My First Month Abroad with a Dog: Lessons Learned in Mexico

The flight from New York to Mexico City took about five hours. Mochi slept under the seat in front of me for most of it. I'd quit my job, packed one bag, and booked a one-way ticket with a toy poodle and thirty days planned out, nothing after that.

If you're about to do your first month abroad with a dog, here's how mine went.

Customs

The officer at the animal desk read through Mochi's paperwork — rabies certificate, USDA health form, the whole folder. He called a second officer over, made a phone call, and the two of them went back and forth for about twenty minutes while Mochi shook in his P808 carrier. Then they stamped the form and waved us through.

Everything I'd brought was in order, and it still took two officers and a phone call. What they actually check, document by document, is in pet import rules for nomads.

The Apartment

The place I'd booked in Roma Norte was a third-floor walk-up with tile floors. The neighbor below worked nights, and Mochi's nails carried on the tile. The host texted on the third day. We moved to a ground-floor apartment with a small patio at the end of the first week.

The listing had said pet friendly. Now I message the host before I book and ask three things: which floor, what the floors are made of, and whether the building has rules about dogs.

The First Week of Work

I'd planned to work from the apartment the first morning. The building's wifi was down and the new router didn't turn up for over a week. I bought a Telcel SIM at a corner shop, tethered my laptop, and worked from a café two blocks away with Mochi under the table and his P801 collapsible bowl by my foot.

Now I get a local SIM the day I land and find one café with a plug before I put anything on the calendar.

The Vet and the Park

The first week went almost entirely on my own setup: the SIM, the wifi, the apartment move, getting work running again. Mochi's side of it waited. In the second week I caught up. I walked into the vet clinic four blocks down, introduced us, and saved their number. I found Parque México on the same kind of slow afternoon.

I keep that order on purpose now. You want the vet's number in your phone on an ordinary day, with nothing wrong, so it's already there if a day comes when something is.

Finding a Routine

By the third week we had a routine. A walk to the park before my first call, the same few dog owners there most mornings. I'd fill Mochi's P802 water bottle on the way out and we'd sit for a while before the day started. After a couple of weeks the man at the café knew Mochi's name, and then he knew mine.

After a Month

By the end of the month the basics were in place: a vet, a park, a café with reliable wifi, a working SIM, and a lease for another month on the ground-floor place. I signed it and started looking at where to go next.

If you're choosing where to start, some countries are much easier to bring a dog into than others. I went through how I'd pick now in choosing a dog-friendly first base. The whole picture of doing this with a dog starts at how to become a digital nomad with a dog.