Rusty_

Hi Florencia, Sorry for the delay - hope you're not too stressed about it all! It was the source of a good few sleepless nights for me just not being sure if we'd be able to take our little Bengal with us to Australia! Well, 7 or 8 months later and I can happily say - we're here in Australia with our Bengal, who we eventually got approved! The best two pieces of advice I can recommend are firstly to email the imports department at the department of agriculture directly - we spoke with a guy named Alex Blanden there who told us what we needed to do, and was very helpful (albeit with a little bit of a time delay between the time zone thing and the emails not going direct, which was a bit frustrating but we got there in the end!) Basically, in the end I don't think we really proved very much at all other than that we were really determined to do as much as we could to get an import approval for Dennis - at first it didn't sound very promising, but keep at them and just ask what more you can possibly do, and provide all the details you can. We had a certificate showing the names of the previous 3 or 4 generations, but no registration numbers at all, which meant that I couldn't register Dennis as a pedigree cat with TICA, but for $10 or $20 they let me register him as a domestic cat, and then between that and pointing out that technically he isn't really a pedigree Bengal in that case and should be considered a Bengal cross at best they agreed to give us a permit! It did take at least 3 weeks of communication back and forth and lots of patience, but I still remember the morning we woke up to the email to say he would be allowed in! Basically, just grovel and explain as much as you can, and provide as much information as you can find for your cat, and think about registering with TICA (a fairly painful process in itself, but worth it), and just be nice to whoever you end up speaking to from the department of agriculture!! The other piece of advice is to sort yourself out with a group like PetAir UK who can offer extra advice and really make the travel thing just much less stressful for both you and your pet(s)! We've just used them for our 2 cats to come from UK to Aus, and they really helped just make life so much easier! They even offer to do the import permit process for you, which really helps as the cost of putting the wrong information in there can be expensive from what I could tell, so having someone do it who's done it before was a big relief! A little note of caution from our recent experience is not to expect the vets to be very helpful at all - we had to stay on top of them to make sure they did everything that was required at the right times, as otherwise I think they didn't really have a clue about Australia at all - your experience might be different but best to make sure you know everything that's required and when - you can find it on the Australian government / department of agriculture website which has a handy tool where you enter your desired arrival date and they show you the different dates you need to do stuff to make sure you'll be good for the big day! Also, if your cat(s) are used to a particular diet and are fussy about what they eat, or might become ill / upset stomach if put onto only dry food, I'd really recommend getting in touch with the quarantine place nearer the time they're due to arrive and explain what to do to avoid any upset, and they'll probably offer you the chance to arrange to have food delivered. Hope this helps - sorry again for the delayed response!! Merry Christmas!! Rusty

Looking for a bit of advice - has anyone on here had any luck importing their Bengal into Australia when they've had little information actually available on its background? We bought our wee chap as a tiny kitten 2 years ago with a signed statement from the breeder demonstrating his non-registered family tree. It clearly goes back 5 generations, but with only names of the sires/dams, no ID or registration numbers for any of these to actually prove what they are. He's fully neutered, vaccinations up-to-date, and purely a house cat (not ever really been outdoors and no plans to). He is clearly very domesticated, and no hint of a wildcat in him at all really, besides having a fair amount of energy and very chatty! I've been advised that he will need to be registered before the Australian Government will consider his application, but I don't understand how to go about this 2 years down the line. The breeder was unable to provide further details on his family tree (no registration/ID details for the previous generations) so no real way to prove F5. Any solutions out there? We're running out of options in terms of leaving him behind due to family being allergic, and we can't imagine having to rehome the little guy (we're family!)... Any thoughts or ideas greatly appreciated! Cheers, Russell