National Dog Day: Could your rescue dog have rabies?.

While the zika virus poses worrisome human health concerns, another potential health problem is brewing that threatens both humans and domesticated animals --the importing of foreign dogs for adoption. Many people are unaware that the U.S. has become something of a favored nation for countries looking to export their rescue dogs due to several reasons. First, Americans are big-hearted, and when seeking dogs many chose animals made available through rescues. Second, there’s a readymade market here – Americans love canines and own an estimated 80 million dogs.Lastly, import rules on dogs can be easily flouted, allowing foreign exporters to send us their sick animals. The vast majority of imported rescue dogs are not tracked in the United States – either upon arrival or after they enter rescue channels. Patti Strand, founder and national director of the National Animal Interest Alliance, a non-profit that studies shelter trends and the importation of rescue dogs, estimates that close to one million rescue dogs are imported annually from regions not known for stellar canine health and safety standards. They include dogs from Puerto Rico, Turkey, several countries in the Middle East and as far away as China and Korea. That compares to about 8 million dogs annually acquired as pets in the U.S.All of this underscores that without improved oversight of pet rescue organizations, there’s no way of definitively identifying how many foreign rescue dogs are put up for adoption here. These foreign rescues may be well-intentioned, but they are courting disaster. While it is often a challenge to gather information on an abandoned dog here in the U.S., it is even harder for a dog that originated overseas. Information may be missing, poorly translated or unreliable. Challenges are especially serious when it comes to health and safety. Animals from other countries are not subject to the health and welfare laws of the U.S. and may arrive carrying serious and infectious canine diseases. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), although importation laws require all dogs to be examined by a licensed veterinarian, foreign paperwork is hard to verify and is commonly invalid or forged. Continue