Illegal Alien

Well, it seems that we have an alien amongst us...yes, it turns out that our dear, sweet pooch Iago is actually in Hungary illegally.

Yesterday, after dropping Dave at the airport for his trip to France, we proceeded into central Budapest to start the epic process involved in sending Iago back to Australia. We're not planning on sending him until mid-June, but as it's a six month process, we really need to get the ball rolling now.

Unfortunately, we met a hurdle almost immediately. Our Hungarian vet was unable to locate Iago's microchip (which was implanted in Australia way back in 2002). According to the vet, if his scanner couldn't find the microchip, then it simply didn't meet Hungarian/EU standards. The vet was pretty baffled as to how/why Iago had even been allowed into Hungary without a compliant microchip. Eeeek!!

Anyway, after learning that our dog was essentially an illegal immigrant, Daniel and I made some calls to the Australian authorities to work out how to proceed. Without going into all the boring details, we eventually decided to get Iago implanted with a new microchip and revaccinated against rabies on the new chip. He also got a new passport after the vet told us to burn the old one (which should never have been issued). Double eeeek!!

We have to go back to Budapest in two weeks for more tests and vaccinations.

In other news, Dave arrived safely in France and seems to be having a great time so far.

- Amanda