This is really bad news for not just animal rescue operations like our own but for anyone who owns a pet and is living overseas. I know quite a few USA citizens who are interested in adopting pets from Thailand and in the past more than half of all of our rescue dog furrever homes have been to locations in the United States.
For reasons that I can not understand the United States is altering its animal import regulations abruptly on the 14th of July, 2021.
The reason for this is purported to be the threat of rabies spreading into the USA and the fact that dogs being imported have to be vaccinated against rabies to be imported anyway (a rule that existed for many years) doesn't seem to matter a great deal anymore. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) website doesn't provide any information to indicate that there actually has been an increase in rabies in the USA but they are making it very difficult to get animals in both as freight and as cargo from countries that are deemed "high risk" of rabies.
Thailand, as expected is on that list as are a majority of the poorer countries in the world. The full list of countries deemed "high risk" can be found here
This is absolutely horrible news for those of us at Krabi Animal Welfare as well as other animal rescue and welfare organizations around the world because for most places, the United States is a major importer of abandoned rescue dogs.
They do state that this is meant to be temporary but they don't give any indication as to what that actually means. I suspect it will be a very long time because the Covid regulations were meant to be "temporary" as well and that has been going on for what seems like an eternity.
We've had a devastating past nearly 2 years as an animal-rescue organization already and this is just another blow to our operation. For the future, until this temporary restriction gets lifted, the process of getting an animal into the United States is going to be substantially more complicated and will also require the dreaded titer test, which costs thousands of dollars, involves posting blood (from the dog) in a very expensive and fragile manner to the only 2 labs that exist on the planet that are "qualified" to administer this test, and then it can take up to 2 and a half months to get the results back.
The problem doesn't end there though. Once you have this absurdly overpriced test you will also need to apply for a CDC import license and this process takes an additional 6 weeks to complete.
What this means for us is that we likely will be losing a great deal if not all of our USA adoptions because while the Americans that we meet, even when the country was not closed due to Covid, are genuinely interested in helping the stray animal population of this and other countries, very few have the resources to spend up to 4 months and thousands of dollars in order to make it happen.
I can't understand why this policy would be introduced now of all times but it does seem to be the case. This is truly testing our resolve and I feel bad for all of those dogs that would have otherwise had great homes in America but now, because of bureaucracy, will not be able to do so.
If you are an American living overseas that was planning on bringing your pet into the USA you better get moving on making that happen, because in a mere 12 days, it will no longer be an option
If you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at
http://krabianimalwelfare.org
Krabi Animal Welfare is a charity run entirely by volunteers and are a registered non-profit organization in Thailand and the U.K.. We aim to relieve the pain and suffering of dogs and cats within Krabi Province.
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