We moved our dog from Moscow to Phuket. Here's what 90 days actually looked like.

In April 2025 a family from Moscow contacted us about a 4-bedroom villa in Cherngtalay. They had the budget sorted, the kids' schooling half-figured-out, and one non-negotiable that overrode everything else: their 6-year-old Russian Shepherd, Layla, was coming with them. Not boarded in Moscow, not rehomed, not left with grandparents "for the first year." Coming. This is the 90-day timeline that actually unfolded — the missteps included — because the honest version is more useful than the brochure version.

Why we start with the timeline, not the villa. Most families call us about the house first and the dog second. We've learned to reverse it. A pet move to Thailand runs on a fixed biological clock — vaccines have to mature, permits have a shelf life, and one out-of-order step can reset the whole sequence. If the dog's paperwork isn't started early enough, the villa lease and the flights end up waiting on the animal, not the other way around. So before we showed this family a single floor plan, we mapped Layla's 90 days. The rule we gave them is the same one on our pet relocation guide: 90 days minimum, not weeks, and the sequence is sacred.

Day −85: the microchip that almost cost them everything. Layla had been chipped as a puppy, so the family assumed step one was already done. It wasn't. Her old chip was an AVID model — not ISO 11784/11785-compliant, which is the standard Thai quarantine scanners read. An unreadable chip is, for paperwork purposes, no chip at all. A new ISO chip went into the back of her neck. Here is the part that trips up more families than any other single thing: the chip has to be implanted before the rabies vaccine, not after. The reasoning is chain-of-trust — the rabies record has to be tied to a scannable, permanent ID. If your rabies shot predates a valid chip, that vaccination doesn't count for import, and you start the clock over. We flag this in every pet conversation we have, and we still see people get caught by it.

Day −82: rabies and the core vaccines. Three days after the new chip, Layla got her rabies booster alongside her core dog vaccines — DHPP and Leptospirosis (the cat equivalent is FVRCP). The vet logged everything against the new chip number, which is the whole point of doing the chip first. Two timing windows matter here and they pull in opposite directions: the rabies vaccination generally needs to be at least 21 days old before arrival, but still current (not expired). That's why Day −82 works and a panic-booster the week before the flight does not. If your only goal is to fly next month, the math simply won't close — the antibodies need time.

Day −60: the import permit (R1/1). Thailand's Department of Livestock Development issues the import permit, and it's valid for 60 days — which is exactly why you don't apply for it too early. Apply at day −90 and it expires before you fly. This family submitted through the Russian agriculture ministry as the chain-of-trust link between the two countries, and the permit came back 11 days later. Different countries route this differently — in the US it runs through USDA APHIS, in the UK through DEFRA — but the principle is identical: your home country's agriculture authority vouches for the animal, and Thailand's authority accepts that endorsement. You can also apply online or directly via the destination airport's Animal Quarantine Station. The 60-day window is the real constraint to plan backward from.

Day −30: booking, and the airline decision nobody tells you about. Pet transport is where the smooth-on-paper plan meets airline reality. The family booked Aeroflot Moscow → Bangkok with the dog in cargo, then a domestic transfer Bangkok → Phuket. They had looked hard at Emirates via Dubai, and on paper Dubai is a fine pet-routing hub. Two things tipped them to Aeroflot. First, the summer cargo embargo: in hot months many carriers refuse to fly snub-nosed and heat-sensitive breeds in cargo at all, and route restrictions shift with the season. Second, cost — roughly $1,800 versus $750 for the route they chose. The lesson isn't "always fly Aeroflot." It's that pet cargo pricing and breed rules vary wildly by airline, route, season and crate size, so you price the animal's journey as its own project, not a line item on a passenger ticket. Confirm pet routing in writing before you commit to dates.

Day −8: the health certificate and three trips to a rural office. Within ten days of travel, a government-accredited vet issues the health certificate — and this is the step that ate the most patience. The certificate has a short validity window (about ten days), so it can't be done early, and it has to be stamped and endorsed exactly right by the country's agriculture authority. For this family that meant three separate trips to a rural agriculture office to get the paperwork corrected and stamped properly, and the English translation apostilled. None of it was hard, exactly. It was just unforgiving of small errors — a missing endorsement, a wrong date, a translation that wasn't certified — and each correction meant another drive. Build slack into this week. Assume you'll go back at least once.

Day −1: the boring step that saves you at the counter. Originals in the carry-on, never the checked luggage. A full scan or photo set as backup. Crate confirmed to IATA dimensions — the right size, ventilation and labeling, because an undersized or non-compliant crate can get an animal refused at check-in regardless of how perfect the medical file is. This is the night to lay everything out on the bed and check it against the list one more time, calmly, instead of discovering a gap at 4am at the airport.

Day 0: the airport, which went faster than they feared. Arrival at Bangkok, and the Animal Quarantine Station inspection at 06:30. Permit checked, vaccines checked, chip scanned. With a complete, correctly-ordered file, this is usually a same-day release measured in hours, not a stint in quarantine — and that's exactly how it went. Layla was cleared the same morning and on the 14:00 domestic flight to Phuket. The thing worth internalizing: Thailand isn't trying to keep your healthy, properly-documented dog out. The quarantine station is checking the paperwork chain, and if the chain holds, you walk out together. Almost every airport horror story traces back to a broken link earlier — usually that chip-before-rabies rule.

Day +1 onward: the part the checklist can't cover. Layla settled into the Cherngtalay villa, and the honest detail is that she didn't bounce back instantly. It took her four days to start eating normally — new smells, jet lag, tropical heat, an unfamiliar floor under her feet. About three weeks later she was patrolling the garden like she owned it. This is normal, and it's a real argument for choosing the right house. A long-stay villa with a private, walled garden and indoor air-conditioning gives a relocated animal somewhere safe to decompress that an apartment or a hotel can't. Shade, water, a quiet corner away from the front gate, and a routine that looks a little like the old one — that's most of the settling-in plan.

What it actually cost, and what we'd tell you up front. The total pet relocation budget came to ฿58,000 — about $1,650 — and the total elapsed time from decision to dog-in-villa was 92 days. That sits at the lower end of the typical range, because they handled the legwork themselves rather than hiring a door-to-door relocation service, which buys convenience but adds cost. The bigger numbers in a pet move are almost always the airline cargo and, if you use one, the relocation agent — the vet steps and the permit are comparatively minor. None of this is the reason to leave a dog behind; it's the reason to start ninety days out instead of thirty.

A few honest caveats before you start. Not every animal can come. Pit Bull Terriers and American Staffordshire Terriers are banned outright, pets under four months can't travel, and snub-nosed breeds face airline cargo refusals on top of the rules — so if your dog is one of those, the conversation is different and you want to have it early. Rules and fees also shift, and our timeline is the shape of the process, not a substitute for confirming the current requirements with the airline and the Department of Livestock Development for your specific country and breed. When in doubt, speak qualitatively to your vet and over-prepare on documents.

If you're weighing a move with an animal, the kindest thing you can do for both of you is start the clock now and choose a house that gives the pet room to land softly. We help families line up the two halves of this — the relocation sequence and a villa that actually fits a dog or a cat — so neither one waits on the other. When you're ready, tell us your brief (breed, timeline, must-haves) and we'll match pet-friendly villas to it, or read the full step-by-step on our pet timeline. Bring the dog. It's more doable than it looks — it just isn't fast.