Before you depart on vacation or moving more than across town with your cat, a pre trip cat veterinary visit will ensure that your cat is in good health. The veterinarian should examine the cat's heart, lungs, ears, eyes, teeth, nose and check for external parasites. You may be asked to bring a fecal sample from your animal to the examination to check for internal parasites. This pre trip cat veterinary visit may also include a blood work-up depending on the age of your cat and time since the last blood work-up.
Your veterinarian should provide you with a health certificate certifying that your pet is in good health and up to date on its vaccinations. You may need to present this health certificate even when crossing state lines and definitely will need this document when traveling by air or to a different country. You need to be aware of the regulations of the country you will be entering and let your veterinarian know specifically what is required on the health certificate. You may need to contact the consulate or embassy of the country you are visiting to get the required paperwork for your veterinary to complete.
Depending on where you are traveling you will need to schedule this pre trip cat veterinary visit so that the health certificate is not out of date when you travel. An example of this is when traveling to Mexico, which requires the health certificate not to be dated more than two weeks prior to the visit. You may even need to place your cat into quarantine on arrival to your destination overseas including Hawaii for a specific period of time. So be prepared and plan for this quarantine in advance.
At the pre trip cat veterinary visit, discuss with your veterinarian about your trip - the length of the trip, how you will be traveling, where you will be going, etc. Your veterinarian may have some good suggestions to make the trip less stressful for you and your cat. He may also be aware of the diseases that are prevalent in the area that you are traveling. If you are currently living in an area where heartworm is scarce and you do not use a preventative but are traveling to an area with a high incidence of heartworm, you can discuss with your veterinarian if you should start a heartworm preventative as a precaution. Finally at the pre trip cat veterinary visit, make sure that you have enough medications if you cat is on any for your entire trip with an extra few days supply to spare if any delays in returning occur.
All cats need regular veterinary care. So if you do provide regular veterinary care, a pre trip cat veterinary visit may sound like it is redundant, but it will give you a sense of security that you cat does not have any unknown diseases that could ruin or shorten your trip.
