In 2016 we flew from Thailand to the USA with our Thai Dog (Yorkshire) and in 2018 we’re moving to work live in South Korea!

All I heard about the dogs in South Korea was just about Korean people and that they eat dog meat!!!

But it’s not true at all, I’ve seen so many dog lovers in South Korea.

Also, they do provide public facilities for pets more than Bangkok, Thailand. So it’s only a very small group that is eating dog meat, not the whole country!

It is really funny anytime we see people with their pet in a baby cart over here. So if you are seeing someone pushing the baby cart – you should check, it’s probably a pet in that baby cart!

Our experience traveling with our dog from the USA to South Korea

The first problem is, we don’t know where to start???

We went to do our Korean Visa in the Korean Embassy in Houston, they gave us a brochure which was pretty much useless.

If you are flying from outside the US, check out this website for bringing your dog or cat to Korea : https://www.qia.go.kr/english/html/Animal_livestock/02AnimalLivestock_007-8.jsp

One of the most helpful websites we found was from the US Department of Agriculture (https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/pet-travel), we found this site’s information to be easy to follow and really informative.

It’s a good thing that our dog has a good/clear vaccination record and she already has a microchip (if you didn’t have one in your dog, you have to have it now!).

At the final process, we needed to have 2 main documents. #1 Veterinary Certificate for exports dogs & cats to Korea (30days valid before arriving in Korea),

and #2 Health Certificate (10 days valid before arriving in Korea)

But to get just those 2 documents, we have to work on many many things!!!

1. Make sure that your dog has Vaccine record & Microchip no.

2. Discuss with your vet for a blood test and Health check-up.

In the USA, the vet will send her blood and her Microchip number in FAVN REPORT FORM for a TITER test. The TITER will verify the RABIES ANTIBODY TITER.
Our vet in Slidell (Louisiana) charged us about $45 for the blood test and check-up. There was another $187 for TITER (but we did this too late, it will take about 3-4 weeks to get the result back, so we paid $160 extra for expedited test that took 5 days to get back (looks like the below picture).

Now we paid $392 already!!!

3. If you want to bring your dog on board with you. You have to call your airline and tell them about your flight no.

We called Korean Airline the airline we would have our dog traveling with us.

Korean airline (and it’s almost the same with Delta which we had experiences with) will make sure that your flight has room for pets (normally, they allow only 2-3 dogs or cats on board per flight) and your dog or cat should be 10lbs weight.

Airlines have restrictions on the bag size that your pet is in. You’ll need to check with your airline of choice to get the details.

Some flights, do not allow you to bring your dog or cat in Business or First class since there is no space under the seat in front of you.  We were in the economy from Bangkok to Houston with Delta Airline and didn’t have any problems.

But Korean Airline business class was really nice, they will take our dog to put in the closet during the take off and landing (just to make sure that our dog won’t fly away from our feet) and we were allowed to have our pet with us during the rest of the flight.

During the flight we gave our dog a calming pill for anxiety, it’s not a sleeping pill but it helps to keep her calm during our travel.

4. Download form: Veterinary Health Certificate for Export of Dogs & Cats to Korea from www.Qia.go.kr

We had our vet take care this form, during this process we had to have another health check-up and vaccines for our dog and it costs us another $60 (This health certificate date is valid for 10days)

This process, our vet made sure that they put the right information in the form by faxing to the USDA until the vet feels confident to send all documents to the USDA by mail.

5. We are sending Veterinary Health Certificate for Export of Dogs & Cats to Korea form with FAVN REPORT FORM from TITER to USDA.

Yes we have to attach $121 check (fee) with those forms to USDA and with an OVERNIGHT pre-paid envelop with our home address on it (Recommended to put our address on both receiver and sender on the pre-paid envelope, LIKE from you to you!

We paid about $177 for this part of the process today!

REMEMBER you will get these form in another day or 2.
And they will put some stamp on the FORM with the date, and this date is good for 30days. So you have to have this done before you travel at least 20-25 days before your traveling day.

