CDC Bans Foreign Dog Imports From 100 Countries

By Amy Fernandez

Why did this take so long? Yesterday the CDC announced that as of July 14 it will ban the importation of dogs from 100 different countries. No more tweaks to existing regulations. No more special committees or task forces to investigate the problem.  No, this time it’s for real. And you gotta admit that the problem is overdue for some drastic action.

As CC has previously reported, international importation has become a very lucrative arm of the dog rescue industry. Most of these dogs come from a handful of countries like the Philippines, India and China, and I’m not talking one or two dogs. According to the recent CDC statement, “as many as 100,000 of the one million dogs that are brought into the United States each year could be denied entry.”   That’s because so many of them arrive with counterfeit health documentation.  That obviously saves a few bucks for the shipper–and regardless of the legitimacy of these operations; those costs are passed along to the “adopters” of these rescued waifs. Unfortunately, that cost-cutting measure also circumvents the rationale for the regulation–namely preventing the spread of canine rabies.

There have been enough scary incidents in recent years to prompt additional scrutiny by customs officials. Despite that fact, according to a June 22 New York Times story, “Health officials said that the number of dogs from high risk countries that were denied entry into the United States in 2020 rose by 52 percent compared with the previous two years.”  Yeah, that’s the thing. Once they started looking at the documentation rather than simply rubber stamping it, they got some really big surprises.

Just to reiterate.  Approximately one million dogs are imported into this country annually.  And vaccination protocols set the minimum age for importation at 16 weeks. Rabies vaccine can be administered earlier but it is far more likely to cause problems and less likely to trigger an effective immune response in puppies under 12 weeks of age.  Puppies can handle it better and form higher titer levels when they are a bit more mature.  And, subsequent to vaccination, they need about four more weeks to develop immunity. So, from a veterinary perspective, 16 weeks is the minimum age to prevent possible rabies transmission.

Unfortunately, faking the papers also makes sense; especially when you are talking big volume shipments of saleable young pups. All those purported rescue dog lovers also seem to prefer cute little puppies to old, junky fleabags.  Anyway, let’s stay on topic.

Canine rabies has been eradicated in the U.S. since 2007. We still must contend with other variants circulating in wildlife. Rabies can be controlled through vaccination, but it doesn’t just go away.  It remains endemic to many countries and more than a few infected dogs from those sources have slipped through customs inspection processing in recent years.  As AVMA President Dr. Douglass Kratt noted, rabies is not the only worrisome disease being carried into the country with these foreign imports.

Nor is the problem limited to the U.S. Last year, thanks to Jean-Claude Van Damme, it became a global cause after he helped to publicize the plight of a Norwegian puppy buyer who discovered that his Chihuahua had arrived from Ukraine with fake health documents.  His puppy was seized, impounded, and scheduled for demolition when Mr. Van Damme stepped in to help. But as noted in the Times story, the problem doesn’t end when the dogs are impounded.  COVID severely limited options for returning them to foreign shippers. And even without that complication, foreign sellers and shippers rarely want to foot the bill to get them back.  Healthy or otherwise, the dogs become collateral damage.

So, drastic action is warranted. The new rule will apply to all shipments–in cabin, checked baggage, and air cargo.  Yes, a lot of perfectly legitimate shippers and buyers will face the consequences, although the rule does allow for a few exceptions such as service animals. But they will face very costly, time consuming requirements that are similar to those of the current pet passport scheme.

The ban will be reevaluated after one year but there’s no word on where things might go from there.

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Posted by admin on Jun 24 2021. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.