A blogging friend who has traveled abroad with her dogs got me thinking about taking dog food through Customs (“be careful,” she said, “to bring only unopened packages of dog food with you”).

As I’ve mentioned, we’ll be spending a couple of weeks in Paris this fall, and an EU regulation [Commission Regulation (EC) No 745/2004] “permanently prohibits all personal consignments of meat, meat products, milk and milk products from entering the EU.” So I wrote to the French Embassy, and my message eventually made its way to the “specialized info Customs office” (the e-mail address is [email protected]).

Here is the response I received. As you’ll see, the first line is the only one that really answers my question; the rest of the message speaks more generally about bringing a pet dog to France. Roughly translated, the answer from Customs is that you may freely transport food meant to feed your dog during a visit to France.

To me, that seems like a direct conflict with the no-meat-products regulation, so I plan to cover my bases by keeping Chloe’s food in its original packaging, unopened, and bringing with me a hard copy of the message I received, in case I need to show it to a Customs officer. Here it is, in case you need to print it for your own travels.

If you are traveling somewhere other than France, I recommend doing the same thing for the country you’re planning to visit: Write to the embassy, ask them about taking dog food through Customs, and print out their response. Tuck it into your collection of travel documents, and produce it if you find yourself in a bind.