're family members to us. And so, um, you know, it just; it's, it can be nerve-wracking, but I can tell you right now: that it is certainly something that you can accomplish. It's just understanding how all of this works. And so hopefully this has been helpful. Um, like I said, I'll link the timeline below and you can find it in the Stan store; and we're just so, so thrilled.
MARK
[ 00:27:35 ] And if you've got questions specifically about it, yeah: drop us a question, yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:27:40 ] Cause we are going to follow up and do a second episode about this, and the next time, how to physically do it, yeah. So, yeah. Send us your questions, and uh, we'll try to answer those for you.
MARK
[ 00:27:51 ] So, I think everything that you've spoken about has probably covered all the high points. Yeah. Yeah. For this part.
Meredith
[ 00:27:58 ] And we'll see you next time for Part Two.
MARK
[ 00:28:00 ] Yes, indeed.
Meredith
[ 00:28:01 ] Be back next week and we will talk more about getting your pets Portugal.
MARK
[ 00:28:05 ] Absolutely. All right. Cheers, y'all. Thanks very much. Take care.
Meredith
[ 00:28:08 ] See ya. Listen up, future expats! For more content about our move, the visa process, Portuguese culture, and destinations, and tons of support resources for your own decisions and potential move abroad. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Portugal Junkies.
MARK
[ 00:28:27 ] Stay in touch and help us reach more people by subscribing here and following us there.
Meredith
[ 00:28:32 ] Cheers, y'all!