Help Get Smarty Home!

Hi there 😊

My fiancé and I lived in China for a year and a half where we adopted the most beautiful little cat. Her name is Smarty. She was our baby while we lived there and the reason we couldn't wait to get back to our apartment everyday.

When we tried to bring her back home to South Africa we did everything ourselves. We travelled back and forth from Shanghai, where the only certified veterinary clinic is, a 3 hr car drive each way to get a rabies vaccination, blood tests, a microchip and finally the health certificate, saying she is ready to fly. 7 days before we leave we find out that in China if you are not a pet travel agent the customs office will not accept the documents that she needs. So, after everything we had already done we found a pet travel agent willing to help, for the hefty price of 18 000RMB. This is approximately R38 089. Even after that huge sum there would be extra costs from the pet travel agent in South Africa who just needed to fetch her from the customs area! Another R3000 – R5000! By the way we already acquired the import permit for south Africa. We were crushed after all the effort we had already done to bring her home. We kept trying and asked for quotes from numerous other agencies, the 18 000RMB being the cheapest.

The reason why we tried to do it ourselves is because we were originally quoted 75000 rand to get her home.

The only thing we could do was to leave her with our friends in China, they agreed to look after her for 1 year. We thought “PHEW! We at least have time to save up!”

They’ve looked after her for three months.

Our friends recently told us that they will not be looking after our baby anymore, this is understandable it is a big responsibility to look after an animal in another country, especially if you want to travel. They have given us 1 month to get our baby safely out of China, or they will take her to a pet shop.

Here we go again!

My fiancé and I are now in Hanoi, Vietnam, this is a good thing because it is cheaper to get her here! The amended quote is now 12 000RMB.We’ve been in Hanoi Vietnam now for 1 day less than a month. We have jobs and a home, but we still need to payback the credit card that bought the plane tickets to get here.

Had we known that our friends would have said they wouldn’t be looking after her anymore we would have made different choices!

We are now trying to raise the money to help us bring her here to Hanoi Vietnam and then to South Africa in 2 years time when we leave here.

So I am asking please help us bring our baby home!

I believe a pet is a part of your family, I am mommy, my fiancé is daddy and she is our little girl.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story. 😊

Any and all donations will be very much appreciated. 😊

We just recieved a massive donation not on the site, that has helped pay for the first start of the journey 😁 thank you so much you know who you are!