This is a better article than most, as it goes into the challenge at hand. The importance of quarantine measures in dog importation (aka there’s a reason Australia got so pissed off about Johnny Depp smuggling his dogs around quarantine).
It doesn’t matter if the dog is going to be an imported rescue or imported purebred championline puppy, what matters is a strict quarantine process and appropriate vaccinations.
USA, the majority of states, do not have this (yet???). Hopefully this will be remedied to work towards preventing and reducing disease spread - but in the time between that becoming standard, as this blog points out, Dog breeders and rescuers who bring foreign dogs into the country play a critical role in disease prevention.
I’ve copied paste some snippets of what I find key points below, but better to click on the link and read the whole blog as its rather long and covers quite a lot, specifically from USA risks.
PS. Vaccinate your dogs (and cats)!
Protecting North American Dogs from Imported Disease Pathogens: The Cases of Dog Flu and Distemper
Abstract: Protecting dogs and people from imported disease pathogens is a difficult and never-ending task requiring international cooperation and continued vigilance. The recent cases of dog flu and distemper offer vivid examples of the costs, both financial and emotional, of failure to responsibly import animals. This article describes the obstacles to such protection and the process of tracking and identifying unknown pathogens using dog flu and distemper as examples.
Protecting companion animals in the US from infectious organisms brought in by imported companion animals is not easy. Unlike the importation of food animals (e.g., cattle, sheep) which is overseen by the US Department of Agriculture, there is no federal oversight over the importation of companion animals. The only requirement for dogs entering the US or Canada is a rabies certificate. As became terrifyingly clear when several dogs imported from India, Iran, and Egypt were found to be rabid despite being “vaccinated,” fake rabies certificates are easy to obtain in some countries. Absent federal oversight, Professor Edward Dubovi, Director of the Virology Laboratory at Cornell University’s Animal Health Diagnostic Center, says, “It’s a 50-state free-for-all with regard to [importing] companion animals. It’s a very unsatisfactory situation if you’re trying to control infectious diseases in our domestic cats and dogs.”
The advent and popularity of international dog rescue and increased international and interstate trafficking of dogs has ushered in a new set of animal and human health concerns among infectious disease specialists, veterinarians, physicians, and epidemiologists as well as pet owners and breeders. Companion animals, in particular the family dog, are often seen as sentinels for known and unknown diseases in humans. They are the proverbial canary in the mineshaft. When dogs are imported from around the globe, they can become vectors of diseases that have never been seen in North America.
What Do Concerned Dog Owners and Breeders Do?
As in all decisions involving risk, North American countries and dog owners must assess how much risk they are willing to tolerate and then develop coherent policies for managing those risks. International rescue organizations must take on the responsibility of not only helping international dogs at risk but also implementing protocols to protect domestic dogs from imported pathogens. Ideally, international rescue organizations would work to educate and place these rescued dogs in their countries of origin rather than importing them to North America.
Domestic dog owners must also assess the risk for their own dogs in a world where imported unknown pathogens are likely. Since these risk assessments may vary across people, we may not all agree on the need for vaccines. If one chooses not to vaccinate, be aware that to achieve herd immunity, a substantial number (depending on contagion) of dogs must be vaccinated or have caught and survived disease. Ideally, herd immunity is reserved to protect those dogs (or humans) who cannot be vaccinated because they are pregnant, too young to be vaccinated, or because they are immune compromised because of age or disease. As such, herd immunity is not intended to protect healthy dogs who could be vaccinated with minimal risk.
Based on current information, if your dog attends training classes, dog shows, doggie day care or frequents areas where there are dogs of unknown vaccination status or wild animals (e.g., dog parks, community parks, rural areas) consider vaccinating your dog for CIV and CDV. If you cannot or wish not to vaccinate your dog, do not socialize him with unvaccinated dogs or take him to places where wild animals are likely to have urinated or defecated.
If you import a dog (an international rescue or a puppy from a breeder whom you do not know and with whom you do not have a trust relationship), revaccinate for rabies and DHPP, quarantine for 30 days, do a brucellosis test at day 1 and again at day 30. If the dog is healthy at day 30 and negative for brucellosis at day 30, you can probably introduce it safely to your dog family or breeding kennel.
The threat of new and unknown pathogens to our dogs and dog owners is constant, requiring ongoing international cooperation and vigilance. While dog flu and the Asian strain of distemper occupy our current focus, there will always be new disease threats lurking around the corner because pathogens are adaptive, clever and stealthy. While the epidemiological process for discovering and identifying each of these threats may be similar, the work is difficult and never ending. Dog breeders and rescuers who bring foreign dogs into the country play a critical role in disease prevention.
An example of strict quarantine importing requirements: Australian cat/dog importing requirements. Varies by source country and the existing diseases.
