Moving your dog from Canada to India

We moved from Toronto to Bangalore with our dog Luna at the end of December 2025. Two things scared me before the flight: the airline, and the import paperwork. Both were harder than they should have been, mostly because the rules contradict themselves. This is what I did, what went wrong, and what I'd do differently.

The one decision that matters most: use an agency

I'll say this first because it's the thing I'd tell a friend before anything else. Use a licensed pet relocation agency for the import into India. I used Furry Flyers. It cost ₹25,000 and it's the best money I spent on the whole move.

Here's why. India's import rules are published by AQCS (Animal Quarantine and Certification Services). When you read them, they contradict themselves. The deadline to apply is written four different ways across the government's own pages. The application fee is listed as ₹1,000 on one page and "no charge" on another.

I spent weeks trying to figure the process out myself. I called AQCS, I got my in-laws to call, I emailed them. They answered one email and just pointed me back at the same confusing guidance instead of answering my questions. It burned a lot of time. I asked on Reddit and the answer was unanimous: get an agency, because if you try to do it yourself, AQCS keeps asking you for things that are nowhere in the written requirements.

What the agency did: told me exactly what to prepare, collected it, checked it, and handled the back and forth with AQCS to get the advance NOC (no objection certificate). You cannot board the plane without that NOC. The airline will not load the dog. So this is not optional paperwork.

They also saved me at the airport, which I'll get to.

The order of operations

Rough sequence. Start early. The vet and government appointments are the slow parts.

1. Microchip (if not already done).
2. Vaccines up to date (see below).
3. Book the CFIA endorsement appointment. Book it weeks ahead.
4. Vet fills out the health certificate.
5. CFIA endorses the certificate.
6. Agency submits your documents to AQCS for the advance NOC.
7. Fly.
8. AQCS inspection on arrival, final NOC issued at the airport.

The trap is that steps 4, 5, and 6 all have timing windows that overlap badly, and they are right before your flight. More on that below.

Microchip and vaccines

Microchip

The microchip number is a mandatory field on both the NOC application and the health certificate. Do it before the rabies shot if you can, since some destinations want the rabies given after the chip.

Rabies Vaccine

Luna had a 3-year rabies vaccine from Canada in 2024, still valid when we flew. India didn't accept it. AQCS's import page requires rabies given more than 1 month but within 12 months before you fly, even if your vaccine is a 3-year one. So we had to get her another rabies shot. (Worth knowing: the official Canada health certificate format only asks for rabies "within the manufacturer's recommended time," which conflicts with the 12-month rule on the website. Just get a fresh rabies shot within the year and don't fight it.)

DHPP and leptospirosis vaccines

The official certificate requires distemper, parvovirus, and leptospirosis to be current "within the time limit recommended by the vaccine manufacturer." Lepto is usually annual; DHPP can be up to 3 years I think, but my dog was every year. The certificate just wants them current per the manufacturer's schedule. Luna's were from January 2025 and we landed late December 2025, so they were fine. Get them recorded with vaccine name, batch number, and date.

The health certificate and CFIA endorsement

India has no country-specific certificate on Canada's side. Canada's food inspection agency (CFIA) uses the generic Canadian International Health Certificate for dogs and cats. A CFIA certified vet fills it out and signs it, then a CFIA official vet endorses it. The endorsement has to happen before the dog leaves Canada. In the US, this is handled by USDA certified vets and then endorsed by the USDA itself.

Two things about this step:

• Print it on legal paper. The certificate instructions say to print on legal size (8.5 x 14). My vet printed it on letter size (8.5 x 11) and shrank it to fit. I asked the vet if that was ok. They said yes. It was not. CFIA declined it at the counter.

CFIA endorsement is appointment only, no walk-ins, and I'd booked mine a month in advance (sidebar: you have to call to book the appointment). So when they declined the certificate, I had to drive 30 minutes back to my vet, get a corrected one written, and race back to CFIA before they closed, hoping they'd see me without an appointment. There were a lot of people waiting and they were about to close. They called me up and squeezed me in as the last one of the day.

• Check every batch number yourself. It got worse. My vet had also swapped the batch numbers for the lepto and DHPP vaccines on the certificate. The vaccines were valid, but the numbers were assigned to the wrong ones and didn't match Luna's vaccine passport. My agent caught it. They said they'd verify with their AQCS contact and it would probably be fine, but I didn't want any doubt, so I went back to the vet again the day before we flew, got a corrected certificate, and went back to CFIA again to beg them to see me. They saw me as the last person before lunch on Christmas Eve eve.

So two emergency vet trips and two emergency CFIA trips in the final week, both caused by my vet making mistakes on the form. Check the paper size and check every batch number against the passport yourself and check everything else before you leave the vet's office. Don't assume the vet got it right.

The AQCS advance NOC and the timing trap

This is the part where the rules are confusing as hell.

AQCS wants the advance NOC application submitted at least 7 business days before you land. But the Canadian health certificate is valid for only 10 calendar days from when it's issued, and it has to still be valid when you land. Count backwards from landing in late December with a couple of holidays in the way, and there is no way to make this work. Seven business days before landing was twelve calendar days before landing. It's nonsensical.

