DOG IMPORT HEALTH SCARE
Emma of Ruff Start Rescue More on Pawprints2Freedom, which brings dogs from rescue shelters in Romania into the UK.
I told last week how one owner had been left with a vet’s bill of more than £900 because her dog had heartworm disease.
Now a former worker at the organisation, which is not a charity or limited company, has blown the whistle on some of its practices.
Emma Bernard says that Pawprints brought around 1,600 dogs over 18 months into the UK, some of them “with serious issues that perhaps should not even have travelled”.
“A lot of dogs that arrive sick are from the same rescuer in Romania,” she said.
“There was a discussion to stop working with her or assist her to improve but nothing was done.
“You expect to have issues with a certain amount of dogs that you don’t know about before they get here, but a lot of this is about Pawprints’ reaction when these things happen – they take very little responsibility. They have, in my opinion, a high number of dogs that bite people.”
Dogs handed back for biting were later re-homed, with Pawprints charging further adoption fees for the same animal, but the new owners are not always being warned about the animal’s behaviour.
Emma, who now runs her own rescue group Ruff Start Rescue, is caring for a dog called Chance that Pawprints brought to the UK.
Her vet’s bill has reached £2,000.
“She has distemper and travelled to this country in a minibus with 16 or 17 other dogs,” Emma said.
“Pawprints did nothing to alert every other person who was getting a dog from that bus.
“She also had in her passport a known poor-quality rabies vaccine, but tests showed that she was not actively vaccinated or resistant to rabies, meaning she was illegally imported.”
I have had no response from Pawprints2Freedom, despite making repeated requests.
The vet’s bill for one dog brought to the UK has now reached £2k