Making an International Move with Pets

Embarking on an international move to teach abroad, whether for the first time or when seeking a new location, is always filled with excitement and unknowns. Making an international move with pets can compound unknowns, and add anxiety. However, with some leg work and a good amount of patience, taking your pets when you move abroad is possible.

Researching the laws for the import of pets for the countries you are interested in is essential. You may find that the pet import rules are less stringent than you thought. On the other hand, the country you were interested in may make it extremely expensive, difficult, or, more rarely, even impossible to bring in your pet. For example, a few countries place strong restrictions on dogs coming in from other countries with a high risk of rabies, and a several-month quarantine may be necessary. For other countries, a rabies titer test may be required, and the whole process from vaccination to blood draw to test results could take months. With prior research, you can focus your time and energy on seeking jobs in countries where bringing your pet will be feasible. 

Additionally, it is necessary to learn about the housing options available to you. If you will be living in school-provided housing, do they allow pets? If not, will the school provide you with a housing stipend to seek out your own? If finding your own housing, reach out to your future colleagues or join local Facebook groups for the city you will be moving to for insights into daily life with pets there. Often, these groups can be sources for information such as which neighborhoods might be more dog-friendly, what cultural considerations to keep in mind, and recommendations for veterinarians, pet sitters and boarding facilities, etc. If you have a dog, also think about housing aspects. For example, is a single-family home or townhome with a garden a possibility? If you are in a high-rise apartment complex, will you be able to get your dog outside easily for walks or bathroom breaks?

The most nerve-wracking part of the international move process may be actually transporting your pet to a new location. Some airlines allow small dogs and cats to be carried onto the plane if they meet the weight and carrier dimension restrictions. Other airlines will not allow pets in-cabin due to cultural reasons or customs restrictions. Either way, if you have a larger pet, the pet will most likely need to travel in the hold as excess baggage or cargo. Typically, traveling on the same flight with your pet as excess baggage will be much more cost-effective than shipping your pet separately from you as cargo. You can make your pet more comfortable in its crate by gradually getting them used to spending longer periods of time inside it. Usually, it is necessary to book the pet ahead of time, as there are limits on the number of pets in the cabin and/or in the baggage hold each flight. Often you will need to make your flight reservation and then call airline customer service to actually book your pet onto your ticket/reservation. 

Moving with your pets can add a layer of complexity to an international move. However, with prior research and a great deal of flexibility, you can help ensure that your pet can join you on your next adventure abroad.

Getting ready to check in at the airline desk.
Long dog walks on the beach in Morocco.
A garden for the dogs at home in Vietnam.

This article was submitted by ISC member, Stephanie Shiers. She has over 10 years of experience teaching English as an Additional Language and Social Sciences in the USA, Morocco, and Vietnam. Currently, she is working as a High School Social Studies teacher at St. Paul American School Hanoi in Vietnam. She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Education.

Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas #7: Try to understand the host country’s perspective.

Try to understand the host country’s perspective.

It would be quite the task to encapsulate an entire country’s significant culture, or even try to boil it down to a few key points. The thing is when you try to define nationality, you resort to simply creating a stereotypical object, which might embrace everything, but really fails to bring out anything significant. It’s the illusion that we can create anything objectively.

But maybe it’s an ancient romantic hope that globalization hasn’t completely devoured us all, and then spit us out as these uniformed clones that all march to the same beat. But when you scratch beneath the surface, and look beyond the fact that we’re all listening to Adele, going to the movies and seeing Transformers #1001, or buying our clothes at H&M, maybe there’s this thing I call “country habitus”?

Habitus can be described as some kind of objective consciousness; how we react, how we think, or how we experience. It’s the significant! It is what describes and sets us apart, it’s our lifestyle somehow put into a template. Habitus is derived from French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and is usually used to summarize people into certain groups based on symbolic capital, which again is how we act based on our status and prestige in society. Can the same be transferred to a country?

To each other, international school teachers often talk about certain common traits in the various countries they have lived in or traveled to.  Albeit very generalizing and objectively, there might be truth to what we say sometimes. You often hear that Scandinavians are very happy people, that Germans are very pragmatic and industrious, or that Americans are much more hospitable than Europeans in general. These are of course very favorable traits, but maybe the traits change depending on who you are, maybe some think that the Scandinavians are very somber and dark, that the Germans are very stubborn and unwavering, and the Americans are ignorant and too self-absorbed. The thing is that you want to paint a good picture of yourself and showcase the best and most favorable traits, while still maintaining something significant. Your own country’s habitus.

We always somehow reflect ourselves in what we think we are, and what we definitely think we aren’t. We belong to a certain kind of culture, maybe only for a short period of time, and then move on. But in that culture we can reflect, feel we fit in, and feel a kind of cohesion, both as an individual and also as a people of a country. We bring our habitus with us wherever we go.

