Traveling to Canada with Pets

[jdlupton]

We will be traveling with our dog from Montana up to Red Deer, Alberta, Canada to see family.

Any one have any suggestions, pointers, things to know, about? Your expereinces etc when crossing into and out of Canada.

[SWharton]

I think you need a health certificate within the last 30 days(not sure about days) and of course a rabies. Look it up on Google.

[LindaH]

You do not need a health certificate.  You do, however, need a rabies certificate that's been done within the last 3 years (a rabies tag won't suffice).  The rabies certificate must contain certain information:

• be written in English or French;
• be issued and signed by a licensed veterinarian;
• identify the animal (breed, sex, color, and weight);
• state that the animal is vaccinated against rabies;
• indicate the date of vaccination;
• indicate the trade name and the serial number of the licensed vaccine; and
• specify the duration of immunity (otherwise, it will be considered valid for one year from the date of vaccination).

You can find out more information at:

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/animals/terrestrial-animals/imports/policies/live-animals/pets/dogs/eng/1331876172009/1331876307796

You should also read the section about bringing pet food into Canada:

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/animals/terrestrial-animals/imports/policies/animal-products-and-by-products/pet-food/eng/1321129023397/1321129556426

 

[SWharton]

Maybe you need the health certificate to get back into the States..........We were in Canada last year and needed a health certificate for one of the countries. Then nobody asked if we had any pets.

[fly2low]

Besides the items above, know that any dry food needs to be in the original container.  We usually repackage our dogs kibble for easier storage.  It all got confiscated

[Kirk W]

15 hours ago, SWharton said:

Maybe you need the health certificate to get back into the States.........

You only need the same rabies record from the vet as you did to cross into Canada. 

[SWharton]

I figured out where I got the idea of a Health Certificate, I have been researching taking the AK ferry from Pince Rupert to Skagway and a health certificate is required for the ferry travel. Have no idea why............must be issued within 30 days of travel............

[LindaH]

1 hour ago, SWharton said:

I figured out where I got the idea of a Health Certificate, I have been researching taking the AK ferry from Pince Rupert to Skagway and a health certificate is required for the ferry travel. Have no idea why............must be issued within 30 days of travel............

And I believe the health certificate is required if you're flying pets into Canada (the link I provided above speaks to that, I think).  However, if you're driving across the border, all you need is the rabies certificate.

On our 1998 and 2001 trips to Alaska, we crossed into and out of Canada several times and not one border guard (on either side) asked about our dog or to provide proof of rabies vaccine.  However, when we crossed over into Canada for the first time in 1998, the border guard tore up our slide-in truck camper searching for guns, which we didn't have, and I told the guard as much.  But we had Arizona license plates at the time, so I guess they thought everyone in Arizona *must* be carrying guns!  (Strange thing is, I was carrying a small file box with files I figured we'd need while we were on the trip.  It was large enough to be able to hold a handgun or two, but they never asked to search that.)

[SWharton]

Did some more research. You need a health certificate to enter AK.

[lockmup68]

In and out in last few weeks. Just need health cert with rabies dates and food in original packaging. They didn't ask for either in or out, but we had it.

[Kirk W]

After following this thread I did some exploring on the web and find that AK does indeed require dog & cat owners to have a health certificate and not just proof of rabies vaccination or a shot record. But there is a catch in that it states it must be issued no more than 30 days before you enter the state. That means that if you do as friends of ours did this year, leave TX in April to travel very slowly north, crossing into AK about June 1, then your pet health certificate from the TX vet is going to be outdated by the time you arrive at the AK crossing.......  So this leads to a question of, has anyone traveling to AK been asked for that pet health certificate, and if so what happens if it happens to be more than 30 days past the date of issue?

Part two of this question is, do you know of anywhere that one can find a list of other states that have such a requirement? We have always had our dog (Muffie) checked by her vet at least annually and we always leave with a current health record and new rabies certification, but the only time that we recall having been asked for it was at the Canadian border crossing and we have never had any type of certificate. 

[LindaH]

30 minutes ago, Kirk Wood said:

So this leads to a question of, has anyone traveling to AK been asked for that pet health certificate, and if so what happens if it happens to be more than 30 days past the date of issue?

We've made the trip to Alaska twice, both times with dogs and have never been asked to produce any kind of record for the dog...either a health certificate or rabies certificate.  Unless you're stopped for a traffic violation or are involved in an accident and the police question you about this matter, I don't see how the state would even know about it since you don't have to go through an inspection station when entering Alaska.  There *may* be some RV parks that will ask for this information, but we never ran into any.

34 minutes ago, Kirk Wood said:

Part two of this question is, do you know of anywhere that one can find a list of other states that have such a requirement? We have always had our dog (Muffie) checked by her vet at least annually and we always leave with a current health record and new rabies certification, ...

I know of no such website...you'd probably have to search each state independently.  But, there again, although we haven't been to all 50 states, we've been to most of them, and California is the only state we've run into that has inspection stations.  And they're agricultural inspection stations...we've never been asked about animals of any sort (when they even bother stopping and asking questions, which the ones on I-10 and I-8 rarely do).

You said that when you have your dog checked annually, you "leave with a ... new rabies certification."  I hope that doesn't mean you actually have your dog vaccinated for rabies every year!  There are 3-year vaccines, which is allowed in Texas -- http://www.vaccineinfo.net/immunization/animal/rabies_in_texas.htm.  (The Rabies Challenge Fund has determined that rabies vaccines last for at least 7 years and they're trying to get the law changed to this period of vaccination.  I'd like to see the time when a titer test for rabies would be acceptable rather than having to automatically vaccinate.  https://www.rabieschallengefund.org/ )

[Kirk W]

4 minutes ago, LindaH said:

You said that when you have your dog checked annually, you "leave with a ... new rabies certification."  I hope that doesn't mean you actually have your dog vaccinated for rabies every year!  There are 3-year vaccines, which is allowed in Texas --

No, she doesn't get new rabies every year now, but she used to as TX did require an annual rabies shot back when we first got her. The vet we saw at that time didn't like the annual version but it was the law and vets did get TX to accept the 3-year version a while back, but I don't recall when that was. With Muffie now past her 15th birthday we now have her checked twice a year but she has always had an annual physical since she joined the family in August of 2002.