[size=50:2z5ryngs]Daily Telegraph

[size=150:2z5ryngs]Pet passport rules to be relaxed

The rules on pet passports are to be relaxed, allowing hundreds of thousands of pet owners to travel abroad with their animals for the first time.

It will be easier to take your dog abroad when the rules come into force in 2012

The change to the rules should also save pet owners who do travel with their animals an estimated £7 million a year.
Currently, anyone who wants to travel with their animals and bring them back into Britain needs to have their pet vaccinated a full six months before coming back into the country and be microchipped. Their animals then need a blood test a month later to ensure the anti-rabies vaccine has fully taken. Only then are they given a so-called Pet Passport, allowing them to come back into the country.
On Thursday, Caroline Spelman, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary, is expected to announce that Britain will relax the rules, bringing the country into line with more liberal regulations in place across most of the European Union.
Animals will only need to be vaccinated 21 days before coming back into the country and the blood test requirement will be dropped. The new rules are expected to come into force from the start of next year.
Only last weekend Novak Djokovic, the tennis player who moved into the semi-finals at Wimbledon yesterday, was reported to be in distress after being told he could bring his pet poodle Pierre with him to London.

Lady Fretwell, who has campaigned for the end to the quarantine system and for Britain to adopt European pet passport rules, said: "
It will make a huge, huge difference. People will no longer need to plan months in advance. If people move jobs it will mean they will no longer be forced to leave their pets behind for months.
"
And the dropping of the blood test – for me, that's 'yippee'"
.
Many vets charge pet owners £100 for the blood test, which most scientists say is completely unnecessary. It is understood that a report, commissioned by Defra, will calculate that pet owners will save £7 million a year as a result of the dropping of this requirement.
An estimated 100,000 owners a year use the pet passport scheme to take their animals on holiday or on work trips.
Rabies has almost been completely eradicated in Britain, with the exception of some rare cases in bats and foxes. According to the Health Protection Agency, there have only been four cases of humans with rabies since 2000, all of which were caused by people being bitten while abroad, outside of the EU. The only person to catch the disease in Britain was when a man who was a licensed bat handler died in Scotland from infection with European Bat Lyssavirus 2, a rabies-like virus.
Some vets have argued that Britain should not be complacent about the rabies threat, pointing out that in some European countries such as Poland, there are still cases. But Lady Fretwell said: "
These vets all have vested interests in keeping the expensive system in place."

While pet owners will only need to vaccinate their pets 21 days before travelling if they are arriving from the EU or a developed country, the rules for some other countries such as India, will remain more strict.
Travelling with pets from these countries, the owners are currently forced to vaccinate their animal and put it into full quarantine for six months. However, this will be dropped to four months and instead of quarantine they will need just to be vaccinated.

Can't see they can get any more relaxed!

We travelled from France to Bulgaria 7 years ago with our German Shepherd in the back of the 4WD. She had passport, papers, etc., and we were never asked for them once at any border crossing the whole way.

same here, two dogs, all correct paperwork, came through 6 countries and no one asked for their passports, despite the dogs barking at the border police, their only concern was that we had a correct vignette. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Same here, but I think it will be easier to take pets back to the UK.
Am I correct in this? [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Yes, its more the other way that it will make a differences. The big thing for people will be that people will not have to stop off in France if travelling overland to get another blood test done. Or as what happened with one of my dogs which had, had all its inoculations, i paid 300 lev for the blood test (It has to go to Germany from here), and the dog failed the test = another 300 lev. Result the dog didn't go to the UK. As it would have cost me well over 1000 lev to get the dog to the UK.