Moving Our Dog from Perth to NZ with Petraveller

Our experience — a first-hand account of moving our own dog, not a sponsored review.

Moving a dog internationally isn't like moving your furniture. Vaccination timelines, biosecurity paperwork, and flight logistics all have to line up in a specific order, weeks or months before you actually travel — and if you leave it too late, your options narrow fast. We moved our dog from Perth, Western Australia to Papamoa, New Zealand, and used Petraveller to arrange the international pet transport and relocation. This is what actually happened on our Australia-to-New-Zealand move, including the parts that didn't go smoothly at first.

If you want the domestic side of moving with a pet once your dog is actually in New Zealand — car travel, ferries, flights, settling in — our Moving with Pets guide covers that separately from the international side this article is about.

The biggest lesson: start earlier than we did

We didn't give ourselves as much lead time as we should have. Because of our timing, Petraveller wasn't able to arrange their preferred veterinary pathway for us. Instead, they gave us specific instructions and dates to follow with our own vet in Perth.

It still worked, but it meant less room for error and a lot more coordination on our part, at exactly the point in the process where we could have used the buffer.

Petraveller currently says international pet travel typically takes around 6-12 weeks, though the exact timing depends on the destination and your own circumstances — that's guidance from them, not a fixed rule that applies to everyone. Pets coming directly from Australia have a comparatively simpler biosecurity pathway into New Zealand than pets arriving from many other countries — under MPI's current requirements, dogs and cats arriving directly from Australia do not require an import permit or routine quarantine, but they still need to meet the applicable veterinary and biosecurity requirements and be presented for MPI clearance on arrival. The exact requirements can change, so check MPI's current rules before travelling. Whatever the real timeline turns out to be for your situation, our experience is a genuine argument for starting as early as you possibly can, and for checking MPI's current requirements before assuming you have more time than you actually do.

How Petraveller helped us navigate the veterinary requirements

One of the things we appreciated most was how closely Petraveller monitored the process once it was underway. They repeatedly reconfirmed dates with us to make sure everything would still line up correctly as things progressed.

At one point, we got confused about one of the more complicated MPI documents and weren't confident we'd understood the timing correctly ourselves. Rather than leaving us to work it out alone, Petraveller checked the situation directly and told us to adjust our dates. That gave us real confidence the veterinary work and paperwork were actually happening in the right sequence — not just that we hoped they were.

The medication issue — and how Petraveller resolved it

Even while we were following Petraveller's specific instructions, our Perth vet ended up administering a medication that wasn't officially the one required. Petraveller identified the problem, promptly requested the correct medication, and worked directly with us and our vet to get it sorted.

We don't think the mistake itself is the important part here — we'd left things later than ideal, and the process was already more complicated than it needed to be because of that. What stood out was how quickly Petraveller spotted and responded to something that wasn't right, and how much effort they put into resolving it before it had any chance of affecting our dog's departure.

The flight change that avoided a potential departure-day problem

The part of the experience that impressed us most happened a few days before departure, not on the day itself. The forecast temperature in Perth was expected to exceed the safe temperature for animals on the runway on our planned departure day.

Rather than waiting to see what happened, Petraveller proactively changed the flight to depart later, once temperatures would be safer. Because they made that call days in advance rather than at the last minute, we avoided a situation where our dog might not have been able to fly at all — with the added complication of needing MPI checks redone over a weekend if that had happened.

For us, this was the clearest demonstration of what an experienced pet relocation company is actually for: not just booking the original flight, but actively watching the journey and being willing to change the plan before a problem becomes real.

Would we use Petraveller again?

Yes. Based on our own experience relocating our dog from Perth to New Zealand, Petraveller is a company we'd be comfortable recommending to someone making the same journey.

That's our personal experience, not a guarantee that every customer's experience will be identical, and it isn't a claim that they're "the best" or the only option worth considering. We used one pet relocation company for one move, and this article is about what happened on that one trip.

Planning your own move

Some of the veterinary steps in a pet relocation like ours have to happen inside specific windows before departure — exactly the kind of task that's easy to get wrong if it's just sitting on a to-do list rather than tied to an actual date. Whether you're moving to New Zealand with a dog from Australia or elsewhere, Navaroa's personalised moving timeline can help line up tasks like this against your actual move date, alongside everything else an international move involves -- sorting your visa or entry status, setting up currency exchange, shipping the rest of your belongings, and, if you're relocating rather than just visiting, checking your NZ tax residency status.

• Need the full domestic pet-moving process once you've landed? Read our Moving with Pets in New Zealand guide.
• Still on the Australian side of the move? If you're also relocating house within Australia before an international flight, our Moving with Pets in Australia guide covers the domestic side separately.
• Bringing a pet into New Zealand yourself? Our pet biosecurity clearance task covers what MPI actually requires, including the simpler pathway that applies specifically to pets coming from Australia.
• Want to use the company we used? Petraveller is who we worked with for this move.

This article describes our own experience moving one dog from Perth to Papamoa. It isn't official guidance and isn't a substitute for checking current MPI requirements or your chosen pet transport provider's own instructions — both can change, and your situation may differ from ours.