Travelling with dogs - Page 2

If you travel by ferry,  you're dogs need to be muzzled in all public areas. We tried a muzzle on ours at home a couple of days before travel to get her used to wearing a muzzle. 

If you do the ferry to Spain Brittany Ferries only allow 1 pet per cabin so you might end up having to buy 2 Cabins, that's applied on travel from Ireland with Brittany Ferries but I'm not sure if the UK do the same.  All of the French Chain Hotels allow dogs although they do say 15Kg max they never enforce this and it's about €8 per dog but we rarely pay it as we normally arrive after reception is closed and you have to use a console to get into your room. 

There is no border crossings on the route to Spain but we were stopped last year crossing from Spain to France but that was Covid related and we were only stopped because our steering wheel is on the UK side as soon as we showed our Irish Passport we were waved on. It was when only fully vaccinated people were allowed travel.

One thing you may need to be aware of is the validity of the EPP.  It’s definitely the way to go as an AHC only lasts for 4 months, and costs a small fortune in comparison with the 60€ or so for a Spanish pet passport. But I nearly had a problem taking my dog back to the U.K. this May with my EPP.  I had only remembered about the earlier need for dogs in Spain to get a yearly rabies booster two week before setting sail.  Unfortunately this was also two weeks after the efficacy of the last rabies booster had finished and I would have to wait three weeks or so after the new booster before travelling! The staff at Brittany Ferries were excellent, called a local vet who said that in fact the vaccine booster she had been given the year before had a three year efficacy, not one year as indicated on the passport.  However, he had to issue me with a new pet passport with all the correct information. So my dog now has a useless U.K. pet passport, an Andalusian pet passport as well as a Cantabrian one!  So if anyone is travelling, double check on the expiry dates of vaccines in you passport at least a month before travelling.

The Booking.com app has a useful filter to show hotels which accept dogs, and there’s even some Paradores which take them now if you want to treat yourselves.  I personally prefer travelling through Spain as I’m not having to stop every few miles to pay for the motorways, but it possibly works out more expensive with the crossing.

Camponile in France. We came here with two dogs and had no problems.. just had to stop every two hours!

Hi, we bring our dog down to Mojacar twice a year. We drive down using the Chunnel and then stay in hotels found on Booking.com . If you have used this app you’ll know you can add filters to search for specific requirements, eg pet friendly. We’ve never had a problem although most guest houses and hotels will add a small surcharge for the dog.

One thing you may want to consider is getting your dogs pet passports once you are in Spain. This will save you a small fortune if you are thinking of making trips back to the UK