
One of the most difficult decisions I knew I had to make before moving Taiwan was what to do with my pets.
With a heavy heart I decided to give my goldfish to the pet store I frequented in the hope they’d find a new home in someone elses aquarium. I don’t know if that eventuated but I’d like to think I gave them as good a chance as any at being rehomed.
My cat Cloud was a much more delicate matter. I’d picked him out as a kitten five years prior and for his entire life I’d been all he’d known. People had come and gone but I was his constant. Both of us knew eachother’s entire behavioural spectrum and both of us had been through whatever the last five years had thrown at us together.
Giving him up was simply not an option.
The possibility of bringing him with me was always there but moving to a strange new country I decided against initially bringing Cloud over because the reality was that I didn’t know entirely what life would be like here, or where I’d initially wind up.
The last thing I wanted was to have to face uncertainty whilst trying to lug a cat around a country I myself was learning to navigate.
In the end I gave myself a six month timetable to settle down into a routine and create a stable enough environment to introduce Cloud into. In the meantime he was to temporarily stay at my mum’s, where the two cats there would hopefully stave off any anxiety he had about me leaving.
At least that was the plan. Two days after I left Australia, Cloud went missing.
What’s worse is that I only found out on Christmas eve. Wholly distracted by the experiences of life in a new country over the first few weeks of being here I hadn’t thought to ask about Cloud since I’d left.
And when I did… that’s when I found out he’d gone missing. My mother had sought to keep this from me for the time being as she figured I’d probably have enough on my plate without worrying about Cloud having gone missing.
That in itself was fair enough, but the weeks turned into months and gradually I came to accept that Cloud was gone.
Having moved on with my life and made peace with Cloud’s disappearance… it was roughly ten months later that I got a phonecall informing me he’d been found.
A woman who had been caring for Cloud had brought him into a vet and upon scanning his microchip, contacted my mother wondering why her name was on the chip of this lady’s cat.
Long story short, I then had to make the call on whether we left Cloud in the care of this woman or, although delayed, fell back on my original plan to eventually bring him to Taiwan.
Somewhat feeling like I’d already let him down, mixed with some of my own selfishness at the thought of other people looking after him, I decided to stick to my original plan and have him brought here.
For anyone else wondering what the rough process is or the costs involved with bringing a pet to Taiwan, having gone through the experience myself, today I thought I’d share my experience. [Read the rest of this entry...]