Pet Passport Problem

Re: Pet Passport Problem

fluffygirl — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 18:09:00 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

This isn't of much relevance to the OP but I thought it would be of interest. A client of mine who has small private zoo in is garden also runs a wildlife and zoo animal rescue and repatriation company (he was involved in the case of the abused Elephant that ended up being moved to Longleat recently) asked me how much it would cost for 100 chips. I assumed he wanted them to identify his charges but no, he also trains students and has a load of anatomical specimens which he wanted to identify reliably for archiving. I ordered him some of those chips that are virtually given away by some insurance company and he was chuffed.

[/quote]

My other half (who is an archaeologist) once used cattle tags to identify the stiffs he dug up from a cathedral site.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:03:18 GMT

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Alan Tevendale — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 07:39:41 GMT

In many zoo species we implant in the supraspinatous muscle - as far as I'm aware never seem to get a migration problem. Of course I'm sure your average kitten wouldn't appreciate that on the consult room table.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Tim Cheyne — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:59:31 GMT

In horses here we place the chip high into the nuchal ligament using the usual implantar. I suppose that there is no similar convenient site in the dog. In the past the only problem was import officials attempting to read the chip with non-standard equipment. In camels it is a different matter, the chips migrate considerable distances and sometimes cannot be found at all.

Tim.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Thomas Johnson — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 09:23:02 GMT

We have a member of staff whose dog's chip had migrated down its left leg, it then had a major de-gloving injury and lost the chip, it's probably still in the undergrowth somewhere in Windsor Great Park!

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Joyce Whitehead — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:48:14 GMT

Further update - the chip was still with the manufacturers, and despite them saying last week that they couldn't read it, they continued to try, amazingly they managed to get a reading yesterday, so the dog should be returning home on Tuesday. A good outcome in this case thankfully.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Mark Hedberg — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:20:03 GMT

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Peter Ding — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:15:58 GMT

[quote user="Stephen Courtney"]

We looked after a dog in quarantine that had been in and out of Europe for SIX years before someone noticed that the ID chip was inserted AFTER the blood test - this was one of the first passports issued and was a genuine cock-up. fortunately not one of ours.

Absolutely no clemency, an 8 year old dobie had to spend 6 months in quarantine. this animal had had annual Rabisin boosters since 2001 - we tried to get the ministry to release him if he passed a repeat blood test but no go. Poxy jobsworths. The dog was no risk to anyone, it was a disgrace that he had to spend 6 months at the last quarter of his life locked up. At VDS expense.

[/quote]

I think the rules are actually even slightly more petty minded than that. We had a case of the chip being inserted immediately prior to the blood test, proving the sample tested was that of the animal in question, but still after several years of twice yearly trips to europe, two Rabies boosters and numerous careful inspections of his passport, one officer decided to refuse entry to the ferry on the basis of a pedantic trivial error made 7 years previously . i.e. the chipping has to be done at the same time or prior to the vaccination, even though logic would have indicated that the same time as the blood test ought to suffice. We got the same unsympathetic answer from DEFRA/MAFF.

The owner found a far more pragmatic solution,! He deferred his return 30 hours and came back when that particular customs officer wasn't on duty having swapped his ferry ticket. No-one appeared to spot the technical error in the historical documentation the next day. It saved a lot of inhumane hassle and cost. It was, what might be said to be, a very french solution to a tricky situation (quietly hinted at by a sympathetic onlooker). Thank god my client was reasonably bilingual!

Once back in the UK we re-vaccinated and blood tested the dog in order to comply fully with the wording of the rules before he went abroad again. The ministry admitted that dog could not possibly be carrying rabies and was fully protected but were intransigent at the time.

Add that sort of story to the farces surrounding bat rabies a decade ago, BSE, the last foot and mouth outbreak, lay blood /TB testing and LVI fees and you can see why many vets have little sympathy with DEFRA and their employees.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Judith Joyce — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:58:16 GMT

[quote user="Joyce Whitehead"]We have a client with a rare breed (in this country) of Swiss Mountain dog. The dog was bred in this country, and passported as a youngster. She was taken to Switzerland last week to be mated. [/quote]

I know that it is absolutely no help in this particular case but we have in our Hospital (Croft, Northumberland) a colleague with a busy canine Repro practice. She regularly collects, freezes and stores semen and equally frequently performs AI on imported semen thereby avoiding the need to send dogs abroad to deepen the gene-pool. Her results with trans-cervical AI are impressive and she has yet to resort to surgical AI.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Claire Godfrey — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 23:15:07 GMT

On a similar note, brilliant phone call to the surgery last week,

"We've taken the dog on a day trip and got on a ferry, now we're coming back and they're asking for a passport, but we don't have one"

Not sure of the decided upon outcome currently!

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Joyce Whitehead — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:14:38 GMT

Thanks Stephen, useful to know - she is very media savvy so that might be the way to go!

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Stephen Courtney — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:55:20 GMT

Tell your client to complain to her MP - there is provision for Ministerial exemption, but the jobsworths won't admit it, and won't help you access that route, in factg will actively lie and deny it is possible. I know it isn't. It has to be via an MP because no one else has access to the Minister. If the MP speaks directly to the right minister, problem over immediately.

