CONTRIBUTED BY MEREDITH NOVARIO
Of course you want to bring your pet with you to Okinawa. YOU LOVE YOUR PET! Yes, the process can be confusing. But no matter how it goes down for you there will be piles of paperwork and months of waiting. Then when you arrive there are other hoops. This is a mountain of a topic. So I welcome you to chime in with any part of your experience about bringing your animals here and how to handle quarantine when you arrive. Courtney recently wrote in with a specific question about quarantining her dogs upon arrival.
My family is moving to the island in January with our two small Dachshunds (hot dog dogs). When we arrive in Okinawa my dogs will have I assume 1 week or the max 2 weeks left of their 180 day quarantine. I was wondering how the kennels are where they will be staying until their quarantine is over. Also how hard is it to get housing on base or out in town with two animals? I know from reading the board that you can’t live in any towers with pets.
A certain dog I know had about a month left of quarantine once he arrived on the island. I say HE arrived because he stayed in the States for an additional five months after his family arrived in Okinawa. Because the laboratory that the military endorsed tested his blood as a human. Twice. Mistakes happen but if you have the time to plan WAY ahead, do it. The choreography involved in getting the dog here was a ten-man job. It was a lot to ask of family back home.
Anyway, they live off-base so keeping him in their home for the month was not an option. Or so they thought.
So they looked into Karing Kennels. They didn’t want to put him there because it was more expensive and farther from their house than they wanted. Plus they just didn’t want to put him in a kennel. They had missed him for five months already. When they went to Karing Kennels they were given a list of people on-base who were qualified to let animals ride out quarantine in their homes. They made a 270 dollar arrangement with one of these people to keep him. They paid her upfront and then when the dog arrived it occurred to them that no one was going to notice or care if they had him off-base. So they kept him home and quarantined him in my house. Not in line with the rules but they learned that all the hoopla is about GETTING the animals through customs. Once the animals have come through customs then no one much cared what they did.
And you? What’s your story?