This is another argument for the agency. They deal with this timing puzzle for a living and they have the AQCS contact to sort out the ambiguity. I would not want to be interpreting four contradictory deadlines myself with a non-refundable ticket booked.

Luckily for you folks south of the border, I believe the USDA health certificate is valid for 30 days. Though it must be endorsed by the USDA within 10 days of flight departure. More wiggle room for y'all.

Flying with a service dog: Canada to the US to India

Skip to "The regular pet route" if this isn't you.

Luna is an owner-trained psychiatric service dog. At the time we flew, owner-trained service dogs were only recognized for cabin access on flights that touch the US. So we routed through the US.

US rules (the Air Carrier Access Act) require airlines to accept service dogs, including owner-trained ones and psychiatric ones, on any flight to, within, or from the US, including on foreign airlines like Air Canada and Air India when the flight touches the US. Canada's own rules are stricter: Canadian law defines a service dog as one trained by an organization or a professional, so a purely owner-trained dog doesn't qualify on a Canada-only or Canada-to-anywhere-but-the-US itinerary.

(One update since I moved: on June 2, 2026, Air Canada launched a program called Cabin-Ready Canines with K-9 Country Inn that gives owner-trained dogs a paid certification path for Air Canada flights. It's only being tested in the Toronto and Montreal areas so far, and it explicitly does not cover travel to or from the US. So if you're reading this now and your dog is owner-trained without any certification, US routing is still the reliable answer, but check whether the AC path works for you.)

The forms

For a service dog on a US route you need the US DOT Service Animal Air Transportation Form. For any single flight segment of 8 hours or more, you also need the US DOT Service Animal Relief Attestation Form. Airlines ask for these to be submitted at least 48 hours before the flight, but get them in as early as you can as the review takes some time. They cannot charge a fee for the dog, and they can't demand any other documentation.

The Air India problem

My first plan was Air India, on a Toronto to San Francisco to Bangalore route. Their policy says service dogs fly in cabin, fill out the forms. But the website never tells you where to send the forms. I called them something like 20 times and got a different answer every time. Some said you can't fly with a dog. Some said it'll just sort itself out at the airport, don't worry. Some said go to the airport counter. When I went to the Toronto Pearson counter, they said call customer service. I called customer service, they said talk to the airport counter. The counter said they'd ask San Francisco. San Francisco never got back to them or to me. I checked again while writing this: as of July 2026, their page still gives no email or address for the forms. So it wasn't just me. Their policy exists on paper with seemingly no way for a passenger to actually use it.

I was booked with Air India and the ticket was non-refundable, so I was getting worried. What got me out was that Air India changed the itinerary by enough that I had grounds to cancel for the schedule change. They gave me trouble over it and I didn't get part of the fees back, but I got out.

What we actually flew

Toronto to New York on Air Canada, a few days in New York over Christmas with my cousin, then New York to Delhi on American Airlines. Luna was in cabin the whole way. Both airlines just needed the US DOT forms. The transatlantic leg, being long, also needed the relief attestation form. Neither charged a fee for her. The cabin staff on both Air Canada and American were great, every one of them loved Luna, and the whole thing was seamless from that side.

One practical note for the long leg: US carriers want the dog at least 6 months old. Call the accessibility desk well ahead and submit all your documentation. Also, carry all your documentation with you at the airport for a seamless process.

Arrival in Delhi

At Delhi, the AQCS officer looked at the documents. They didn't really examine Luna. There wasn't much of a wait, quicker than I expected. Having every document ready because of Furry Flyers is what made it fast.

Per AQCS's own written procedure, a healthy dog gets the final NOC issued to you right there at the airport, which you then need for customs. Worth knowing your documents should come back to you at this step. Ours didn't, because the AQCS officer didn't know what he was doing. Luckily we had Furry Flyers and they tracked down the AQCS officer and got us the final NOC shortly after we arrived.

So the lesson I learned, in India, have someone who knows the process help you through it. Not just for the dog. For a lot of things.

The domestic leg: Delhi to Bangalore

This was the wild part.

We were avoiding Air India after the runaround, which left a short list of carriers. I ruled out SpiceJet. IndiGo was our first choice because they allow more cabin baggage, but IndiGo doesn't allow dogs in cabin at all, only cargo. Other carriers let small dogs fly in cabin; IndiGo doesn't. So we split up. My wife flew IndiGo with more of the luggage, and I flew Akasa Air with Luna.

Akasa has a service dog policy, but like a lot of the policies here it seemed aimed at guide dogs, not a psychiatric service dog for anxiety. It took a lot of back and forth to get them to agree to take Luna as a service dog. They approved it by email in the end.