“Try to understand the host country perspective”. When we arrive at our next international school post, we all come with our own perspective, our own upbringing, and our own culture. It’s very easy to dismiss others as being brought up the wrong way or having a culture that we don’t really understand at all, and thereby find useless or unnecessary. There’s a certain prestige in being elitist or being charitable, and having the sense that you contain and understand all traits. Bob Dylan once wrote: “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.” Back in the 1960’s we assumed people were more open-minded and free-spirited, since then a lot has changed. This world has been through a lot, and maybe the distance between us has grown both smaller and wider. There is a huge difference between everyday life in South Africa and Scandinavia, maybe we all make status updates on Facebook and poke our friends virtually, but how we live, and how we are raised are still very different.

It may take some time for international school teachers to observe the host country.  To find and then understand the multiple perspectives of the host country is a challenging task.  After a two-year posting at an international school, you are bound to know more than when you first arrived there.

So objectivity or an Archimedean point may not completely exist. If we sat down with an entire country’s people and asked them to come up with one significant trait of themselves, it would probably be impossible.  And why even try to minimize an entire nation’s rich culture, just to make it more accessible? International school teachers encounter new perspectives every day, and what is the easiest way to deal with these? Emphatically!

This article was submitted anonymously by an ISC member. Check out the rest of the 10 Commandments of Relocated Overseas here.

New Teacher Orientation Must-Haves at International Schools #1: A Trip Around the City

In this blog series, we talk about the ins and outs of an excellent new teacher orientation program at an international school.  A new teacher orientation program can really play a very important part in your start at your new school, in your new host country.

Must-have #1: A Trip Around the City

A friend just told me that there is a hidden rule amongst international school teachers, and that is that you shouldn’t accept any visitors to visit your new home in your new host country within the first six months of living there.  I suppose that is true in some ways and not true in other ways. 

One time I did have a friend visit me during the first three months.  It was actually their first time out of their home country, so it was an important event in this person’s life. At the time, I don’t remember thinking, “Oh, this person shouldn’t visit me right now because I haven’t lived here for at least six months.”  I do remember thinking though, “How cool my friend is coming to visit me!” I disregard how horrible and ineffective I might be as a host for them.

We actually had a good time.  One pro of having a good friend come to visit you within the first three months is that you get to do some exploring of the city together.  One con though is that after one to two years of living in some place, you obviously then know better all of the cool and really fun places to bring people; places that you definitely didn’t know about during the first three months.  Isn’t it all about impressing your friends with your wonderful new city when they come to visit?!

So, back to the topic at hand. Should your new international school be organizing a trip around the city for all their new teachers?  The answer is YES! 

Sure, you could organize this trip yourself (for example just hop on the local tourist bus….see picture), but it is indeed a nice gesture when your new school does this for you (and possibly pays for the tourist bus fee).

It is great when your school does it because your school is the one that knows best how to do this kind of exploring around the city…because they have been living there longer than you!  Also, you might be in a country where you don’t speak the local language.  Your new school could bridge that language gap for you and the other new teachers that have started with you.  Additionally, it is possible that your new city might have not joined the whole touristic bus phenomenon that has “plagued” many of the big cities around the world just yet (though many do believe it is a great way to familiarize yourself with a city and to effectively get around the city…in a fast-like way…and also in a cost-effective way).  If this is the case, then getting around your new city via the metro system and/or bus system might prove to be a bit stressful depending on the city you have moved to (e.g. reading Chinese characters on the bus instead of seeing any bus numbers on it).  If the school can help be a “tour guide” for one day, they can show you all the ropes about getting around the city; thus preparing you to do it yourself next week (e.g. the bus you need to take to get to the big grocery store).

One international school I worked at organized a scavenger hunt for the new teachers that year.  All the new teachers were put in teams of three and were given a list of tasks to complete which involved doing a variety of things around the city.  Each group actually got different lists of things to do.  I think the different lists were so that the other teachers could see the other things that you could do in the city (for it would take too long for one team to do them all in one day).

There was a PowerPoint presentation later on at a whole staff meeting of the teams’ photos from the hunt.  It was very fun to go around the city with two other new teachers.  The individual tasks involved going to specific places of interest in the city, but they also involved finding places that you might go to as a real person living there (i.e. the post office) and completing a task at these places (i.e. buying a stamp). Of course, it was a great bonding experience too.  It was also very fun and funny to watch the presentations.

So, yes.  I hope all international schools around the world have incorporated a trip around the city for their new teachers in their new teacher orientation program.  If you work at an international school right now, we invite you to leave a comment about if your school provided you with a trip around your host city when you first started working there. Search for your school here to submit your comment!

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