Finally my Indian cats leave quarantine

Yesterday was the day my two Indian, or rather, Mumbai street cats left quarantine in Britain to enter their new home and start a new life in Somerset.
It was an emotional day.

I collected the cats from their quarantine pen in Britain where they have been staying since arriving from India

If you want to import animals from non EU countries, that still have rabies (such as India) into the UK, the cat or dog has to be put in a quarantine kennel for six months. There are a few exceptions, such as the USA and Hong Kong, but in the case of most non EU countries, including India, South Africa and Dubai, the British law currently states that the pet has to go into quarantine at the owner's expense. It is a derogation from EU law as usually Britain has to do whatever the EU does (and the EU does not have such strict regulations for importing animals) but somehow Defra has got consent not to follow the EU on this matter. The cost of putting my two cats into quarantine was £3,000 (Rs 2 Lakh Rs 20,000) and that excluded the cost of flights.

Some people are against quarantine as they believe, apart from being outdated, it is unpleasant for the animals and the owners. I guess if you look at humans, they arrive in airports every day carrying diseases, but they are not put into quarantine (unless they have swine flu!)  Quarantine was introduced into Britain more than 100 years ago, so it is certainly an ancient law and science has certainly progressed since then. In fact, there are now blood tests which can prove an animal has been vaccinated against rabies, which most countries use, so one wonders why quarantine is still in place in Britain. Another problem is that the costs are very prohibitive so many people are tempted to smuggle their animals in via Dover into the UK inside their cars. Scores of animals are caught entering the UK this way, and their owners  prosecuted, but I wonder how many more get through without ever being caught? That is a worrying thought.

A picture of the large quarantine pen with the door closed. This is where the two cats were kept.

In my case, the quarantine kennel staff did their best to make my cats' stay pleasant and there were plenty of toys and scratch boards inside their airy pen so I am very grateful. However, I don't think the cats especially enjoyed it. Being locked up, with the sounds of dogs barking nearby and random cats and people coming and going, without their owner present, was quite distressing. This of course would have happened in any kennel. Fortunately since they were Mumbai cats, they were fairly resilient and adapted quite quickly, often quicker than the other posh pedigree cats inside. It was funny because whenever I visited my older cat she would be thrilled to see me and then ignore me - to punish me for leaving her there, similar to the behaviour you might see from a woman in  love with a man who was upset he went away too much. The younger cat, however, was very frightened at first and hid in a box all day, refusing to greet me at all. I had to buy a special infuser called Feliway to stimulate her to come out. It eventually worked as it imitated her own scent and spread her smell around the room.

What I learnt from all this was that a cat is very attached to its owner, not to its physical home - thus exploding the myth that cats are attached to a place and not a person. During the period of my cats being in quarantine, even  if I did not visit them  for two weeks, they knew exactly who I was. When I took the cats out yesterday, they knew who I was. They never ever forgot.

Yesterday morning they arrived at their new country home, a world away from their previous home in Mumbai and quarantine.

I arrive home with the two cats

I introduced them to the garden first, in their cages, so they could see it.

One cat takes a look at the garden...She isn't allowed to go outside for a few weeks.

Dozens of birds were tweeting, country smells filled the air and they seemed ecstatic. This was like Paradise for them. Then I took them upstairs to my bedroom. They were astonished and curious and dashed around, sniffing every corner, opening every cupboard door and checking out the view from the window. After about an hour and a half, they had cottoned on to the fact this was their new home. The younger one, who usually hid in quarantine as as she was nervous, sat on my bed and stretched out on her back, waiting to be stroked on her tummy. I did and she started purring, for the first time ever since landing in England. She had not purred once in quarantine, no matter how much I stroked her on my visits. She was smart. She knew she was back with me and this was our home. She was in fact way smarter than I realised. That is why I dispute the belief that cats are attached to places, not people. My cats did not care this was not the Bandra flat. There were no signs of either of them missing their old lives, the hot weather of India, Mumbai, or even their quarantine kennel. They both had lived with me all their lives and now we were back together and that was all that seemed to count. They were most definitely attached to a person and not a place.

Little did they know there was a lot more to my house than the bedroom, but I was undertaking one step at a time. The next day they would get to see the conservatory. I needed them to feel secure, so that when I did eventually let them in the garden, they recognised the house as their home. Naturally they ignored the expensive scratch board I had bought, preferring to claw up the carpet and ignored the expensive cat bed, preferring my bed.

