Travelling with your dog or cat to Montenegro and across the EU

The pet passport is the only document you really need

Inside the EU, a dog or cat crosses a border with one document: the EU pet passport, showing a microchip number, a rabies vaccination given after the chip and at least 21 days before the trip. Montenegro is not in the Union, but it accepts the same passport for entry, and the EU accepts a pet coming from Montenegro on the same conditions plus a short health certificate.

Everything else, the pedigree, the vaccination booklet from the breeder, the insurance card, is for you, not for the officer. Pack them, but the passport is what gets read.

The puppies and kittens we deliver already carry this passport, issued by our vet in Podgorica, and the dates on the health and documents page show how it is prepared.

Entering Montenegro with a dog or cat

At the Montenegrin border the officer scans the chip, checks the rabies date and stamps the passport. For a pet arriving from an EU country nothing more is required. Pets from outside the EU need a rabies titre test unless the country is on the low-risk list, which covers the UK, Switzerland, Norway and most of the Western Balkans.

Hotels along the coast from Herceg Novi to Ulcinj increasingly accept dogs, and the national parks at Durmitor and Lovćen allow dogs on a lead. The ferry between Kamenari and Lepetane takes pets at no charge. In summer plan walks before nine and after six, because the pavement in Budva in July is too hot for paws.

Entering the EU from Montenegro

From Montenegro into Croatia, and from there onward through the Schengen area, a pet needs the passport, a rabies vaccination at least 21 days old and, for a pet without an EU-issued passport, a health certificate issued by an official vet within ten days of travel. Dogs entering Ireland, Finland, Malta or Norway also need the tapeworm tablet 24 to 120 hours before arrival.

The Debeli Brijeg crossing north of Herceg Novi is the one our nannies use, and the check takes about ten minutes when the passport is in order. Up to five pets may travel with one person without commercial paperwork; a sixth makes the trip a commercial movement with a different set of forms.

Flying with a pet inside Europe

In the cabin, a pet of up to eight kilos including the carrier travels under the seat in front of you on most European airlines; a few allow ten. Book the pet at the same time as the ticket, because each flight accepts only two or three animals in the cabin, and summer flights to the coast sell out of pet places weeks ahead.

• Soft carrier of about 45 x 30 x 25 cm, the pet able to turn around inside
• Pet passport and, for non-EU departures, the health certificate in the hand luggage
• No food for four hours before the flight, water until check-in
• An absorbent pad in the carrier and a spare one in the bag
• A direct daytime flight whenever one exists, and never a connection in summer for a flat-faced breed

Driving across borders with a pet in the car

A car is the easiest way to travel with a dog in Europe: no weight limit, no carrier size, stops when you decide. The law in Germany, Italy, Spain and Austria requires the animal to be secured, by a harness clipped to the seat belt, a crate or a boot divider, and a loose dog on the back seat is a fine of 35 to 200 EUR depending on the country.

Stop every two to three hours, keep the water in the boot and never leave a pet in a parked car in summer; the inside reaches fifty degrees in twenty minutes. For a long trip a Labrador that has learned the car at twelve weeks sleeps from Podgorica to Vienna; a dog that first meets a motorway at two years old does not.

Ferries and trains with a dog or cat

The ferries from Bar to Bari, and the Adriatic lines from Croatia to Italy, take dogs and cats in a cabin or in a kennel on deck, and a cabin is worth the extra fare. Italian, Austrian and German trains allow dogs on a lead with a muzzle, and small pets in a carrier, usually for half the adult fare or free when the carrier fits on your lap.

Cats travel best in a carrier covered with a light cloth; the less they see of a railway station, the calmer they arrive.

Rabies, tapeworm and the dates that get people turned back

Three mistakes account for almost every pet refused at a European border: a rabies vaccination given before the chip was implanted, a trip started fewer than 21 days after the vaccination, and a tapeworm tablet for the UK or Ireland given too early or not recorded with the time. Each one is a date in the passport, and each one is avoidable with one look the week before you leave.

A rabies booster given before the previous one expired keeps the protection continuous; a booster given a day late restarts the 21 day wait. Set a reminder a month before the expiry date written in the passport.

Before you set off: a checklist for the week before

Read the passport once from the first page to the last, check that the chip number on the page matches the number the vet scanned, confirm the rabies expiry date is after your return, and put the passport in the same pocket as your own. Book the pet on the flight or the ferry, pack the food the pet eats at home for the whole trip plus two days, and put the vet's phone number in your contacts.

If the trip is the pet's very first journey, the guide to delivery by road or by air describes how our nannies prepare a young animal for exactly this kind of day, and the frequently asked questions cover the age and the documents for the first trip home.

Frequently asked questions