Buying Dog Food in Korea

"Can I eat when I'm done blogging?"

When I brought Jane, my 39 lb border collie mix to South Korea, I took a gallon sized ziplock bag and filled it with food. I figured this would last me a couple of days, to get settled and make it to the grocery store. Every dog is different, but this bag lasted Jane over 2 weeks.

Part of this is because:

1. She doesn't eat that much.

But mostly:

2. She spent our first week at another girl's apartment. Why? My first week I stayed with a girl who had a double until my apartment became available. However, the girl I stayed with was terrified of dogs due to being attacked several times as a child. Thus, Jane stayed at another teacher's apartment. The whole airplane/new country/new smells/new apartment experience coupled with mom's-gone-and-I'm-staying-with-this-new-person was seemingly too much for Jane and consequently, she had little appetite for that first week. I poured her a a bowl of food the first evening and it sat there for 3 days.

When you move to Korea with your dog (or anywhere for that matter), be prepared for the unexpected. As best you can, anyway.

Our first night reunited in our apartment, Jane ate all of her dinner. I don't know if you would call "not eating" a manifestation of "separation anxiety" but it seemed like it was for Jane.

But back to dog foods:

When I went into E-Mart for the first time, I was appalled to find that a 5lb bag of dog food was over $20 USD. My first thought was, "Shit, how am I going to afford to feed her?" Remember, most Koreans have very small dogs, which don't eat much. One of my co-workers suggested Gmarket.com which is an eBay company, for Korea. They do have an English site, but if you order dog food from it, be sure to ask a Korean friend if they will help you translate because most of the information is in Korean, even on the English site.

GMarket has many options, I ultimately chose ANF brand, Lamb and Brown Rice flavor. ANF looked like the best option to me, and Jane didn't have any digestive issues switching over to it, unlike other brands in the past. ANF is made in Australia and the United States (depending on the flavor) but bizarrely, it is not sold in the US. There are some unfavorable reviews of it on the internet, but those appear to be for old recipes and not current ones. What I like about ANF is that the ingredients are composed of whole foods and not chemicals, dyes, and artificial flavors. It appears to be high quality, so it is odd that it's manufactured in the US but not distributed there. ANF was also carried by the veterinarian's office that is all of three blocks from my apartment here in Yongin.

Also, shipping was free on the dog chow (it is cheaper in bulk, so I got 7.5 kg and my school director was nice enough to drop it off at my home for me) and it arrived within 2 days of ordering it.

Hiking

What to do with your dog once you arrive in South Korea:

GO HIKING! But go early in the morning if you want to bring your dog off leash. I took Jane around 9am and by 9:30 it was too crowded for my liking and I didn't feel comfortable having her off leash. Hiking is a very popular sport in South Korea, and many Koreans are frightened of any dogs that is bigger than your hand. No joke. Pet dogs in Korea are tiny, and they tend to not look very healthy. Probably because they are very inbred, and puppy mills are the norm. Getting puppy shots is not the norm here, so take care when letting your dog meet Korean dogs. Make sure your dog is up to date on all its shots, which it should be anyway, if you're importing it to Korea.

Fall in Korea is lovely. 

Bringing Your Dog to Korea

This blog is going to be about bringing your dog to South Korea.

I brought my border collie mix with me to Yongin City, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea from the United States and in researching the restrictions of living with a dog, and bringing a dog, I found a lot of varying and conflicting information on the internet. My intention is to hopefully aid others in their decision to bring their pets with them, and what to expect.


As for quarantine regulations and importing dogs, the rules are changing as of December 1st, 2011. If you are arriving prior to that the ONLY documents you need (and all I needed were):

1. Health certificate from your vet stating that your dog is up to date (UTD) on all vaccines and fit to travel. Preferably signed by your vet.

2. Rabies vaccination certificate from your vet.

When your dog arrives in Korea (and mine flew in cargo under the plane via Asiana Airlines and United) you need to bring your dog through the quarantine section of the airport. The officer will take the documents (so bring extra copies just in case you need them for your own reference) and look at your passport. They make a few stamps to your importation claim form, and you're out the door!

The next thing you need to do is let your dog out of its crate to pee in the grassy parking strips, because it is a LONG flight. Jane was so fickle she wouldn't pee in the pet relief area in Seattle, so in total she held it in for around 24 hours.

Additionally, I recommend checking with your airline before flying out to see what their requirements are for flying dogs. The customer service agents for the airlines will ask you the dimensions of the crate and the weight of it with the dog's weight combined. YOU MUST ASK WHAT THE AIRLINES' CRATE REQUIREMENTS ARE FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL. I arrived at the airport at 3am with the crate I'd used for flying previously, and United made me buy their crate for $100 because it needed to have ventilation on all four sides for international flights. (Domestic flights are 3-sides of ventilation.) My flight left at 6am, and I spent 3 hours waiting around for a crate and watching confused airline agents fiddle around and call other people regarding the mess at hand.