HOLIDAY-MAKERS, diplomats, service personnel and foreign visitors were celebrating this week, as for the first time in 100 years, animals were allowed to enter the country without having to spend six months in quarantine—as long as they had implanted microchips to identify them and records of a rabies vaccination. Mary Fretwell. who has led the campaign Passports for Pets, posed briefly for COUNTRY LIFE at Folkestone before boarding the car shuttle. The journey was as fraught as her long campaign: Claude, the basset-hound who inspired the scheme, had to be left behind after an emergency operation to remove the dog lead he had swallowed. Undeterred, she was accompanied by a Jack Russell terrier, Daisy. and a Labrador, Dennis. it is an historic moment and we are all thrilled,’ Lady Fretwell says. Country Life 2.3.00

Tuesday 29 February 2000

Charlotte Usher with Daisy her much loved Jack Russell

"Ximo, a Rhodesian ridgeback, waiting at Calais before entering Britain without Quarantine"

Mr Patten with, from left, Kate, Alice and Laura

Whisky and Soda are Home at last

The family of the last Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, was celebrating yesterday when their dogs, Whisky and Soda, finally returned to Britain two and a half years after the colony was handed back to the Chinese. The Norfolk terriers, aged eight and seven, have been looked after at the Patten's holiday home Toulouse in France to avoid quarantine. But yesterday Lavender Pattern took advantage of the new pet passport scheme to drive them home to Britain. Mrs Patten, 51, who traveled with the dogs through the Channel Tunnel, said: "We never contemplated leaving them behind in Hong Kong. We thought about quarantine but we didn't want to go through with it. "So we put them on a flight to Paris. We then went to France for nine months while Chris wrote his book. "We have been waiting since then for the law to change so that they could come back with us. The dogs have both been very happy. It has been me who has been missing them." Mrs Patten said that her daughters Kate, 26, Laura 25, and Alice, 20, were thrilled at the chance of being with Whisky and Soda again at the family home in Barnes, west London. The Daily Telegraph 08.03.00

PASSPORT PET TOO PAWLY FOR BIG DAY

Daily Star 28.02.00

AT LAST Britain's antiquated quarantine laws seem on the way out. Introduced after a spate of rabies deaths in the last century, they have caused immense heartache to generations of pet owners who have seen their animals led away and shut up in solitary confinement for six months if they bring them into Britain.

They have not even been allowed to take the family dog to France for a weekend without it being seized on their return. Later this week the Government will seek views about introducing an alternative to the current laws. Quarantine would remain as a backstop. But animals which have been inoculated with an effective vaccine would have a 'pet passport' - a micro chip implanted in an animal's ear or neck which could be scanned by Customs officers to verify any blood test certificate. They would then be able to come and go as freely as their owners.

Of course, nothing should be allowed to jeopardise public health; although it is worth recalling that we have never imposed similar draconian laws on human disease carriers as we do on dogs and cats. And, while rabies can be a terrible killer, a recent survey showed that none of the 3,000 animals which have died in quarantine in the past quarter of a century was carrying the virus.

The case for reform is overwhelming.