I need a pet in my life!

I’ve been lucky enough to have grown up with animals my whole life, in fact I can’t really remember a time when we didn’t have a pet in the house. This definitely contributed to my absolute love of animals, but then again so many people around the world grow up with pets and don’t end up as happy and crazed about them as me.

Amongst my friends, family and even colleagues I am known as the extreme (bordering on psychotic) animal lover. If anyone is going to turn into a crazy cat lady later in life, apparently it’ll be me. I’ve never really taken a big liking to children so I don’t think it’s some sort of maternal instinct, but I would drop everything for an animal in need in a millisecond. There’s something about their helplessness and innocence that just makes me feel like I need to protect them, especially knowing how many people mistreat animals – I struggle to hear about cases of animal cruelty as it can make me cry for days(and I’m not a crier). If anyone has the ability to hurt a helpless animal, then in my eyes they also have the ability to become a psycho serial killer, because it just doesn’t make sense to me.

When it comes to picking my own future dog, I can’t seem to make up my mind between a Yorkie, Pomeranian or Papillion, but this month my ideal dog is the first – a Yorkshire Terrier. I think they are the cutest little things, so playful and fairly easy to train. They can be a little yappy but I have faith in my training abilities.

Since moving out of home a few years ago, I lost ownership of my two beloved kitties to my mum, with whom they now live. They are the ‘family cats’ however I was the one who proudly brought the first one home, and when she gave birth to four beautiful kittens a year later, I sneakily kept one by purposely not finding her a home and thus our two kitty family was born.
They are amazing and I miss them like crazy, but they are much happier living with my mum than they would be in my small one bedroom apartment in which no one is home most of the time anyway!

I never filled their absence with another pet because I always knew that I wanted to move overseas at some point in the future, so over these last few pet-less years my obsession with animals seems to have blown up and I’m slowly driving myself crazy thinking about what dog I can buy and when I can buy it.  In fact, it’s getting me really down knowing that I can’t get a dog for another few years at minimum, as I have no idea where I will be in the next two to five years. I could stay in the UK, I could come back to Australia or I could end up somewhere completely different. How can I commit to 12-15 years in one city, where I can love and care for my pet?

What I didn’t realise is that I can bring a dog (or kitty) from Australia to the UK without having to put it into quarantine because Australia doesn’t have any cases of rabies. This is pretty annoying, mainly because I really could have got a dog 3 years ago and taken it to London with me. Never mind, it’s too late to think of that now.

The biggest downside is that any animals coming to Australia from the UK have to be quarantined for at least a month, and you can’t even visit your animal in that whole time – I think it would break my heart if I had to do that, and so my massive pet dilemma was born. To get a dog or not to get a dog, that is the question.
I’ll have to wait and see when I get to London I guess. If I feel that I love it in the UK and we are going to spend a significant amount of time there, then why not?! Europe is so good with pets – you can always find pet-friendly hotels and restaurants and they even allow your dog to sit with you on the plane.

Later this week I will upload some of my research on bringing pets in and out of the UK, and the customs and quarantine laws around it, but in the meantime, has anyone ever lived with a pet in London? Or have you ever moved overseas with a pet? Do you think I should wait until I’ve officially settled down in life until I buy a dog or should I just bite the bullet and buy one and move it overseas with me (quarantine and all) if the need arises in a few years time?

The London New Girl
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