how to get a young puppy IN to the EU???? - Page 1

Hi all...in the past it was not hard to send a puppy from the USA into Europe. Now the EU rules state a puppy must have a Rabies shot at least 30 days before it can enter any EU country. YIKES, We don't give Rabies vaccination until 4 months, so you can't take a dog less than 5 months (vaccinted at 4 months) in????

I have a friend with a retired vom Antverpa female, and I had her dog's littermate, and his adult offsprings. I want to give her a puppy as a gift but see no way to get it into the EU (Belgium) before 5 months old.  Any ideas or suggestions?

You used to be able to do an in-home quarantine, but its been a while since I have shipped a pup that way. You can safely vaccinate for Rabies at 3 months of age. Its done all over Europe with a proven track record. You can also contact Sascha at GK. He can help you with all the info you need, including the actual importation. For a few Euros extra he will do customs clearance, which is very time consuming when a dog arrives via cargo. Well worth spending the extra Euros for. GK will even deliver the pup to Belgium.

www.petschipping.com

To comply with the law, some breeders are shipping puppies with rabies shots at 8 weeks.

GK is your best bet unless you are traveling with the puppy. A rabies shot at 3 months won't hurt the pup, but should be repeated after 6 mos. to insure immunity.

SS

Shelly, in all of Europe pups have been vaccinated for Rabies at 3 months for decades, because it is the law there, and then again one year later. Without any consequence. In most of Europe pups are commonly only vaccinated two times, at 8 weeks and at 12 weeks and then they are done, because it has proven to work. There is no need for this vaccination overkill. Taking a titer would be a much wiser approach then to overvaccinate all the time. The one year Rabies vaccine is exactly the same vaccine as the two year and three year vaccine. The manufacturers simply found that the titers are still at top level after 3 years, in fact even longer. A government vet I spoke to this about  several years ago found that his own Rabies titer was still at top level 10 years after his own vaccination. Because he was in a high risk situation for Rabies exposure he needed to be vaccinated himself. If the pup is healthy at the time of vaccination, and that is the key to the whole thing, the vaccinations will take without a problem. And as Randy has already put it, they are actually finding that the Rabies given at 8 weeks works just fine. For me this is too new for comfort, but we have done this before when a pup was shipped overseas. Personally I prefer to wait til 3 months, and only because that is how I am used to it and because it has a good track record. Other than personal preconceptions perhaps there seems to be not much of a basis against vaccinating for Rabies even at 8 weeks. Just make sure the pup is in perfect health.