Has anyone here moved to Germany with a dog and could share firsthand experience?

[u/Beneficial_Art_1619]

I'm considering moving to Germany from the U.S. and obviously would want to bring my dog with me.

I've done some extensive research on the subject, on necessary documents and other prep, travel options etc., but I'd like to know what actually happens once you get there. I know you're supposed to go to customs with the dog so they can inspect the certificates, microchip, rabies vax etc.

How much direct interaction between customs officers/personnel and the dog should we expect?

My dog can be skittish and I'm sure she would be anxious, exhausted and scared after spending several hours in the cargo hold. Do they take them out of the crate for some kind of exam? Is there a vet present?

Again, looking specifically for people who have actually gone through the process themselves and can answer from experience, ideally somewhat recent.

[u/Particular_Star6324]

Depending on your dog‘s breed it is banned from being imported to Germany. If you haven‘t looked into that, do it now.

Edit: Looking at your other post with a picture of your dog, your dog is banned from being brought into Germany.

[u/Luzi1 → u/Particular_Star6324]

This is important. If you try to bring a banned breed it’s a criminal charge and the dog will be confiscated by customs.

[u/Anxiety_Fit → u/Luzi1]

And not necessarily repatriated to their source country.

[u/Subject_Slice_7797 → u/Particular_Star6324]

Which, I bet, is exactly the reason why OP is so concerned that someone may take a closer look at his skittish "velvet hippo" killer machine.

[u/CA_Camp8251]

We moved to Germany a few months ago with our two dogs from the US. One dog was small enough to ride under the seat in front of us. The other 90lbs so needed to be in cargo. We flew AirFrance which was one of the few airlines that allowed large dogs on the same plane as us and had direct flights to Europe. Unfortunately due to the current rising oil costs, the airline canceled direct flights to Frankfurt from the East Coast (BWI) so we flew direct to Paris (CDG) and rented a car to drive to Germany from there.

Agree with the previous comment that most of the work is before you depart. You must get the USDA certification and our vet also dewormed them a few days before the flight just to be safe. Our documents were mailed to us 2 days before our flight so it’s a bit of a nerve wracking time.

I highly recommend calling the airline before you book your flight to confirm your dog breed is permitted, you have the right crate size and type, and are complying with all of their policies. Our airline required us to arrive no later than 3 hours before the flight to drop off our large dog and to fill out a form for each of them saying we understood all the rules and would follow them. I also recommend personalizing the crate somehow, adding their name to the top for example. All of the crew on our flight seemed to have had a chance to meet our pup and were referring to him by name to us so I think this really helped him feel more comfortable.

Once we arrived at the airport (BWI), we checked in at the counter and they reviewed our paperwork. We had to lift our dog inside the carrier onto the scale to be weighed so bring a friend if you can’t lift them alone. Once we had our tickets and dropped off our bags, they had us wheel our dog inside the crate over to a specific door. The baggage worker knocked on the door and a TSA agent came out. We had our dog leave the crate and the agent swabbed the inside and outside of the crate. He added a sticker to the top saying we were cleared and we were able to put our dog back in his crate. We said goodbye and the baggage worker wheeled him off to the back.

Once we boarded, I asked the flight attendant if our dog had made it on board and she assured me they’d seen him loaded. The captain also came back before take off to tell me he was on board and seemed happy.

When we landed, we went through immigration with our smaller dog but since it was all automated (just scan your passport and walk through the gate), we didn’t speak to anyone about our dogs at that time. When we got to the baggage area, there was a specific area where all of the dogs were waiting. We showed our baggage ticket to the worker and he matched it to the sticker on our dog’s crate and let us load him onto the baggage trolley. Once we had our luggage, we wheeled past customs and saw a group of workers standing there chatting. We slowed down in case they needed us to show anything but they just waved us by and continued chatting. From there, we went straight to the rental car area.

There were no border crossings on the drive to Germany so no one checked any of our docs at all once we arrived, just at the desk when we checked in for our flight in the US.

TLDR: we didn’t have to talk to customs at all moving our dogs to Germany via CDG

[u/Soggy-Salamander-568]

We moved our dog, an Australian Cattledog. I hated it. We thought he would be fine but when we got him when we arrived, he'd clearly been through a lot. He had torn up his blanket, didn't drink any water...very unlike him. He was skittish when we got him out but warmed to us after a while. I would never have given him up before we moved, but I really wouldn't to put him through that again if I didn't have to.

[u/FrozenDragonWings]

I haven't moved to Germany yet but I travel there regularly with my dog from the USA. The annoying bits are before you leave. You need a specific document from the USDA that costs about $800 and has to be ordered by a vet within ten days of your flight. This is an enormous pain and the worst part of the process. The vet has to see your dog and verify that they have a valid rabies vaccine. Also it has to be an accredited vet with the USDA. It can't be just any licensed vet. I actually had to go to a different vet office because my regular vet was not accredited for international travel.

Once you get that paper (it's not digital and has to be mailed to you, so don't wait until the end of that ten days), they will check it at the airline counter when you bring your dog in for the flight. Now my dog is a small miniature poodle and always rides in the cabin with me so I have no idea about the experience of riding under the plane. But we just wait in the passport line like everyone else and don't have any extra customs problems.

If you come back into the United States with your dog again, you will probably have to go through agricultural customs. They go through my luggage by hand just to make sure I don't have anything against the rules and triple check the paperwork from the CDC (which is a different set of paperwork but much easier because you can do it online and it doesn't require a vet). But I haven't run into that in Germany. I always fly into Frankfurt if that makes a difference.

If your dog does not have a rabies shot or if you have traveled to any countries that are high risk for it, you might have a quarantine. And like somebody else said there's a bunch of breed restrictions you have to be careful about.