Diary of
Highcroft Custom Made (USA)
Sydney arrived in Western Australia finally, after an absolute nightmare trip.
Leaving his home in Minnesota on September the 11th, the day of the tragedy in America involving the Pentagon and Twin Towers terrorist attacks. Sydney and Quinn linked up in Los Angeles. Both dogs were then detained at Los Angeles airport for ten days prior to being allowed to continue their journey. Somehow the dogs appear to have been misplaced in Kuala Lumpur for twenty four hours, before finally turning up at Perth airport. The dogs were sealed in their crates at 8pm on Tuesday night to arrive in Perth at 4am on Friday morning .
Sydney appears to have had insufficient water during transit and arrived in Perth almost dead. His crate full of urine and diahorrea, I was told by a quarantine employee.
When I first laid eyes on him at 1pm Friday he had been at quarantine for approx nine hours. He was in a run in the general quarantine kennels, with other dogs on either side. Standing outside in light drizzle, covered in blow flies, diahorrea on much of his coat, smelling indescribable. No attempt had been made to clean this dog up or make him comfortable. All four of his pads were shredded from trying to dig his way out of the crate in his distress.
During the initial goverment vet inspection (for which we were charged $68 each dog), mandatory upon arrival into this country, the vet responsible at the Byford Quarantine Centre, apparently failed to detect anything wrong with this dog despite a temperature of 41 degree celcius, chronic diahorrea, coughing and gurgling breathing, nasal discharge, grey gums with refill of over 4 seconds, no appetite and numerous other very obvious symptoms.
One can only be amazed that the "vet" did not contemplate Anthrax under the circumstances.
Or was this dog actually ever checked at all by a competent veterinary surgeon upon arrival in the country? I requested that I be supplied with the veterinary inspection form but was told that there was no paper work for incoming dogs or cats. I find this absolutely astonishing, as anyone who has imported a dog would know it requires a huge amount of USDA government stamped and sealed paperwork to be allowed into this country over a period of five months. Yet, AQIS tell me nothing is signed on arrival by the government vet?
Alan, my partner, a vet for more than twenty years, drove up at first light Saturday morning. Despite my advising AQIS of my very grave concerns for this dog's health on the previous afternoon, when we arrived at the Byford Station at 8am Saturday morning the dog was lying on the concrete outside in the rain. No one had locked him inside his kennel that evening on leaving. Alan found the dog to be suffering from chronic pneumonia, completely in toxic shock, dehydrated and had a raging temperature. We were prevented by quarantine staff from taking blood samples or swabs to ascertain what antibiotics and other treatments were best suited, no alternative of any kind was offered to us. Alan stated his veterinary opinion that the dog may die over the weekend if not correctly treated, that made no difference to AQIS staff. We were told we would have to wait until Monday to get any samples taken by Murdoch University as they were the only ones allowed to remove "material" from quarantine.
Sydney then spent days in quarantine on a drip and weeks being treated with antibiotics and an assortment of other treatments. People with little or no experience or qualifications to inject animals were having to be left to treat the dog.
Needless to say on release from quarantine he is quite apprehensive about strangers approaching him as he spent a month being dripped, injected, treated with tablets and being poked with thermometers.
....This is an amazing story of near tragedy, that should have been easily avoided. I did report this to our local RSPCA officer David Stewart on that first weekend and kept him up to date with all developments.
The only reason it has been taken no further is .... "how do you fight the government?"
But I feel the truth should be known and would like to hear from anyone who has had similar experinces.
In October when the dogs were released from quarantine we wrote to the Goverment Minister in Canberra, the head of AQIS Australia and state asking for a response within seven days as to how this situation occured..... that was nearly a month ago and still no response.
Had the dog been infected with Anthrax and been put in quarantine with all the other dogs (97 dogs in quarantine and 30 cats the week before Sydney and Quinn arrived, all vet checked on arrival at $68 each - nice little earner?) all those pets belonging to other people would have been put down. This dog should never have been put in close proximity of other animals in quarantine's care until it was known what exactly was wrong with him and he had been adequately treated.
As a legacy of Sydney's horror trip the lovely stud dog I imported is a total nervous jibbering wreck who is sterile!!
We did eventually receive a reply from AQIS to our October letter, it took them until December. A Ms Jenni Gordon, stated that a government vet had inspected the dog to "ensure that there were no immediate welfare concerns to be addressed" obviously being nearly dead and covered in diahorrea does not count! She studiously avoided the question of why there was no alternatives offered to us regarding taking blood and swab samples from the dog on a weekend. If Alan was not allowed to do this then to prevent a life threatening situation for the animal some other protocols must surely be in place to have the tests carried out in an after hours emergency situation such as this.
My opinion.....Not good enough! When you are charging top dollar to "care" for someone else's cherished pet or expensive breeding stock.
The ability of the system to effectively identify quarantine risks, does not appear too bright either. This dog was quite clearly very seriously ill and yet the vet who inspected him failed to even classify him as a welfare issue.
CH Highcroft Lode Ark's Legend
Sydney's sire.
Taking his second Award of Merit
2001 CCA National Specialty in Kentucky.
Visit Sydney - Main Page.
