If you’re traveling with your dog to the United States from Argentina

Traveling with a dog is hard. It’s exponentially harder if you’re traveling internationally. It can be done, though, even if your knowledge of the language of the country you’re currently about to leave isn’t your first language, or even a language of which you have any kind of intellectual authority. Take me, for example. I’m from the US, and five months ago I brought my dog, Luna, to Buenos Aires, to live with me. At the time, I didn’t know how long I would be here, so leaving her with my parents wasn’t an option. Had I known that it would be just five months, maybe I would have parted with her for that (relatively) short time, despite how much I’d have missed her. Then again, I didn’t have a grasp of the combined stress between Luna and myself that would come from the air travel. That alone will be enough to keep me from EVER DOING IT AGAIN.

I’m not going to go into details about my trip down. Lots of formal USDA paperwork, yadda yadda. It’s not too much different to return. The US doesn’t quarantine dogs, in general. If you do all the paperwork, it should go smoothly.

The main reason I’m writing about this is to warn people against what I would consider a scam, disguised as an expert pet relocation company called PetsVentura, or at least the Buenos Aires branch. They advertise lots of services to help a person to relocate with their pet, international relocation included. After emailing PetsVentura with questions about the specifics regarding my needs, as well as costs, I was ready to go ahead and use them, even if they were never quite as clear as I would have liked. I thought maybe that was because English isn’t the first language of their employees, whatever.  

FYI: the necessary documents/actions for bringing a dog into the US from Argentina are:

•  Clean bill of health from a certified veterinarian, written on an Official Certificate (national) within 10 days of travel.
• Proof of Rabies Vaccination within the last year.
• Statement signed by veterinarian that your dog has been checked and is free of Screwworm (Myasis, in Spanish) within 5 days of travel.
• Bring a copy of all of those things, along with a copy of your passport to SENASA (equivalent of USDA), pay AR$20 and they will have an official travel copy ready for you to pick up in 2 days. If you need it the same day, it is AR $90.

 PetsVentura told me the following information after I looked over their site and asked them how much a vet house call plus all the necessities to bring Luna back to the states would be (given that I already had a Rabies Vacc. and Certificate):

 Regarding the examination of your dog for worms,our veterinarian can make a visit to you address in Buenos Aires next week. Are you going to arrange all the travel documentations from Argentina on your own? Or do you need PetsVentura assistance? To issue a document by our veterinarian that you dog is free from worms a sample of fecal will be needed to be ready at the time of the visit. After examination by the laboratory a certificate of free of worm can be issued and post back to you or hand delivered. The cost of home visit, laboratory exam, issue medical certificate and postage back is AR$232.00

 I was ready to go ahead with them at this point. That's pretty cheap for all that convenience (only about US $45. Then, after I copied and pasted the relevant US requirements from the USDA website, just to be sure, they came up with another answer for me:

For your information the following documents are MUST enable you leave Argentina and enter the USA:

1. Health Certificate
2. International Health Certificate
3. Worm free Certificate
4. And most of airlines will ask for Acclimation Certificate.

 So I’m thinking, what the hell is the difference between a Health Certificate and an International Health Certificate? You’d think the international one would trump the other, right? And is there a specific Worm-Free Certificate? Why not just write that information with the Health Certificate? What do any of the health certificates say if not that the dog is healthy, and is fine to fly (aka Acclimation Certificate)? So I decided to do some serious research of my own and I couldn’t find anything except for the website I linked to above. Whatever, though—how much extra could these other forms cost? So I emailed them back:

Alright, that sounds good. I would like all of those certificates, just to be sure I have no problems. Is there an extra cost for the other couple health certificates.

This was their response:

Dear Jessica

First, the veterinarian will have to make the visit and to collect the sample of fecal few days earlier and the reason for this that the laboratory take its time to return the results and we cannot wait to the last moment as sometime some issue can arise such as need for repeated sampling, treatment if the pet found with worms etc. I advise you to have the veterinarian visit at your place on Feb 24 at 15:00 Hr.

 Second, as for your question about the cost of issuing for you the entire travel documents including:  Veterinarian examination, Health Certificate, International Health Certificate, Worm free Certificate , Acclimation Certificate and hand delivery the package is AR$430

An extra AR $200 for a couple of certificates!?  WTF. Still, I tried to be polite and revise my needs to reduce the cost:

So all I want is the Veterinarian exam, a Health Certificate or Acclimation Certificate (whichever is cheaper), and a Worm Free Certificate, as well as hand delivery back to the house. The worm free certificate must state that the exam was done within 5 days prior to shipment to the United States. Also, please let me know the revised subtotal for these services. If you could give me an itemized list of the costs, that would be great.

To which they responded:

International Health Certificate is valid only for ONLY 30 days and you might have great issues in  leaving Argentina . Removing the International Health Certificate as you requesting, means that you will not have Senasa’s approved documents to leave the country , is this clear?

I would like to apology for the value of the last price for the entire travel documents it meant to be in US$ . I feel that is going to be better for you to arrange travel documents by other company. As an IPATA member and responsible pet relocation company the service you ask for might compromise your travel.

Once again, WTF! First of all, going from AR $400 to US $400 is a HUGE difference. That means that it would cost AR $1600, which is absolutely absurd. Maybe I’ve only lived in Argentina for five months, but I’m not an idiot—I know when people are trying to rip me off because I’m a foreigner. Between that cost change and PetsVentura ’s refusal to acknowledge my request for an itemized list of costs, I was effing angry. What a waste of time, and how insulting. To use PetVentura for pet relocation is not only a scam, but a joke. 

So I did what I should have done in the first place, and took Luna to a vet in my neighborhood, San Telmo. Actually, before that, I did some more research about the specific requirements for leaving Argentina with a dog on SENASA’s website. All I could find was in Spanish, so I emailed SENASA asking them if they could direct me to that information in English. Within 24 hours, they linked me to a page on their site entitled: Procedure to export cats and dogs to USA and Puerto Rico. PERFECT. 

Vets are everywhere, and they don’t speak English of course, but in my experience, they were super friendly and helpful. Because of the medical terminology, I wrote out the Spanish version of the travel requirements and brought it to them, so there would be no confusion. I didn’t even need an appointment; they told me to come back on the day (within 5 days of departure) I needed the exam and certificates. So I did, and that cost me a grand total of AR $45. 

**Btw, PetsVentura told me that to test for Screwworm, Luna would need to have a fecal exam done. Screwworm is an insect that burrows under the animal’s skin and lives there, causing a gaping wound. To check for Screwworm, simply look around the animal’s skin. Either PetsVentura is a very unreliable veterinary option, or they were just trying to get more money out of me by saying they needed to do a fecal exam. Either way, NOT GOOD.

That was a Saturday. On Monday, I went to the SENASA office responsible for officializing the documents (all that info is clear in the link above), which cost me AR $20, making the grand total for bringing Luna back to the US (drumroll…) AR $65 (as opposed to AR $1600 with PetsVentura)! And lucky for me, the office is in Puerto Madero, only about a 15 minute walk from my house. I returned to pick it up on Wednesday, and now I’m set to embark on my journey home tomorrow!

I also sent an email to PetsVentura letting them know my feelings about the matter, which were not pleasant regarding them. I'm sure they didn't care, but it made me feel good to do it. :)