She is here.
Gabapentin is amazing! Four half pills over a 24 hour period and she was the mellowest cat you can imagine. Children petted her as she poked her head out of the carrier at the airport (I did keep a tight grip on her harness); I carried her through TSA check in Newark in my arms and the staff all admired her grace; and she was intrigued by the smells and sounds of CDG airport (in the picture to the left). Aside from peeing on the hand of our friend who collected us from Toulouse, she had a pretty uneventful trip. And upon arrival, she settled immediately into her new forever home, with no crouch-walking or worried head movements — comforted we assume by recognising furniture and smells.
She seems to really like French cat food, both dry and wet.
Three days later, though, she is still not speaking to the woman who wrapped her in a harness, stuffed her into a carrier (albeit a very comfortable one), forced pills down her throat, and shoved her under a seat on two separate planes for hours. She is willing to be in the same room as me now, and got as close as five feet today, but she will not make eye contact. Luckily she adores Walter in whose sweater she spent her earliest days indoors. And I would no doubt behave the same way.
So what about the paperwork? As predicted, nobody cared that I carried a cat off a plane and through Charles de Gaul airport. “I have a cat” says I, holding up the carrier. “EU or non EU?” the man asked. “Non, I say, and I have a cat.” “That line madam.” I popped my passport into the reader, smiled slightly for my photograph, and that was it. The man in the window stamped my passport (the indignity still stings) and waved me through.
On the flight to Toulouse, the Air France folks let me pre-board with children and families so I could get her settled under the seat before the row filled up, and we were off.
But when I got to Toulouse they did things right. As I was walking through “nothing to declare,” I was informed that actually I needed to declare the cat and present my paperwork. A very helpful security woman explained that the people in Paris should have stamped the form, “here, here, and here,” disdainful of the unprofessionalism of her colleagues in Paris. But she also explained that if I wanted to take my cat back to the US and the form was not stamped to show she had arrived, it would be very difficult. She took the 7-page passport paperwork away and came back a few minutes later with stamp and date “here, here, and here,” and that was it. Mia’s immigration was complete.
And I could finally relax. Said paperwork had arrived mid-morning on the day we were to leave. It was scheduled to arrive at 4:30 pm, 35 minutes before my flight took off, but the several wonderful people I spoke to at UPS worked miracles, and the driver moved me to first stop on the route. Way too stressful! And Mia had a panic attack a few days earlier when I tried her on a whole gabapentin pill and she could not move her back legs. Half was good. She was totally mellow but fully mobile and conscious.
Take aways for those planning to take a cat to France in a carrier on the plane with you:
- Allow a lot more time than you think this will take, especially if you have never put a harness on your cat. I tried eight different sizes and styles before I found one that was comfortable, close fitting, but not constraining movement;
- Allow more money than you can imagine it could possibly cost. A good flight approved carrier will set you back more than $100 (and it is worth getting a good one with a lot of padding and reinforcement), then you need harness, leash, food/snacks, and of course vet bills and the fee to take the cat on the flight (even though the carrier counts as your small bag and fills the space under the seat in front of you);
- Never book a flight on a Monday. UPS does not deliver at the weekend, so if your paperwork is cleared on the Friday it will not arrive in time;
- Book a ticket that allows you to change flights for no fee just in case you need to switch to the next day;
- Make sure you reserve a space under your seat for the cat when you book your flight, there is a limit to how many pets are permitted on any flight (4 per flight on Air France);
- Download and complete the form waiving any liability that your airline will have somewhere on the website;
- Visit the USDA approved vet a month before you travel so they can start the paperwork and if your cat is not chipped, they can chip it and administer a rabies shot more than 21 days before arrival (even if they do not need a rabies shot);
- Schedule your final checkup and paperwork nine (9) days before arrival at your destination so you have one day’s grace if the form doesn’t arrive and you need to change your flight to the next day (now I don’t think anyone looked at the date in Newark or Toulouse, but they could…);
- If you are planning to medicate your cat for the first time for the trip, I suggest testing dosage a few days before, and starting small;
- If you drink, I suggest at least one glass of wine with your in-flight meal, maybe two.
Good luck!
