So Rabies is back in the UK…
I guess it reinforces the value of having the Pet Travel Scheme and Quarantine system. Because if we didn’t, those rabid puppies would have been wandering the streets of the UK, and we would have ourselves a full blown rabies outbreak, which would probably have involved the wholesale slaughter of countless innocent pets and wildlife.
As it is, they were confined in the quarantine kennels, the pups have been safely euthanased, and the staff members who were bitten have all been treated and should be fine.
The pups had been ‘rescued’ from the streets of Sri Lanka and brought back to the UK by a charity, to try to give them a better life over here.
All very praiseworthy, but of course slightly cuckoo in the grand scale of things. Â
That said, of course we have our fair share of overseas rescue patients at the clinic, from Lefty the street dog from Thailand to the highly pampered Simmi who had to be brought out overland from war torn Beirut last time it kicked off there (the owners refused the British Embassy emergency airlift because they wouldn’t fly the cats out), and numerous cats from the alleys of Hong Kong, with their stubby little tails.
But wholesale import of animals? Seems a little like the reverse of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut – more like using a toffee hammer to demolish a skyscraper.
Having spent a number of years working in so-called third countries on animal welfare projects, I personally would far rather see the effort and resources spent there in the field than concentrated on a few essentially randomly selected cases.
I remember very well a huge row with one of the council members of a charity I used to work for, who wanted to move heaven and earth to rescue a single donkey with a hip injury. All very worthy but that would have meant diverting funds away from simple treatments in the field that would have improved the lives of hundreds of other animals. It that tough environment, just didn’t make sense.
But for her that one animal was paramount. Why? ‘Because I’ve seen it.’ But then she did have a rather over-blown idea of her own importance…
We deal with the Pet Travel Scheme all the time, issuing passports and advising pet owners on the intricacies of the system. The biggest pain is the obligatory 6 months wait after the vaccination and blood test, but this latest episode might help to shift the emphasis from ‘what a pain to have to wait so long, we’re going to have to change our travel arrangements’ to ‘thank goodness the barrier is still there’.