Traveling With Your Dog May Have Just Gotten Much More Difficult
The United States Centre for Disease Control has announced a list of 113 countries from which you will be unable to import dogs from the 14th of July 2021. This includes pet dogs that have been traveling from the US with their owners. They say that this is a temporary suspension and that there will be very limited exemptions that require the owner or to apply for special written approval, which must be done at least 30 days before they intend to travel.
According to NPR there was an increase of over 50% of dogs arriving into the US with falsified rabies documentation during 2020 and this is what has led to this ban.
I’m a Mexican street dog, so I was most worried about Mexico and I’m glad to report that we are not on the list, but some of our close neighbors are, including Belize and Guatemala. It’s such a shame that people have been using false documents and have made life so difficult for so many humans and dogs. We saw this happen not that long ago when emotional support animals were banned from flights due to people falsifying those papers as well. Humans! Stop doing this stuff. Please.
Below is a list of the countries from which dogs may no longer travel into the US.
- Afghanistan
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Algeria, Angola
- Bangladesh
- Belarus
- Bhutan
- Brunei
- Belize
- Bolivia
- Brazil
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cambodia
- China (excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan)
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Comoros
- Côte D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
- Colombia
- Cuba
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Djibouti
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- Egypt
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Eswatini (Swaziland)
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Georgia
- Guatemala
- Guyana
- Haiti
- Honduras
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Kenya
- Laos
- Lebanon
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Libya
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mauritania
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Malaysia
- Moldova
- Mongolia
- Myanmar (Burma)
- Namibia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Nepal
- North Korea
- Nicaragua
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Peru
- Qatar
- Republic of the Congo, Rwanda
- Russia
- Sao Tome and Principe
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Saudi Arabia
- Sri Lanka
- Syria
- Suriname
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Timor-Leste (East Timor)
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Tanzania (including Zanzibar)
- Togo
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- Uzbekistan
- Venezuela
- Vietnam
- Western Sahara
- Yemen
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
You can find official information on this ban on the CDC’s website.
The CDC has previously estimated 1.06 million dogs are imported into the United States annually. The CDC estimates the import ban, which it expects to last a year, will affect about 6% of dogs imported.
Source: bbc.com, reuters.com, petfriendlyyucatan.com