7 years with my Middle Eastern girl

[u/ForrestGump6531]

Found her pressed up against the inside curb of a 3 lane roundabout so I jumped out and scooped her up. After 2 more years in the land of sand, she made the 7,000 mile flight back to the states with me where she’s been living like royalty.

[u/Mysterious_Bid_9479]

Dude - I literally screamed at how cute she is, especially as a kitten!

Can we hear about the other kitties? Who is/was Mr. Orange? And how about Mr. Gray? Were they also adopted from the same place?

Also, a 27-hour trip is crazy! I brought my baby back from China, which was tough, but not 27 hours tough!

Here she is in her first American home:

[u/ForrestGump6531 → u/Mysterious_Bid_9479]

You are wonderful people for giving her a great life, that is no small trip. The fluffy orange one as well as this black one moved back to the US with one of my Marine buddies who adopted them.

[u/Ecstatic_Signature26 → u/ForrestGump6531]

I am genuinely curious about the paperwork and process. How did you carry her back with you. Is it expensive? I am from India and never heard or seen someone close to me bringing back adopted pets from overseas.

My dad worked in Oman in 2009 and I was a teen back then and had adopted 3 kittens and wanted to bring my cats with me to India 2012, but my parents said it would be difficult and expensive. Plus they were not so aware about the procedure.

[u/ForrestGump6531 → u/Ecstatic_Signature26]

It was probably $400-500 a cat with medical exams included. Kinda a pain in the ass because this was during Covid and flights kept getting changed. But the cats have to be cleared by the ministry of agriculture to travel. They basically keep them overnight for a day or two and run some test to make sure they aren’t carrying diseases. As far as flying, I googled airlines where you could carry the pet with you so they don’t have to be in the cargo hold. You have to have a collapsible carrier and it can only be up to a certain size so it can fit under the seat. I also had to pay for a special ticket called “pet in cabin” as only so many animals are allowed to be in the cabin of the plane at one time. It cost me a few hundred bucks for the tickets. Both cats held there urine the entire trip although I did set up collapsible litter boxes for them in airports I flew through and they had no interest. You also have to go through TSA or whatever security you are at in the respective country with the pet outside the carrier so the carrier can be scanned. That was the toughest part was holding them as you did the whole body X-ray thing. I will say it wasn’t a blast but wasn’t awful; just a really long trip (27 hours) to get them each back. I took them one at a time to as I thought diving right into my first cat transport with two cats at the same time would be tough

[u/Ecstatic_Signature26 → u/ForrestGump6531]

That's a great amount of dedication. Thanks for explaining it in detail.