Whew! We just succeeded in getting my brother's dog into England. This is a long, confusing process and not for the faint of heart!

We've been working on getting everything straight since late December, 2002 and Moses finally was eligible to enter England on September 13th.

We got conflicting information from DEFRA and NW. For example, the DEFRA website clearly indicates that flights on NW required the dog to be accompanied. When my sister spoke directly with DEFRA, they told her that was a NW requirement. When she spoke with NW reps, they said it was a DEFRA requirement.

As it turned out, Moses flew unaccompanied in cargo on NW out of MSP. The NW staff were very nice and helpful and Moses got all his paperwork checked and got his seal on the crate and was ready to go. About ten minutes after leaving him, NW called my sister and told her they couldn't fly Moses because he was missing some sort of red rabies tag for his crate that we'd never heard of. When she got back to the airport, they said this was a new rule that went into effect on October 1st (this was October 5th) and England wouldn't allow them to transport the dog, even if we agreed to an early-release quarantine. A manager at NW finally agreed to transport him along with a letter stating that all other requirements had been met (bless his or her heart!).

Moses arrived safe and sound Monday morning, although it took about four hours to get him through Customs. The Customs agents had no idea what the red tag was about. They'd never heard of the new rule.

Anyway, for us it was worth the time, energy and expense since it was a permanent move (my brother has been living in London for three years without his beloved dog). This definitely is not something you would want to go through just for a vacation, though.