Are you moving your pet to Panama?

Greetings, there are many things to do when you want to travel to Panama with your dog or cat.  The steps are easy but need to be done.  Now we are taking our dog to Panama and are flying on Continental using their PetSafe Flying program.  You see our dog is a bit too big to fit under the seat so we needed a good safe cargo area to travel with.  Continental seems to me to have the best and safest situation if you need to place your pet in cargo.  The biggest things to pay attention to is health and vaccine records and timing of getting any shots and signatures.  You also need to make sure your Vet is USDA certified with a proper license in the state they work, now we live in Florida so have chosen Banfield Hospital (every Petsmart has a Banfield in it across the country).
Here are the steps
1. make sure your pet has an up to date Rabies shot, no more than 1 year old but more than 30 days old.
2. within 10 days of flying to Panama see your Vet and have them fill out the proper forms to certify that your pet is OK to travel
3. take the forms to your local USDA office for their official stamp (or mail it)
4. take completed certified forms to your local Panamanian Consulate Office for their final stamp of approval (or mail it to the main DC office)
5. At least 3 days before your flight leaves you either need to email or fax all documents to the Ministry of Health, this will help insure you get your pet out of customs and allow you to bring the pet home with you and do an at home quarantine (this you want to do for sure)
6. When you arrive in Panama you must go to the National Bank on the first floor and pay the required fee to bring your pet home for quarantine, show the receipt to the Vet on duty for release of your pet

I know this seems like a lot of steps but these are necessary and required for entrance into Panama.  Let us know if you have any questions on this or if you are aware of any issues that you may have had bringing your pet into Panama