I put the radio on and settled down to do some work on my laptop. But before long the older cat had jumped onto my dressing table and kicked the cafetiere over, spilling coffee and granules all over the till then stain-free carpet.  As soon as I had mopped that up, the younger cat jumped across my desk, spilling a half drunk cup of tea over my papers in her stride. I saw this just in time to rescue the laptop. Next the younger cat got a fetish for the roses in a vase on the window sill. As she bit and pulled at a stalk, the vase wobbled and the water and vase went flying.

Both cats check my bedroom out

Next the elder cat jumped up on the bookshelf, pushing the cordless phone and all the ornaments off.

This was just like having kids, it dawned on me, as I took away all the ornaments, vases and coffee mugs and redesigned my room in a cat-friendly manner. I should have done it before they arrived.

At night, I moved them into the conservatory. Since it is made up only of glass, they had a full view of the garden. I went to bed worried about them and set my alarm clock for 3am so I could go down and check on them. Rather than finding them asleep, I was shocked to find the elder cat frozen in a defensive aggressive position, with her fur all stuck up on end. Her tail had tripled its thickness and she looked frightened out of her mind. I realised she must have come face to face with a badger or fox through the glass. I stroked her and went back to sleep, setting my alarm clock for 7am so I could go and check on them again. As a result I felt exhausted this morning. There was so much more I needed to show them and teach  them. It was just like having a new baby or toddler in  the house and I felt just as exhausted as a new parent claims to.

In fact, for the first time ever, I started to appreciate how tired new parents must feel. Until now I had never quite understood the responsibilities my friends faced being a parent, since I was footloose and single myself.  But now that had changed somewhat. I sometimes couldn't quite believe that a  street cat and her daughter from Mumbai were now in my home. It seemed at once absurd and at once a miracle. "You should write a story about their lives and call it Slumcat Millionaire, " my Dad joked.

Exhausted

The Indian cats' big adventure

A week before my cats were due to fly from Mumbai to London, my worst fear was realised: I came down with fever, diarrhoea and vomiting.
The diarrhoea was, in fact, green. Loss of appetite was unsurprising.
That same day the freight forwarding agent, that I had been forced to employ, to fly two non pedigree Indian felines back to England (since cats are only allowed to fly as cargo to the UK) rang me and said he required a load of original documents, even though I had scanned in dozens the week before.

I could barely move. I spent the previous three days in bed, unable to eat. I could not think of a single person I could ask who would be prepared to carry the documents to his office for me, and was certainly not going to trust a courier company with them, so I sank into a low point, wondering if I had any ‘real’ friends in Mumbai.
Yes, I had plenty that wanted to meet in a café or a bar for a glass of wine. But who would voluntarily do some work for me? I rang a Bandra friend, who had a car, to see if he would at least drive me to the guy’s office, so that if I had ‘an emergency on the way’ (read: diarrhoea) he could stop the vehicle; since a regular cab driver may not get it if I started waving my hands wildly. But my car-owning ‘friend’ did not answer my calls or texts.
Next my maid showed up. Every day when I was sick, her first concern had been my health the minute she walked in the door. She offered to accompany me to see her doctor. It dawned on me, that apart from my cats, she was my only real friend.

I told her my latest dilemma and we agreed I had no option but to go myself, despite my ill health. Together we packed four loo rolls and towels for the event of ‘an accident’ in the cab, and off I went…scared.

But luckily God was on my side as the cab driver a) spoke English and b) was unfazed when I told him my predicament (that I may vomit or have diarrhoea in his vehicle.) In fact, I have always found in India that whenever things go really wrong and reach their lowest point, suddenly there will always be a silver lining. And there was. So, I reached the office ‘sans’ accident and the cab driver, clearly feeling for me, gave me his number and told me he would pick me up later. I felt less like the world was caving in all at once.