From our experience, we got it back from USDA on 18th May and we arrived South Korea on 1st June.

Traveling Day!

We checked in for our flight from New Orleans, showing the documents we have for three of us. The domestic flight from New Orleans to Chicago charged us $125 (they informed us on the phone as well) for our pet.

Then we flew from Chicago to Seoul with a connecting flight to Busan, our destination in South Korea. At the check-in counter for this leg we paid another $200 for our dog fee.

Our dog bag size is 12″x16″x10″, which fits underneath our seat (ours is a soft bag).

We didn’t have to do anything for our dog when we did the connection in Seoul.

By the way, in the US airports we didn’t have any problem about walking our dog while we’re wating for boarding. Most of airports in the US have a dog areas.

But in Seoul, they don’t have a dog area (or we couldn’t find one), so my husband tried to walk her in the men’s room.

Our dog is well-trianed, she never made a mess on board – but we did bring the disposable sheet for her (just in case). And we had some apple for her (we can’t bring her dog food into Korea) which she had to finish prior to arrival in Korea (can’t bring fruit into Korea).

Finally, we made it to BUSAN after almost 32 hrs traveling since we left our house in New Orleans.

After we got all our bags, we stop at Animal & Plant & Aquatic Creature Quarantine counter to declare our dog.

We gave all documents we had worked on and the officer checked our dog’s microchip number and give us a pass stamp! 

It was very quick to process, about 10-15 mins!

Wow!!! It’s not that difficult but it’s not that easy either?!??!

Overall we paid for our dog transit about $955, but as you can see that we had to pay to expedite some of the processes because we started it a little too late.

In Busan, we stayed at the Petal hotel, this is a pet friendly hotel while we’re waiting to find a place to live.
It’s a nice hotel but we had so many bags – we would prefer a bigger room on the higher floor if we could of booked it by ourselves (my company made the reservation)!!!
The Petal Hotel has a floor with a vet, grooming and pet boarding as well as a doggie coffee.    As mentioned, it was pet friendly!

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And what about our dog’s life experience in South Korea?

It has been a year (2019), she is doing well. We had a great vet taking care her over here. The only problem we have in Busan is about English communication. It’s hard to find the vet or a groomer with good English.

*Our dog’s hospital “Keunmaum Animal Medical Center”, Subway Green Line – Jungdong Station (No.202)

Luckily, there is a hospital close by our condo where we live. The owner is very nice to us, and he can speak English pretty well. But he has 2 main branches, so he’s not always at the branch that we are close to. But he gave us his cell phone, and he helps us coordinate all things dog related.

Prices for grooming is actually a little higher than the US but the Vet bills (shots and checkups) are much less, dog accessories are very pricy. So make sure you had brought enough for her or him.

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DOG SITTER in HAEUNDAE, BUSAN

We are living in Haeundae Beach, it’s an upscale area and it’s not hard to find a dog sitter around this area once you start to know the people around here.

The dog sitter we always have for our dog when we go traveling is a young man (college age) who lives in I’Park – He offers different prices based on your needs.

For us, we offered him 30,000 won ($30) per day (plus all the ice cream he can eat!) and he visits 4 times per day.

We found other young lady that lives in the Jangsan area – she asked for 10,000won ($10) per visit.

But if you are in other areas in South Korea try the Facebook page called “Pet Sitting Network – South Korea (Official)“, you can post to find your pet sitter in that page whenever you need.
And “FLYING PETS KOREA – Free Advice” , where you can find good questions and answers about flying pet to Korea.

We never had to put our dog in the dog hotel by herself because we have a back-up dog sitter.  Our neighbor “Stacey & Ian” like to take our dog to sit when we travel, they just like dogs and our dog gets to sleep in their bed when we are gone… LOL.

The hotel for a dog/cat in our area costs would be about 38,000won-45,000won per night.

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WELL —> When everything is setting up – we are feeling just like HOME.