Getting Stella to India

How could you not love that face?

I don't want to admit the hours I have spent worrying about getting Stella into India with us. She is a source of great joy in our lives and to not have her with us would be devastatingly heart-breaking. 

After all of my worry and research I've learned the bottom line is this: there are airline- and country-specific regulations and they are subject to change.  Furthermore, using the internet to search for clarity is like using Google to self-diagnose symptoms in the middle of the night: the common cold easily turns into CERTAIN DEATH SYNDROME. Cue panic. Which is exactly what happened to me a few nights ago when I thought we had missed a deadline to get Stella's NOC.  I don't wish that kind of dread on anyone so here's some info that I hope will be helpful if you're in a similar situation.

The best sources for information for us ended up being: the USDA office and website, our airline websites and customer service centers, and a pet relocation company in India. 

Here is a list of steps we took and the documents we obtained for import along with some notes on each.  I want to point out that this is only our experience and as I mentioned before, regulations change. Your case may be different depending on how old this post is when you read it, where you're coming from, what airline you're flying, what kind of dog you have, and a slew of other variables. 

I've listed them by the order in which we completed them because we needed some of them in order to get the others:

• Make sure all documentation reflects the primary owner's name, as it appears in their passport before doing anything else.  I'm entering India on an X visa which is essentially a "dependent" visa. Because of this, there are only a few places where my name appears in official documents. I don't know if it's required but for the sake of streamlining everything I just made sure all Stella's documents were in Marc's name because he's the one with the Employment Visa. 
• Microchip Certificate - this is not mandatory for import but we had been meaning to do it for a while. The microchip was inserted BEFORE the rabies vaccination, which I was told would be important if we were headed to the EU (which we're not, but I thought it was worth mentioning)  Our microchip is a HA 134kHz Universal Worldchip, and has a 15-digit number. It cost around $80.00 plus the $55.00 exam fee. We registered her online as soon as we got home.
• Rabies Vaccination and Certificate - we obtained this 1.5 months from our flight since the vaccine needs to be administered more than 30 days but less than 11 months from flying (she was due for a new one in January which would have been too close to our flight date). The vaccine was a killed/inactive virus and cost around $30.00. 
• The International Health Certificate (USDA APHIS Form  7001) - this is a two-step process. It required a trip to our vet (they charged around $155 for the exam and paperwork), followed by validation by a USDA official. We live nearby a USDA APHIS office and went in-person, but if we lived further away it could have all been done via FedEx. The USDA visit was about $40.00.

           This certificate is valid for 30 days but some airlines require it 10 days or less than the flight date. We are                  flying Lufthansa and Jet Airways, and I was told by reps at both airlines that they do not have such                               regulations. 

• The Annexure I Form (for dogs only, there is a separate one for cats here) - we took this along with the International Health Certificate to our vet and the USDA. I recommend using the one from the USDA website and calling to make sure its the right one because ours was from an outside source and not an approved document. 
• No Objection Certificate (aka NOC) - We are using a pet relocation company to get this document for us in person, in Mumbai airport's quarantine office. The service cost around $290 with the wire transfer fee from our bank. This certificate is only good for the date specified on the document so if our flight were to change we'd need a new one. In order to get the NOC, we needed to do our own legwork and get these docs to them first:

                            -- The International Health Certificate
                            -- Annexure I form
                            -- Vaccination records
                            -- A copy of every page in  the primary owner's passport, (very important to scan the Indian visa)
                            -- A copy of primary owner's job offer letter to support that we are transferring residency
                            -- Copy of Airway Bill (air shipment) and Bill of Lading (sea shipment) from our household                                                goods shipments to support transfer of residency
                            -- Copies of our plane tickets
                            -- Recent picture of Stella  
                            -- There are also additional forms and letters we needed to fill out, but they supplied us with the                                       templates so that it was relatively easy to just put our information in.

Right now we are waiting for the Bill of Lading from our household goods shipment, which we can't get until our liaison in India clears it for transit. After that, our pet relocation agent will get our No Objection Certificate and we should be cleared to fly. It is my understanding that we will not receive the NOC, but rather it will be kept on file for retrieval upon our arrival by the quarantine officer. 

---

At the USDA getting our papers validated!

We're flying Lufthansa from Newark (EWR) to Frankfurt (FRA) to Mumbai (BOM), and Jet Airways to Pune (PNQ) over a two day span.  We chose Lufthansa and Jet Airways because they were recommended to us by several people. They only allow a small number of pets on their planes, and dealing with them has been smooth so far. 

Frankfurt has a Pet Hotel where the airline will feed, water, and take Stella to the bathroom during our 5-hour layover. We need to fly into Mumbai before heading to Pune because only certain airports have quarantine centers that can process  animals. They are: Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kolkata. 

We used our airline's websites to guide us through setting up her crate, and I'll post pictures when it's all set up. 

Can we leave yet? At the vet's office waiting for the doc to examine her :-)