After several hours of signing forms in the cramped hot freight forwarding office, I felt faint, having not eaten for three days, so bought a mini Five Star bar from a dusty roadside stall outside.
Ten minutes after eating it the same bar reappeared in vomit all over the freight forwarding office bathroom. I was amazed at how much sick a tiny chocolate bar could produce.
The office had a water shortage (as did several parts of the Mumbai suburbs at that time) and there was no running water from the tap. Wrenching at the sight of my own sick, and feeling embarrassed to have ruined the office’s only bathroom, I promptly left.
Outside I rang the cab driver who said he would be an hour, so I took a rickshaw to a nearby five star hotel. As always with Indian five stars, you are treated like God, even though you may be pale, have fever, vomiting and have not have eaten for a week.
The fact I was carrying two large cat carriers did not faze the poshly-dressed doormen either. I glided to the hotel bar, pretending I was Julia Roberts, and sat down, hoping no one would realise I may vomit any second.
Despite the waitresses attempts at suggesting I order a special creamy mocktail, I went for a lime soda. “I am a tad under the weather, and can’t really handle a mocktail,” I said in the biggest understatement of the year. After barely sipping a fifth of the Rs200 drink, the cab driver rang me to say he was outside. I glided to the Ladies. 10 times the amount I had consumed of lime soda suddenly appeared as vomit across the five star hotel’s Ladies’ toilet. Wrenching at the sight again, I left the hotel and got in the cab. My godlike driver drove the cat carriers and me home.

By the time the day of the cats’ flight came, my infection had cleared up owing to a powerful drug called Orni-O …But the bureaucratic marathon was far from over. Despite having spent weeks filling in forms, photographing the cats, getting vet certificates and letters and scanning them all, in, nothing appeared to be ready and everything still appeared to be chaotic.

Getting ready to fly

I reached the freight office and for the 100th time the cats had to get weighed and measured, more documents needed sorting, before we arrived Nightmare on Elm Street 13 aka Mumbai cargo complex. This is a dark, scary, noisy place. Thirty men immediately surrounded the two cat carriers plonked in a wheelbarrow and me.
“To them, what you are doing is like putting two cockroaches in a cage and taking them back to England,” a helpful English friend had told me.

The flight cost Rs 50,000 and the quarantine at least four times that…”Would you spend that amount on a human?” an Indian friend had asked me earlier that week. “No,” I had said.
And I had meant it… Well, not unless the human meant as much to me as my cats. Would my Indian friend spend that on a random human? Unlikely.
My English friends were equally bemused at the cost. But do I judge them on what they spend their money on? Like skiing holidays… No. My cats are priceless. A value cannot be put on them.

I did not sedate the cats, despite several Mumbai vets recommending this. The customs official was nastier than expected…He told me to open both cages and let the cats out in the middle of the open cargo complex, with planes taking off and vehicles moving everywhere. I refused, pointing out the cats may escape as they were scared stiff. He would not budge. In a naïve moment of exhaustion and anger, I said “Do you realise I am a journalist?” He replied: “ I don’t care where you work” and our relationship soured even further. I quickly realised that comment had not been the best move, and there was every chance the cats may not get on the plane, a point reinforced when my freight forwarding agent helpfully informed me that the previous night a dog flying to America had not been allowed to board as at the last minute as the customs official had deemed the cage to be too small.

There was no vet present and no animal handler to hold my cats, and there was every chance they would escape. But with little option, I unwired the cages and lifted them both out.
Luckily they were so frightened, all they wanted to do was jump back in the cage.
Next the customs official demanded a funnel to feed water to the cats. Naturally, we didn’t have one.
Where anyone would get a funnel from at 10pm near Mumbai cargo complex was beyond me. But miraculously, it was possible. The agent sent off some boy and he returned with a funnel round his neck.

Several hours later, after the customs official had leafed through all my documents, and scared me and my agent as much as possible, claiming documents were missing then magically finding them, I was told to leave.

Needless to say I did not got to bed but stayed up all night tracking the flight on the web.

At 5am I rang Heathrow and, using my journalistic skills, managed to get through to the exact people who collect animals from planes…Amazingly my cats were expected!…. At 7.30am I rang again and the cats had landed. “Are they alive?” I asked. “ I think so,” the man said. My heart skipped a beat. “Please check.” I heard his feet patter off. Silence. He retuned “Yeah, they are alive.”…”Do they need feeding? Are they ok?” Silence followed apart from the patter of his feet. “They look alright to me.”

Hours later, an email arrived. “Your cats have reached the quarantine kennels,” is all it said. I nearly fell off my chair. I rang up the kennels straight away from India. “Are they covered in urine? Are they starving?

“No, they are fine.”

“It’s a miracle. How did they get there in one piece?”

“We didn’t expect anything less. We do this every day,” she said. “Goodbye.”

Sleep-deprived, I collapsed on a heap on my bed in my Bandra flat. “Its normally the pet owners that require sedating more than the pets,” the freight forwarding agent had told me. He was right.

If you need any kind of advice on flying pets overseas, please put your question in the comments section and I will be happy to reply.

A frightened cat knowing something is up