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.
No comments:
Post a Comment