Brexit Ramifications – Wednesday 13th January 2021

Wilma at her desk - it's back to work today

Brexit ramifications

I need to talk to you about some very important Brexit ramifications that might be important to the travelling dog. There is one that is better than we thought and there is one that we hadn’t thought of at all and it really isn’t good news. I’m going to start with the bad news.

Travelling with your dog food

Now, if like me you go on car journeys to mainland Europe you probably pack your normal food with you when you go. I’ve got some really bad news for you. You cannot take meat or meat products, dairy or dairy products from the UK to mainland Europe. They are likely to be confiscated. You might start off by thinking I’m exaggerating. Sadly I’m not. There have been lorry drivers who have even had their sandwiches confiscated because they have meat in.

Before you start thinking the rules cannot be that strict, I’m really sorry to tell you that they are. I made Mum go back and read the European regulation and there are a very limited number of exemptions and you need to take notice.

Special Diet

Under the regulations you can take up to 2kg of special diet dog food. It must be in its original packaging. The actual wording is ‘Petfood required for health-related reasons’. It cannot be food that needs a fridge and unless in current use must be sealed in original packet.

The rule is not per dog it is per car or whatever you are travelling in. If there are two dogs you don’t both get an allowance.

If like me you usually travel with enough for your whole trip, we have a very big problem. Mum is going to help me look at where there is convenient the other side of the Channel Tunnel crossing for you to buy major dog food brands. Unless there is somewhere local we are all going to be getting pretty hungry!

Mum usually travels with a fridge of food for her and she won’t be able to do that either. This is not good news.

The Good News

After that very bad news the good news is welcome, but doesn’t feel like enough. This is for your humans. Now that the old European Health Insurance Card cannot be renewed, the good news is that it is still in use until it runs out. When it does, your human can apply for a Global Health Insurance Card which will serve the same purpose.

That’s been a lot of difficult reading for one dog, so I’m off for a lie down.

Love

Wilma


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