Nobody counted the days.
A travel enquiry does not arrive as a case. It arrives as an email, a half-remembered rule, and a date the client has already booked. The rules people quote are usually real - they are just from the wrong corridor.
"We fly 20 August. Bailey's had his rabies jab, attaching the card"
"Fwd: Fwd: Japan pet import - is this the right form?"
voice note, 0:47 - "...someone said six months quarantine?"
"photos of the passport, hope these are clearer"
"Wait 21 days after the primary vaccination."
printed, correct - and for the wrong country
- 11 days
- open
- 14
- messages
- 11
- files
- ~55 min
- of clinical time
Four channels, eleven attachments, nobody wrong exactly - and still nobody has counted the days.
The date the client cannot have.
The same enquiry, counted. Every requirement dated, against the corridor that actually applies. The impossible departure surfaces in February, while it is still a conversation rather than a refund.
- Microchip12 Febbefore rabies
- Rabies, primary18 Feb
- Rabies, booster20 Mar
- Titre blood sample20 MarMAFF-approved lab
- 180-day wait ends16 Sepcounted from sample
- Notify quarantine serviceby 7 Aug40 days before arrival
Cannot meet 20 August.
Earliest lawful arrival is 16 September 2026. Told to the client in February, not at check-in.
Four steps, and you can audit all of them.
- 01
Read the enquiry
- 02
Count the days
- 03
Sign the rules off
- 04
Release the paperwork
- 3 Feb
Enquiry arrives
Client emails the practice
- 3 Feb
Record created
Species, corridor, requested date
- 3 Feb
Days counted
Earliest lawful arrival: 16 Sep
- 5 Feb
Sources checked
Every rule cites the page it came from
- ongoing
Steps tracked
Six dated tasks, reminders on
- 16 Sep
Cleared to fly
Paperwork reviewed and released
The practice holds one thread from the first email to the flight, instead of a folder of forwarded links and a date nobody has checked.
Fifty destinations, and every one of them is dated.
Thirty across Europe and twenty beyond it. The long-lead corridors - Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa - carry titre tests, arrival quarantine, import permits and waits measured in months, and those are the ones where counting backwards from the flight is worth the most. They are computed the same way the European ones are.
Great Britain is the origin. Every requirement is transcribed from that country's own official guidance, stores the page and the sentence it came from, and carries the date it was last reviewed.
- Spain, France, Germany21 days
Microchip, rabies, AHC
- Finland, Ireland, Malta, Norway, Northern Ireland21 days
The above, plus tapeworm in a 24-120 hour window
- United Statesweeks
Rabies, CDC import form, receiving-country rules
- South Africamonths
Import permit, titre test, additional testing
- Japan, Australia, New Zealand180+ days
Titre test, long fixed wait, advance notice, inspection
Tapeworm treatment is not needed for a dog travelling to Northern Ireland on a Northern Ireland pet travel document.
The ones that actually get asked.
Does this issue the Animal Health Certificate?
No. Only an Official Veterinarian can issue an AHC. Travel Arlo pre-fills the fields from the record and computes the dates, so the OV is checking a form rather than typing one. The certifying decision stays entirely with the vet.
Where do the rules come from?
They are transcribed from official government guidance, and each one stores the page URL and the verbatim sentence it came from. Every ruleset carries the date it was last reviewed by our veterinary advisor, and that date travels with the plan, so you can always see how current the rules behind an answer are.
Is a language model deciding the dates?
No. A model is used in two places only: reading a free-text enquiry into a structured record, and drafting the owner-facing wording. The plan itself - the earliest lawful travel date and every dated step - is plain arithmetic over the cited rules, and it is checked against the computed plan before any draft is shown.
What happens when the requirements change?
A ruleset carries a review-by date, and the plan shows it. Past that date the product says so plainly rather than going quiet. Separately, the export health certificates behind the long-lead corridors are checked against gov.uk every week, so one that is withdrawn, put on hold or revised surfaces without anyone having to remember to look. That is the mechanism, instead of a promise that we will always be current, which no one can honestly make.
What about the long-lead destinations - Japan, Australia, New Zealand?
They are dated too. They add requirements the EU regime does not have: a rabies antibody titre from an approved laboratory, a fixed wait counted from the blood sample rather than the vaccination, arrival quarantine, and sometimes an import permit. Those are computed the same way as the European corridors. Where a destination publishes no figure at all - a permit processing time nobody states, say - the step says so rather than carrying a guessed number.
What about client data?
Owner and pet details live in your own workspace and are scoped to it on every read and write. Identifiers are stripped before any model call. Records can be soft-deleted.