Has Anyone Taken Their Dog to Turks & Caicos ?

[Rastarea]

I got all the ''official'' requirements to be able to cruise Turks & Caicos with our dog. But I am looking for the ''facts'', what did they request as paper work for the dog?

We have just about everything required but coming in on our sailboat we will not be able to meet ''exactly'' every requirements. Exemple: a health certificate from the country of origine not older than 30 days...we have one from last october, before we left Canada!!

Thanks pet owners!

Sylvain

[gonesail]

Canibul should know .. he lives there.

[Canibul]

Hmm...that's a good question. But not an unusual situation. A lot of the 'rules' here have some ambiguity or flexibility built in to them. This is the only place I have ever been where we could negotiate vehicle inspections, for example. I gave them my word I would fix an emergency brake,, and that was good enough.

We brought our dog here, but it was on a flight from the US. And the Customs lady at the airport looked at the paperwork, mentally tallied up the pieces, patted the dog, and it all took maybe 30 seconds.

One suggestion...pull in someplace in the Southern Bahamas ( or Puerto Rico or the DR if you are coming from the South) an have your health people up north fax you an updated certificate, with the recent date?

Or stop and see a vet wherever you are and have them issue a certificate that says the dog is healthy and has no parasites or communicable diseases and the innoculations are up to date. then, if the customs people ask, tell them exactly what you did.

They are not excessively strict here on that, but they do want to keep rabies off the islands. That's really the main concern.

I think that if you just wave the appropriate number of documents at them, and they can see that there is one for each category, they will probably be okay with it. Would probably help you if the documents are in French and you turn on the Gallic/english confusion factor. Just don't take an attitude and you should be okay. Smile a lot. The customs people are all native people here, and the native people here are way friendly if you can get them to smile. They seem to think that their job in uniform requires a stern exterior, but their hearts are not in it. They enjoy humor, and don't have to stick strictly by the letter of the rule if they are satisfied that the intent of the rule is being met. I.e. no sick dogs bringing illness.

[Canibul]

or you could just call us on the radio ( we have VHF at the house) and we could boat out to meet you and take your dog ashore with us. You can clear customs and immigration and we could bring the dog back to your boat once you figure out where you are going to be anchored... ha ha.

just kidding.