# Our experience may help others.



## Twm-Twp (Jun 14, 2012)

We recently returned home from France via Eurotunnel. We had our lovely black labrador 'Twm' with us.

When we presented our paperwork to the Calais PET office official .... his microchip was good ..... but the official immediately found fault with the way Twm's passport had been completed by our vet in the UK.

On page 3 of the pet passport, and on the line that declares the date of micro-chipping .... our vet had written two words ..... 'Not Known'. This is most probably because Twm is a *rescue dog but had been micro-chipped by his previous owner.

All Twm's paperwork had been given to us by his previous owner including the RSPCA document showing date he was registered with Petlog ..... but none of this documentation actually showed the date his micro-chip was inserted. NB: We have since telephoned Petlog and they were able to confirm the date for us.

*Got to explain, Twm was not a rescue dog in the usual sense. It was only because his previous owner had become terminally ill (the big C) and had asked us if we would look after him._

Although the official agreed that Twm would have been micro-chipped either on or before the date of his rabies jab she would not be moved by her stance that the words 'not known' should not have been entered into his passport. This in her words was not permitted. Yes he was micro-chipped and yes he would have been micro-chipped either on or before the date he had his rabies jab but the words 'not known' are not permitted.

We had to contact our vet in Bridgend and request they send a fax stating / confirming that 'the microchip had been inserted prior to the date of his rabies jab'. This statement had to be stamped with the official DEFRA stamp and signed by a vet and obviously had to be on headed paper. All of this took about 2 hours to sort out and we were just able to catch our scheduled train.

Fortunately (that's not the right word) all of this happened on a Monday morning. Had we arrived at Calais over the weekend, we would have had to [a] re-book our crossing and worse * taken him back to a french vet to repeat the health check procedure and tapeworm medication, i.e. because we had him checked 4-days earlier before we left Frontignan Plage (some 600 miles south).

Lesson learned for us - gave us both a very stressful couple of hours at the Eurotunnel PET office. Just thought I would pass our experience - you never know, somebody else out there may have the same two words written in their pet passport.*_


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## DTPCHEMICALS (Jul 24, 2006)

Officialdom at its best. You can leave the country but can`t come back. :roll: 
Do you now have a date for the insertion of the chip.

Dave p


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## motormouth (Jul 3, 2010)

I thought that a register of micro chipping was held so anyone scanning the chip would know the date it was done, and all the owners details etc.
At least that was what our vet told us when we had our dog done.


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## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

Phew! You must have been seriously worried for a while there. So glad it all came right in the end. Thanks for the heads up as we will be getting Willow's passport soon and she is already chipped.


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## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

motormouth said:


> I thought that a register of micro chipping was held so anyone scanning the chip would know the date it was done, and all the owners details etc.
> At least that was what our vet told us when we had our dog done.


+1

ray.


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## Spacerunner (Mar 18, 2006)

The microchipping date is important so that the passport control know that the pets ID was verified before the rabies jab. The vet has to certify that the vaccination is relevant to the microchip number shown on the dog's passport before the vaccination is carried out. Otherwise the system can be abused by stupids.

So always microchipping must be done before the rabies jab.


Just had our pup microchipped this morning.

Now after the chip is inserted the vet gave us a form with all the chipping details. These you use to self- register your dog on a website called Anibase.


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## Twm-Twp (Jun 14, 2012)

motormouth said:


> I thought that a register of micro chipping was held so anyone scanning the chip would know the date it was done, and all the owners details etc.
> At least that was what our vet told us when we had our dog done.


I wish that were the case. It seems that scanning the chip only identifies the chip number which is then cross referenced with your documentation, i.e. pet passport.

I understand that there is more than one agency that keeps a 'register' of dogs details. For example, our dogs are both on the Petlog database and sure enough, all it took from me when I returned home, was a phone call to (an extremely helpful person at) Petlog who was able to confirm the date Twm was micro-chipped. Why didn't our vet do this in the first place ????

However, even if I had thought to ring Petlog from Calais and obtained the date of chipping do you think the Pet office official at Eurotunnel would have allowed me to insert the date on his passport. Not on your flippin' nellie - she was in full jobsworth flow - I can still see the shrug of her shoulders when she said "but this is not allowed, to write zees words'.

In fairness, she wasn't a jobsworth at all - just someone doing her job in accordance with her training ...... the first part of which was to knock any signs of initiative she had out of her.


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## jarcadia (May 1, 2005)

We have a rehomed dog, our vet put " micro-chip date unknown, but prior to 20/09/10 " the date she first saw him. 

He has been over to France a few times since then, no problem.


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## greygit (Apr 15, 2007)

jarcadia said:


> We have a rehomed dog, our vet put " micro-chip date unknown, but prior to 20/09/10 " the date she first saw him.
> 
> He has been over to France a few times since then, no problem.


Would it not better if they wrote the chip number next to the Rabbis vaccination entry and stamp?
Gary


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## cheshiregordon (Sep 24, 2011)

I once managed to drive completely thro the french check in and could have boarded the train and gone home - however realising I'd missed the animal passport control unit I stopped and had to go back out and return after having the dog checked.
The point is the automatic check-in system was not 100%


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## Twm-Twp (Jun 14, 2012)

jarcadia said:


> We have a rehomed dog, our vet put " micro-chip date unknown, but prior to 20/09/10 " the date she first saw him.
> 
> He has been over to France a few times since then, no problem.


That's exactly what our vet should have entered on Twm's passport - it would have been completely acceptable and avoided the delay and worry.

In fact when the fax eventually came through from our vet with identical wording confirming that Twm had been micro-chipped prior to the date of his rabies shot, the Eurotunnel PET official instructed me to write the same wording onto the passport and after the words 'Not Known'. She then explained that I would need to go to our UK vets asap and get them to stamp and sign the wording to make it official !!!!

I think it's the first time I've ever visited our vet and not left £20 / £30 lighter in the wallet !!


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## LisaB (Apr 24, 2009)

We were in there a week last Friday and an English lady with two springers was having difficulties of some sort, ther were calling their uk vet but it was on 0845 uk so were told to come back and then speak to uk and then visit Calais vet, not sure what the problem was, but boy they caused a backlog."........... And yes it was me shrinking into the ground with two excitable yappy schnauzer pups! Lol 

It makes you have a cold sweat now, but can you imagine having problems before the relaxing of rules and faced with 6 months.

To be fair the girls in the office, who always seem to be there were putting themselves out and being very helpful and not officious at all.
The moral of the tale is check check and check again.

Our vet re did Daisy's passport because he had put date of chipping as 05/12/01 then amended to 05/12/11 with no initialing or anything 

I asked defra and they said it had to be initailled and stamped to be correct, so he just did me a new one.


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## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

Another thing to be aware of with dogs that have been through rescue is that they may have two chips in them.

This happened to us. We rescued a nine year old dog that had been with his elderly owner since he was quite young. The vet had known the dog all this time and he didn't know he had been chipped. When we took him on we went through the passport application procedure and he was chipped. What should happen is that an adult dog should be scanned before chipping.

It became obvious when he was checked by a vet in the uk and the numbers did not tally up with his passport!!! Luckily this did not happen first at Calais! We were told to just explain and they would keep scanning until they found the matching one 8O


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