It's who you know, innit? Only problem is, i have no idea who the minister is. Used to be the eejit in the pink shirt. No idea who got his job after.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Joyce Whitehead — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 16:18:08 GMT

Update- the chip has gone back to DataMars, but is still not readable, so the dog is to stay in Switzerland until January. Very unhappy owner - she is going to be paying boarding fees there (to the stud owner) and then potentially for her puppies too should she be pregnant. The pups will not be able to return to the UK until they have had their rabies jabs and 3 week wait either, so can't be sold until much older than usual. The owner has dog travel insurance who, at the moment, say they will not pay unless the chip was checked within the 2 weeks before travel (which it wasn't). They are now trying to establish how much the chip company will contribute to the extra costs.

Annoyingly, this bitch had a DNA sample done (by me) in September of last year, for a health screening programme, and had her chip checked then, as she was being hip scored at the same time. However, DEFRA will not consider using this as an identifying measure - it is the chip or nothing.

It all seems so ridiculous when the scheme is being changed in January anyway.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Mark Holmes — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:16:23 GMT

No because now that I think about it the "lumpectomy" was actually a surgical tissue debridement following a nasty fighting injury which had become necrotic. That said I have seen a number of fibrosarcs in this area and my feeling would be that it was incidental. Maybe an injection site tumour that happened to involve the chip.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Alan Tevendale — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:02:35 GMT

Yes - exactly what we thought may have been the cause. Don't suppose you would ever really be able to say for certain though.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Gerry Henry — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:49:21 GMT

[quote user="Mark Holmes"]We had a chip inadvertently removed in a major lumpectomy. THAT was embarrassing.

[/quote]

Has the thought occurred to you that possibly the chip was the cause of the lump; we remoived a fibrosarc from an 11yr old cat last year which had been chipped by ourselves 4 years previously; the chip was embedded in the heart of the mass.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Stephen Courtney — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:28:40 GMT

General problem.

There is another issue as well, non-standard chips. Amazing how many there are! Had a dog come into qyuarantine from Portugal, temporarily, while hsi paperwork was being processed. his chip was some obscure make, didn't show at all on one of my scanners, and gave garbled heiroglyphics on the other - so we knew he had a chip, just couldn't read it. this of course is the owner's problem, so they managed to borrow a scanner form their vet in portugal, and we could read the chip then. Only took 2 weeks!

My other bugbear was the fact that Avid initially refused to allow makers of other scanners to read their chips - you'd just get a reading 'AVID' instead of a number. Had to buy my own avid scanner for those animals, as when the US joined the pet passport system initially they had to go into quarantine and have a release applied for once they had arrived - took a couple of days. I think Avid chips are now ISO compliant, however there must be some animals running around with unreadable chips still.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Bob Russell — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:05:50 GMT

Is it a manufacturer specific problem or a general one?

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Simon Neuhoff — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:53:30 GMT

Have also had one fail - it was picked up in Dover and the dog quarantined there, it had worked for 18 months prior to this with no issues. This one luckily COULD be read eventually by the manufacturer so the dog was released from quarantine after 10 days or so.

Interesting to hear of so many failures! Makes me think that 1 in 10 000 failure rate is rather over optimisitic!

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Bob Russell — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 09:31:30 GMT

I would always second or third the new battery suggestion before declaring a chip failed. Some readers are very heavy on batteries (ours is the animalcare one) and the range can drop alarmingly at the end of the battery life but before the low battery warning comes up.

Obviously I am not doubting that was an issue in these posts but is worth bearing in mind when routinely scanning pets!

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Stephen Courtney — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 08:18:18 GMT

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Alan Tevendale — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:41:00 GMT

[quote user="Mark Holmes"]We had a chip inadvertently removed in a major lumpectomy. THAT was embarrassing.

[/quote]

I've done exactly the same thing.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Mark Holmes — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 21:51:28 GMT

We had a chip inadvertently removed in a major lumpectomy. THAT was embarrassing.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:18:29 GMT

I had a client who's dog's chip failed on its way back from Portugal. Despite the fact that I had actually checked the chip before they departed and it was working I was blamed by the client for implanting a faulty chip. Same alternative solutions were suggested as previously mentioned but he elected to leave it in Portugal as fortunately he had relatives there and start the passport process again as the line of least resistance and expense. He eventually accepted it was not my fault but I suspect the original response was one of denial and wanting to place the blame somewhere. I also had one who blamed me for not sending him a Rabies booster reminder and the passport expired. I make everyone sign a disclaimer when I hand out their passport which specifically states I cannot be responsible for failed chips, missed boosters or anything else that could possibly go wrong and specifically states that they should have the chip checked before they travel along with advice on prevention of exotic diseases.

More worrying was a Swiss client who re-entered the country 3 times after the passport expired and UK customs didn't even notice, apparently all they did was scan for a chip and didn't even look inside the passport. This only came to light several months later when the dog came for its annual booster and I questioned why she hadn't had the rabies done.

Re: Pet Passport Problem

Rob Loxley — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:32:01 GMT

I had a client asking how they change the batteries in the chip...