Rats! The Dog Has no Passport.
The dog can’t go to France after all. His passport is not ready yet.
Yes, that’s right. Dogs who travel within Europe need a passport. The process here in Italy involves a visit to the vet for an anti-rabies jab, followed by an application to the local health authority - ASL - for the requisite document. A photo is not necessary, but you do need to take your animal’s registration document too.
Apparently you need to make an appointment with the health people 21 days after the jab to get the paperwork. You pet should also have either a functioning microchip or a legible tattoo, too.
The anti-rabies jab, the effectiveness of which lasts a year, may set you back 50 Euros or so, and the passport costs around €12 for permission to take dawgs, pussys, and ferrets (?!) to countries within the European Community. If you wish to venture further afield then the cost rises to around €18. Should you wish to visit the UK or Malta, then a further test to ensure that the anti-rabies anticorpuscles are coursing around your pet’s body will be necessary.
In urgent cases, a passport can be expedited, usually at a premium of an extra €7 or so. If you happen to be the proud owner of a Tarantula or Anaconda, I’ve no idea what kind of documentation is required. As for elephants - don’t ask.
Not sure what to do now regarding France. I’ll have to think about it some more.
Not Nice
Yesterday I was out with our dog when I noticed another dog on the other side of the road. It was off its leash and appeared to have wondered into the road. The owners were a Chinese family, mother, father, and child in stroller. Unusual, I mused, you don’t see that many people of Chinese extraction with dogs.
Anyway, I continued, thinking for a moment that maybe a dog with a tendency to wander into the road should not be off its lead in a city. Oh well, it’s their dog, hopefully they know what they are doing, I hoped. Read more
The Unkindest Cut
Our peppy little Manchester Terrier puppy has been causing us a few problems recently. The other day he lunged at a child in a toy shop while I was looking at something with my son. I suspect that Atman, our dog, came within a hair’s breadth of biting the child. This was worrying. Then, on another occasion the pup escaped from our apartment and dashed upstairs where another dog lives.
The other dog’s owner saw our little terror and tried to grab him. Atman the nipper had a go at nipping her too.
Another slight problem, but pretty normal for a dog, is that he starts barking every time he hears someone passing our door, including in the depths of night.
In addition to these, er, behavioural problems, the little chap only has one testicle, and we are not sure if the other one is in there or does not exist. The vet has recommended that he be operated on to either find the missing ball, so to speak, or, chop the existing one off, citing the fact that single testicled dogs do not good fathers make. The emasculation of this little chap fair makes my eyes water. Poor little thing.
In fact this operation is worring me quite a bit. I don’t want the little fellows character to change too much, as I believe can happen after such surgery and I’m a little concerned that he is really only being subjected to this operation to calm him down a little and turn him into an animal more suited to city life. I know it’s not exactly a lobotomy, but in some ways it feels a little like it is.
The fateful day is almost upon us as he has been booked in for the op this coming Wednesday. And this surgical intervention does not come particularly cheap either at 400 Euros.
I think it may be fair to say that male Manchester Terriers are perhaps a little too lively for city life and would be much more at home in a house with a nice rambling garden, which we don’t have, alas.
Hopefully my most prolific commenter and fellow dog owner Gege’ Bau may have some advice to offer before the pup is subjected to his fate.
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September 8, 2008
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September 8, 2008
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