Changes To The PETS Scheme

Just been speaking to someone from the Office of Fair Trading because somebody in Germany had complained to the AHVLA that we imported a dog to the UK last December that didn’t have the necessary Health Certificate.

The fact that the person making the complaint was in Germany and didn’t give the name of the dog makes it very very very likely that this is a personal vendetta (again) a view reinforced by the officer I spoke to who said that a huge amount of the complaints they receive regards Animal Transporters appear to be of a personal nature.

Anyway as far as our December Transport was concerned, once again all our paperwork was in order, and as usual we are able to prove it.

What was interesting though was confirmation that sometime in the near future they are going to amend the PETS Scheme so that a Declaration of Ownership is no longer going to be sufficient to transport somebody’s pet cat or dog, but a formal Health Certificate issued by the Government Vet a la TRACES is going to be required.

What this basically means is that once they introduce this the PETS Scheme will in effect be the same as TRACES.

Given the confusion here in Spain as to whether TRACES is needed for a re-homed animal, and given the number of rescue centres that refuse to accept the need for TRACES I suspect it is all going to get very messy.