DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Get this: Pets are making history of sorts today in Britain. Dogs and cats that have been living abroad are now able to get passports, kind of, and travel to Britain with their owners.</s>KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A change in a nearly-100-year-old law designed to protect the countries against rabies paved the way for the international travel. Reporter Chris Choy (ph) has more.</s>CHRIS CHOY, ITN REPORTER (voice-over): Kay Chantry (ph) has been separated from her dog Yogi not just by the English Channel but by Britain's anti-rabis laws. Now that's all changed. The first scheme allowing pets to enter without quarantine started today.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today is about giving people an option to bring their pets from abroad if they have no other choice, people that have been made to live abroad for work purposes or serving in the armed forces. Although it's an absolute nightmare in paperwork, it can be done.</s>CHOY: All pets must have certificate showing they've been rabis vaccinated, blood tested and parasite treated and microshiped. It all takes six months and costs 150 pounds.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've discoved that it's an awful lot harder to get a passport for your dog than it is to get a passport for yourself. There's an awful lot of paperwork involved, you've got to spend a lot of time researching how to do it and what you need.</s>CHOY: This lunch time, 17 dogs and a cat demonstrated this whole new style of international travel. The first phase includes cross- channel ferries on some airlines. Twenty-two destination countries are involved, and next year the scheme will be extended to include other pets. All ready, the new documentation has saved them six months in quarantine but not necessarily the discomfort of an unflattering passport photograph. Chris Choy, ITN, Folkston (ph).
Expatriated British Pets May Receive Passports After Historic Change in Law