I do not intend to travel abroad with my dogs but have considered if it is worthwhile getting a pet passport and/or rabies vaccines done prior to an outbreak of the disease in the UK.

I have been thinking on and off about this for a while, but Sheila Atter's article in Dog World this week got me thinking again. I have read through the Rabies strategy from DEFRA where it says if an outbreak occurs, pets are likely to be vaccinated, confined to leash exercise or have to be contained on the owner's premises. I do not know if her article is based on facts or is just her opinion - it mentions the wholesale slaughter of pets, and queries whether if already vaccinated dogs will be exempted from this action.

I would imagine there would be an uproar and threats of legal actin being taken if the Government destroyed healthy pets, but I can still remember the Foot and Mouth outbreaks, and would hate to think of something similar happening to our pets. I assume any vet will vaccinate your pet against rabies?

Any vet can vaccinate against rabies but not all are passed to issue pet passports; most practices have one vet qualified for this, so ask at your usual practice. I'm going to have mine done for exactly the same reason.

Something I've never thought about but it is worth thinking over

I've been warning of the risks of a Rabies outbreak in this country for a long time now. The change in the requirement for titre testing and indeed the 6 month wait before entry/re entry have lead to reports of young puppies entering the UK from countries where rabies is endemic without vaccination/with fraudulent papers. Trafficked puppies are being sold at motorway service stations and  Carboot Sales. It really is just a question of time before we have an outbreak/cases of Rabies here. All my guys have been vaccinated.  I'm ashamed to say that two have yet to be titre tested but I'm really short of money at the moment . This will be done asap. Over the years I've had a couple of dogs 'fail' the blood test but revaccination has been effective. Of course, we do not know whether vaccination would be entirely effective should a dog be exposed to Rabies but at the moment it is the best we can do. My advice would be to vaccinate now regardless of whether foreign travel is intended. Sheila Atters article sent shivers down my spine. It is most certainly prescient.

I remember as a child watching a BBC drama series called Invisible Armies . It told the story of Louis Pasteur who created the first vaccine for Rabies. I was very affected  by the case of the child who was brought to him too late after being bitten by a rabid animal. A warning from history.

I'm really considering getting mine in for a rabies vaccination - problem is presumably, as was the case with our hounds when out in Canada, we will then be looking at annual (or 3-yearly?) boostering after that.   Next time I'm into my vets (tomorrow!) if I remember I'll ask because IF it comes to a local cull to control a rabies outbreak, the last thing any of us wants is to be involved in that - a la F & M eh.    And down here, especially in the summer, we are inundated with visitors from all over the country, so any outbreak could be brought down here without it coming from an imported animal.   It's a ghastly thought.

In the UK at the present time , vaccination is recommended every three years. When I lived in France and in Hungary it was annually. I think I'm correct that annual vaccination against rabies is mandatory in both countries.
I would say that we have gone beyond the point of accusations of being alarmist over the issue of Rabies threatening the UK. We should be preparing for the inevitable.

There is no chance that a rabies outbreak would lead to a wholesale slaughter of pets. Immediate compulsory vaccination, quite possibly. Compulsory destruction, no chance at all. There is no need to worry about that.

If you want to guard against anything that may possibly happen in he the future though (be ahead of the stampede if compulsory vaccination were introduced, for instance), then why not vaccinate now.

In countries where there is mandatory innocualtions for rabies, how do you prove this has been done? I can imagine there will be certain types that can't be bothered or can't afford it so don't.

>Immediate compulsory vaccination, quite possibly. Compulsory destruction, no chance at all.

Considering that has happened in areas of France when there has been a case of rabies (all pet owners had to prove that their pets had been vaccinated - no proof and the pet was destroyed. And that's not scaremongering because i have family living in an area where that happened) I wouldn't be so quick to write it off here.

(all pet owners had to prove that their pets had been vaccinated - no proof and the pet was destroyed.

But all dogs in resident France already have to have rabies vaccinations, if it became a requirement here in the UK because of an outbreak owners would be allowed time to get their dogs vaccinated-otherwise 99% of dogs in the Uk would have to be PTS

>But all dogs in resident France already have to have rabies vaccinations

Yes; in the same way that it's illegal in the UK to breed pitbulls since 1991. ;-) It still happens, just as people in France don't always have their animals vaccinated according to the law.

But they were caught when there was a case of rabies QED

Caught and destroyed, yes.

In those counries where vaccination/boostering is required by law, once done you are given a rabies tag which has the year on it and a number.   After that, as local townships require all dogs to be registered annually (this is in Canada and when we lived out there which was some years ago now, so things may have changed in the interim), they require to see the tag (or certificate of vaccination) before the dog is registered for that year.   Yes there were people who didn't conform, but IF their dog(s) were involved in an attack situation, unless rabies vac./booster could be proven, the dog would be seized, held for observation and if it was felt it could be rabid, pts. for the brain to be examined.    Most people conformed!!!

How does anybody KNOW that a compulsory cull, should rabies come into the UK, won't happen!!!?

Yes; in the same way that it's illegal in the UK to breed pitbulls since 1991.  It still happens, just as people in France don't always have their animals vaccinated according to the law.

I agree, plenty of people will not vaccinate in countries where they should, those up to no good will always be up to no good or lazy owners who will flout the law.

Why and how are puppies/dogs getting through, what has happened to our boarder controls? Should the pet passport/rabis paperwork be scrapped and go back to how it was in this country with a 6 month quarantine, as it is too easy to submit faulse paperwork, no doubt scammers are having a field day, the 6 month quarantine worked, we need to protect our country and I personally think that any dog/pup coming into this country needs to go back to being quarantined for 6 months, don't particularly care about progress and the rabis vaccination, just would like our country and particularly our dogs safe over here. IMO we should take a step backwards and step up our boarder control.

Reply to Carrington :

What I cannot understand is how our border controls are so strictly enforced for those of us travelling with our pets and yet it is possible for puppies and dogs with fraudulent documentation to get through and be sold on. I travel regularly to France and even though I check that the vet French side has signed the correct pages etc, I am still very nervous at passport control in case there is a problem . The last time I travelled , the passports were closely scrutinised by the French Border Control -she took such a long time that I was terrified  something was amiss.

EU regulations or not, I think we need to go back to the previous system of vaccination followed by titre testing and then a period of time before re entry to UK. This , of course, will not prevent smuggling of dogs and puppies. Perhaps a public awareness campaign warning against buying cheap puppies from unknown sources etc and highlighting the risk of disease and possible Rabies outbreak.