£3,000‘prison’built foralittlepetdog

November 1995

A Wexford woman who returned home from America last week, bringing her dog with her, has decided to campaign against the Department of Agriculture’s animal quarantine laws.

Philomena Conway of Broadway has already gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid having her pampered pet ‘Aisling’ having to spend six months pining away in the State quarantine kennels in Co. Kildare.

Under a loophole in the quarantine laws, she has instead built a private kennel in the back garden of her aunt’s home, where she has settled after spending seven years working as a nurse in New York.

The special quarantine facility had to be designed by architect to the Department of the Environment, according to strict specifications. It features a 6ft perimeter fence, double gates on the outside, and a steel door. It has its own water supply, its own incinerator, and its own electricity supply, and it cost over £3,000 to build.

‘Aisling’ – a tiny cross between a Shizu and a poodle – was flown to Dublin from New York at a cost of just $82, but because of quarantine transport laws, it then cost £181 to bring her from Dublin to Co. Wexford.

A vet was waiting at the kennel when the dog arrived, and under quarantine rules, the dog must continue to be examined by a vet every day for the next months months – which will cost Philomena in the region of an additional £1,000.

She is not worried about the money, however. What upsets her most is the trauma the dog is going through, and she wonders if ‘Aisling’ will survive the ordeal.

‘Back in America, she lived in my apartment and slept on my bed,’ she said. ‘Now she can’t leave the kennel. She’s yapping all night, and scratching at the steel door to try get out.’

‘You’d have to see this kennel to believe it,’ she added. ‘You’d think there was a mad rhinocerous in there, with all the fencing and steel. It’s 12ft by 6ft wide, and 6ft high, and inside there’s just this tiny little dog, doing mad.’

She thinks Ireland’s quarantine laws are ‘ridiculous’ and is starting a campaign to have them changed.

‘My dog has had every shot there is, plus all the boosters. I have all the papers from the US to prove this, but still it makes no difference. She is cleaner than a lot of people walking the streets. In fact, I’m probably more of a danger than she is!’ she said.

Philomena is following the lead of American Ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith, who had a kennel built in the Phoenix Park for her dog, instead of it having to go to the State kennels for six months too. That decision came after a dog belonging to the Canadian Ambassador died while in State care at the Co. Kildare kennels.

‘I’m afraid Aisling wouldn’t have survived either,’ she said.

‘Six months is just far too long. Things need to change.’