Then the airport. Indian airports have security at the entrance who check your documents and bags before you can even go inside. My wife had gone ahead and was already through, so she couldn't come back to help. A guard stopped me at the entrance gate. He didn't speak much English, so I showed him my documents. He called a colleague, who called another, who called a fourth. They talked it over, reviewed everything, and let me in. At the Akasa counter, same thing: they'd never seen this, so the woman at the counter asked her colleagues while I pulled up my approval email, and then she personally walked me over to security. At security they checked all my documents, which is strange because security usually only looks at your bags. They passed me through the scanner, searched my carry-on (I had all my expensive electronics in there, laptops, iPads, a Nintendo Switch, batteries), and the guard decided my rechargeable AA batteries weren't allowed, made up a rule, and confiscated about eight of them. Twenty bucks of batteries. I let it go.

Then another, post-security, checkpoint with another official asking for all the documents and calling colleagues. Then the gate, where the gate staff asked what was going on and called their colleagues. Then the pilot walked up, looked at Luna, and said "what is a service animal? I've never heard of that." That's the moment I started wondering if I was the first person to fly a service animal in India. I don't know if that's true, but it's what it felt like. As I was boarding, the jet-bridge staff chased me down onto the plane: "sir, you're getting on with a dog, what's going on?" I told them yes, I'd already confirmed this with about eight different people, here's the paperwork. Then they asked if I was with the police or the fire department, because those were the only service animals they'd heard of. No, psychiatric service dog.

Everyone was confused, but I had everything in order and the airline had approved it. Nobody had passed that down the chain. Harrowing, but it worked out.

What it cost

Because we were routing through the US for Luna, we had a lot of extra baggage charges. If we'd flown a normal one-stop route through Europe or the Middle East, we'd have paid one set of overweight fees for our extra suitcases, maybe $600. Instead we paid extra baggage on Toronto to New York, New York to Delhi, and Delhi to Bangalore, which got expensive fast. At least a thousand dollars, probably more. Delhi to Bangalore by weight got so pricey that we shipped several suitcases via Blue Dart instead; they arrived a few days after us, no problem.

We didn't pay for hotels: we stayed with my cousin in New York and my wife's cousins in Delhi. But we only had those layovers because of Luna, since doing the whole trip in one shot felt like too much for her.

(We were not charged import duty on our personal belongings, since they were used personal items we carried in rather than shipped. That's a separate topic I'll cover in another guide.)

What I'd do differently

Three things.

1. Go straight to Furry Flyers or another agency. I wasted weeks trying to decode the AQCS process myself before I hired them. This whole guide probably reads like an ad for them, but the relief and the time it saved were worth far more than ₹25,000.
2. Don't fight Air India. Their policy says they allow service dogs, but I couldn't find any way to submit the documents it requires. Technically compliant with US law, but I couldn't make it work as a passenger. I'd skip them and book a US carrier that has a working process. Air Canada and American both handled it without issues.
3. I'd have looked harder at shipping our belongings instead of paying overweight fees leg after leg. I was worried about damage, loss, and duty on things we already owned. Might have been cheaper to ship. Another guide, another day.

The regular pet route (dog is not a service dog)

Same India paperwork (microchip, vaccines, health certificate, CFIA endorsement, AQCS NOC, agency). The airline part is different: your dog travels as a pet, in cabin if small enough or as checked baggage or cargo. I didn't do this myself, so treat this as pointers to verify, not lived experience. An agency like Furry Flyers handles this route too.

Quick airline notes, as published in 2026 (confirm at booking):

• Air Canada: small dog in cabin under the seat, roughly CA$100 to 120 international one way. Bigger dogs as checked baggage up to 45 kg. Important: India is on Air Canada's heat embargo for checked pets from March 1 to October 31, so for most of the year a large dog to India has to go via Air Canada Cargo.
• United: in-cabin only now, US$150 each way, must fit under the seat. They no longer check pets as baggage, so a dog too big for under-seat can't fly United.
• Air India: in cabin if pet plus carrier is 7 kg or under, as checked baggage from 7 to 32 kg, muzzled and leashed. Book at least 72 hours ahead.
• Within India: carriers vary a lot. IndiGo does not take dogs in cabin at all. Akasa took our service dog in cabin but it took convincing. Check the specific airline before you book, and don't assume a cabin policy carries over from the international leg.

If people are interested in this, I can do more research and expand on it. Please email me to let me know: [email protected].

Quick reference

• Use an agency for the India side. Furry Flyers worked for me, ₹25,000.
• Microchip first.
• Fresh rabies within the last year even if your vaccine is a 3-year one.
• DHPP and lepto current per the manufacturer schedule.
• Health certificate on legal paper (8.5 x 14), full size.
• Check every vaccine batch number on the certificate against the passport before you leave the vet.
• CFIA endorsement is appointment-only. Book weeks ahead. Leave slack for a re-do.
• No advance NOC means the airline won't board your dog.
• Owner-trained service dog: route through the US.
• Long international segment (8h+): you need the DOT relief attestation form too.
• Domestic Indian carriers differ on dogs in cabin. Confirm before booking.

I went through this move myself, Canada to Bangalore, end of 2025. If you're planning it and stuck on something, email me at [email protected] and I'll help if I can. I'm writing up the rest of it, banking, OCI, taxes, moving your stuff, one guide at a time at canadatokannada.com.

Moved a pet here or planning to? Tell me what you ran into and I'll add what's useful to this guide.