Fur Babies

Conversation on Saturday night:
Her: "So we have to send our two cats to live with a friend in Vienna regularly so that they get enough stamps in their passports"
Me: "Your cats have passports?"
Her: "Yeah, we had to get them Austrian citizenship"
Me: "And you fly them to Vienna regularly?"
Her: "Yeah, we book those special half-seats at the front row on Austrian flights that they use for kids"
Her: "It was so hard to get the cats to sit with a straight face for the passport photo"

They really love their rescued cats here in expat-land.
Apparently, there are such a thing as EU Pet Passports that make it easier for pets to travel with lesser quarantine restrictions.
It also apparently makes it much easier to then have them 'migrate' to places with strict rules, such as Australia. Which is where these guys already have a few cats that live in their beachside apartment with cat-sitters they employ while they work overseas.

Is this taking the "fur baby" thing too far?