An Odyssey of a Cat (and her owners): Episode 4

Sunday was our day of departure for Japan. We had the cat's paperwork in order, all our bags were packed. We would go to the airport around 9am.

Our friend who took care of Coco had two other cats, with whom Coco was not quite comfortable. She had her hiding spots in the house to be away from these cats.

That morning, she sensed something was a bit odd, and decided to take refuge in one of those spots. I said "she'll come out in time. It's still early," but my partner, who always gets nervous before having to get Coco in the carrier, was not convinced. We called her, wooed her, cajoled her, to no avail. We decided to be a little more coercive and started to poke around her. She came out once, and before we could get hold of her, ran back into the maze. "She's coming out. She can't stay there forever," I said, in an excessively light tone.

We were getting nervous again. The clock was ticking, and she did not make a sound. We had no idea where she was in the pile of things. My partner asked if I was ready to go home without Coco or we weren't going to make it on the plane.

After all we had done on Friday, she does this to us?

We called the airline to see if we could make a last minute change to our tickets.

"Sir, you can't change the tickets at this moment."

We found out that to change the reservation, we would have to pay $7,000 for two. I was now madly trying to chase Coco out of the pile of stuff. A few more minutes and we'd lose our flight.

We decided to dismantle the pile. One by one, we moved pieces of furniture that probably were there untouched for years. The cat did not appear in time, and...

We missed our flight. We missed our flight to Japan, without having been able to rebook the next one. I had never missed a flight before, and it felt awful.

Or...I panicked. I did not understand why I had to go through this. Everything was going well until Friday. We were on the right track, we just had to get the cat out of the maze and onto the carrier. We should have kept her in the carrier from the night before, when she came out to eat. We should've, we should've...

We missed our flight. And I did not want to think about what our options might have been. Seven thousand dollars.

Then it hit me. Mileage. We forget about changing our tickets, we can rebook our return flights with my mileage. We called the airline again, and found out the same flight the next day was available to be purchased with miles. Five minutes on the phone, holding our breath, and we booked 2 persons + a cat to Tokyo, $10 for humans, $120 for the cat.


The two humans and the cat lived in Tokyo happily ever after...well, after a 4-hour delay.

An Odyssey of a Cat (and her owners): Episode 3

The only USDA office we could visit was in the state capital, some 3-hour drive away. The last day they could process before we depart for Japan was Friday, that very day. Our departure date was Sunday, and that Monday was a holiday.

From 2am on, once we found out what lied ahead of us, we could not go back to sleep. First thing in the morning, we called the vet and squeezed in our appointment in the morning instead of the afternoon. We told them that we had to take the paperwork after the health check-up to the USDA office. The vet was nice and offered to look after Coco while we went and took care of business. We called the USDA office to make an appointment, and since it was the Friday before the long weekend, they told us they were going to close the office by 1pm. It was already 9:30am.

We were very, very, nervous. If something went wrong, then we would be stuck in the U.S. for 2 extra days. My partner drove all the way after a 3-hour sleep. The traffic wasn't bad, and we made it to the office, greeted by an officer oblivious of our mad morning. A 5-minute wait and $200 later, we had all the paperwork done. Complete.

That meant we were sure to be able to go back to Japan with the cat as planned. All exhausted and relieved, we decided to have lunch before heading back to pick up Coco waiting for us at the vet.

The return trip was the longest 3 hours on the road. My partner, who has a hard time to relax in the passenger seat while I'm behind the wheel, drove again. After a while, our sleepless nights began to strike back. We stopped for gas and also got coffee. Coffee seemed quite ineffective, and soon after, my partner got a 5-hour energy, the nasty caffeinated drink. It worked magic, and he was charged up...for a while.

In the 3-hour drive back, he consumed a total of three 5-hour energies. Not recommended.

We barely got back in time to pick up the annoyed cat who was left behind at the vet, and somehow had the crazy idea to go eat at a German restaurant I always wanted to try.

Sleep-deprived and caffeine-overdosed, my partner had to stop and throw up on our way to the restaurant. He could not even face the mountain of pork shank that I ordered...

An Odyssey of a Cat (and her owners): Episode 2

We decided to leave Coco with a friend with two other cats for 4 months. That was a hard decision, but it was much better than leaving her at Narita Airport and having to commute there to feed her.

We moved to Japan without the cat.

Four long months later in August, I spent my first vacation to go retrieve Coco. In our one-week stay, we had to get the certificate of her rabies blood test results, have her final health check-up, get the health certificate to fly, among other things. One thing I didn't understand in the instruction by the Japanese Animal Quarantine was that "the paperwork had to be endorsed by the government authority."

We asked our very nice and accommodating vet what it might mean. Surely, it was also their first time to process exporting a cat to Japan. They called the relevant government office, and they told us if the paperwork was signed by a US-accredited vet, that should be enough. Our vet signed all the paperwork on Thursday, and we faxed it to Japan to make sure everything was in order. We then decided to hang out with friends that night, relaxed--our next visit to the vet was Friday afternoon, before flying out on Sunday.

I was up at 2am, still jet-lagged, playing with my phone. I checked my email, and saw one from the Japanese Animal Quarantine, which changed the rest of the weekend.

The email said that the paperwork needs to be endorsed by the government, not the vet. It needed to be brought to a USDA animal quarantine office.

An Odyssey of a Cat (and her owners): Episode 1

Our cat, Coco, a 10 years old Siamese mix, has just traveled from the U.S. to Japan. Her journey dates back to almost two years ago when we began contemplating our move across the Pacific. We knew moving with her was going to be complicated, but not impossible.

Japan is one of the strictest countries when it comes to importing small pets; it is a self-proclaimed rabies-free country, and intends to stay so with all it can.

To import a cat to Japan, you must first microchip him/her for ID purposes. Then you can start the rabies immunization process. You must make sure that the vaccine is NOT live, as apparently there are two different kinds of vaccines. And YOU must make sure that the vaccine is inactivated, for you cannot expect your vet to be versed in changing regulations about bringing pets to all those countries. Our first mistake was here. Coco was shot with live vaccine the first time.

So after we became aware of the fact, the clock was turned back, restarting the immunization process. You will have your cat get two shots, at least 31 days apart. Once the second booster is given, then a blood sample is taken from the cat, and sent to the designated rabies laboratory in Kansas for antibody testing. You can start counting the 180-day period from the day the blood sample is drawn.

There is a 180-day waiting period! That's 6 months, or 7 months counting from the first rabies shot. Your pet can wait outside of Japan, or he/she can wait at the airport quarantine in Japan.

After our first invalid rabies shot, our plan to go to Japan was up in the air, so the cat didn't go back to the vet for another year. Once we found out that we were actually moving to Japan, we only had 4 months left. It was inevitable that we left Coco with someone for a few months...