Travelling with dogs can bring lots of additional logistics and planning to trips. Where and how you park, the weather and different laws for different places. Our first stop in Ireland was to get the girls EU Pet Passports. Since Brexit, these are unobtainable in the UK (The UK pet passport no longer exists). Without the EU pet passports, we would have to pay for regular AHC (animal health certificates) when entering and leaving the country, it would make travelling very expensive without them. The EU Pet Passports will last for the lifetime of the dogs, so long as you keep the rabies vaccinations up to date within an EU country and have the passport stamps updated.
Before setting off on our trip we used our old ‘local’ vet in Wales to get a 3 year rabies vaccination.
We then drove from Wales to Cairnryan in Scotland where we caught a ferry with Stena Line to Belfast. The benefit of getting the ferry to Northern Ireland is that the dogs don’t need an AHC (animal health certificate) to enter the country. The crossing is also short so they can be left in the van whilst on the ferry. This crossing cost us £166 in total one way.
Prior to arriving in Ireland, we booked a vet appointment within the Republic of Ireland. We wanted to get the passports sorted at the start of the trip so we knew it was sorted. The vets took around 45 minutes to do the quick check-up and fill out the paperwork. Not having a proper Irish or UK address wasn’t an issue here. The total cost at the vet was £132 but this also included medicine for Rory for a separate issue.
