The pages on my Zigi's passport  for Echinococcosis and Clinical Examination are full. There remains plenty of space on the pages for Rabies and other vaccinations. I have been told I therefore need to buy a new passport . My vet is quoting £ 52 . This seems a lot of money for what I consider an unnecessary and wasteful undertaking. Why is it not possible just to insert extra pages when they become full ? I can understand the necessity of a replacement when the vaccination pages are full but for Drontal administration ??!! If indeed a whole new passport is required, what are other veterinary practices charging for replacements ?

Well the wormer is still required for re-entry to the UK so I would imagine that's why you need a new one, it's an official (legal?) document recording legally required events/treatments after all.  My vets charged me £50 each for filling them out too.  A charge for their time taken to fill it out I believe.

Yep when they are full you have to have another issued, I understand DEFRA fix the charge as discussed with my own vet recently as one of mine is nearly full.

Replying to both . Thank you for input but cannot help but feel duped. Of course , the Passport is a legal requirement and Drontal administration is part of the Pet Travel procedure but clearly there is a need to supply more pages to accommodate 'frequent flyers' or whatever. The passport supplies the details of dog -its microchip/anti rabies status etc. I see no reason whatsoever, however, to require a new passport just to complete two sections of the rules for entry into the UK. It is wasteful, excessively bureaucratic and undoubtedly income generating. We do not have a time  limit on Pet Passports so why invalidate them for the lack of pages for frequent travellers.

Having compared my pets´ Spanish passports with the British passports of the English animals, I notice there are the same numer of pages allocated for each section so maybe it´s not just a British thing?

> It is wasteful, excessively bureaucratic and undoubtedly income generating.

Is it then any different to Human passports which have to be renewed every 10 years, at a cost of £77-ish each time?

I got mine at the spanish vet as we went  to Spain with 10 dogs when blue books weren't around . He charged 2 euros each , 2008 .

Human passports have significant data attached to their issue, not the least of which are considerations of security.
£77 is  not an unreasonable sum therefore. Also, 10 year duration reasonable too considering the changes humans undergo in that time.

Zigi's passport was issued in France and I don't believe I paid much for it - it was a long time ago. I realise the number of pages is standard. My point is that there should be greater provision within the passport for frequent travellers -i.e.more pages for Drontal treatment and Clinical Exam. £52 seems a lot of money just to put in the name of owner, dog, microchip and vaccination code. Why not just provide extra pages that can be inserted ? Will take this up with Defra.

I believe initially you could get additional pages however this was stopped. Not sure way other than to make money.

It used to be you had to pay  a fair bit extra to get extra pages in your own passport -well at least for me, I've never had a British passport so don't know about them, always had Swedish ones. That was back when you got stamps every time you went somewhere.

I paid £50 for a pets passport this summer for a kitten that didn't need any worming or even rabies vaccination (she went to Sweden below the age of 90 days so did not need rabies), all the vet had to enter in it was the microchip number and we used it for the normal vaccinations. So it does seem to be a set cost.

Thank you all for response. I'm going to France today ( sans Zigi !) and return on Tuesday. Will contact Defra on return and see what they have to say.

A very useful blog

http://www.dogtravelblog.co.uk/important-pet-travel-news-from-defra-new-pet-travel-rules-for-2012/