I’ve not had much time to blog these last few months as we’ve been busy arranging our return to New Zealand and the establishment of our new home there. Shipping dogs overseas is a complicated process at the best of times but shipping to New Zealand is even more so.
New Zealand, being an island nation that relies heavily on its pristine beauty and quality primary produce both for tourism and for export, works very hard at keeping unwanted invasive plants, animals and microbes out of the country. This includes disease which could wipe out any one of the many industries on which the country is so dependent.
What this means for our dogs is a rather lengthy and stringent program of inoculations, blood tests and treatments to prepare them for the first stage of the process – acquiring the permit to import. If a dog is not familiar with regular visits to the vet, this can be a most traumatic time for them.
Both our dogs were rescued and as such had already seen more than their fair share of the inside of a vet clinic. In fact our poodle, Blue, spent almost a month in hospital before coming into our care.
Since we adopted them we have worked hard at making visits to the vet a fun event. I would take them to visit often even if we were not going for treatment. I used the excuse of popping in weekly just to sit them on the scales and see how much weight they had put on. It was always an opportunity to say hi to the staff and perhaps score an extra treat or two.
When we knew for sure we were returning to NZ, we needed to first get the dogs cleared for rabies with a titre test. Because the poodle was born Italian and the Beauceron, French, they needed a European passport to bring them into Switzerland and that meant meeting the European microchipping and vaccination requirements which included a rabies vaccination. Both our dogs were vaccinated for the disease before we adopted them. However, the rabies immunity requirements to meet the standards for importation in New Zealand are far and beyond anything required for their European passport. It took us four months of blood tests and further rabies vaccinations (three each) to get test results that met the NZ standard.
Microchipped, vaccinated and rabies immune, they had only completed the first step in their preparation but it was enough, along with the booking to the quarantine facility in Levin, to acquire a permit to import. This permit provides a window of 10 days during which the dogs are allowed into NZ – three months from their rabies all clear date. So even though we started the process in late May, the earliest we could bring them into the country would be November 20th.
Stage 1 accomplished, we needed to devise a plan with the vet to address all the other tests and requirements necessary before importation. We are very lucky with our veterinarian service in Nyon: The clinic is located in the estate where we live and the resident vet there, who both our dogs love, was willing to work with me to devise a plan to meet all the necessary testing requirements. My intention was to meet the requirements with the least amount of stress possible for the dogs. We decided on three more visits – the first within 30 days, the second within 16 days and the final within 48 hours or their shipping date. The last was to be followed with a visit to a government vet who does the final examination and signs off on all the tests completed.
We now have less than one week to go before the dogs and I ship out and we have completed two of the three vet visits necessary with an all clear on every one of the blood tests.
Our first visit entailed an initial treatment each for internal and external parasites, a blood draw for a Leptospirosis test and a blood draw for a Canine Heartworm antigen test. Because all the blood tests need to be conducted at Government laboratory or a laboratory approved by the Government Veterinary service of Switzerland, enough blood had to be drawn for sufficient serum to be extracted onto which the test would be conducted. This meant that the same amount of blood needed to be drawn from my 8kg poodle as from the 30kg Beauceron – and yet it was the big puppy that was the right sook.
This is where the clicker comes into play with remarkable effectiveness. I use it to mark appropriate behavior at every stage of the process: Getting up onto the table, Click’n’treat! Sitting nicely in position close to the vet, Click’n’treat! Looking at me rather than at what the vet is doing, Click’n’treat! Staying still through the blood draw, Click’n’treat! Click’n’treat! Click’n’treat! And a lovely jackpot at the end of it with the added bonus of being allowed to jump down from the table and having a rump massage from one of the vet techs.
My little poodle doesn’t respond to treats when he is under stress. With him I use a combination of tongue clicks and a gentle neck and back massage while he stands quietly through what, for him, is quite a long procedure.
Despite the repeated blood-taking both dogs still get a kick out of going to the vet's. They have a bit of a reputation each and the vet techs fall over themselves to come and assist.
On our second visit to take blood for two more tests: Brucella Canis and Babesia Gibsoni, I showed one of the vet techs how to give Blue a calming massage around his lower back and rump while he waited for Beau to be seen to. When it was Blue's turn on the table the tech started doing the same thing to Beau. Beau promptly backed into her so she was pinned against the wall and kinda leaned in for more - his tail doing propeller turns and thumping the wall. It would have been laughable if I hadn't had Blue's wee head tucked in under my armpit while yet another vial of blood was drawn from his leg. Even though the vet used a smaller syringe and split the blood draw between his two front legs, he just didn’t have a high enough flow rate – it must hurt terribly having it sucked out of him. Under this sort of stress the reassuring massage is a huge help. He left the surgery with little bandages wrapped around his blood stained legs looking like a wounded soldier from WWI, but when he hopped down from the table, he earned a Click! And happily took one of his extra special treats that are kept especially for the end of stressful situations like this.
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| Beau and Blue relaxing after yet another vet visit |
The vet has repeated said what a pleasure it is to work with my dogs and how lucky that they are so good-natured. But a lot more is responsible for that ‘good-nature’ than just luck. From the moment we step into the vet clinic, the structure kicks in and the game-playing begins. We play "Touch" and "Check it Out" with anything unfamiliar while we wait for the vet to get ready for us. Once in the surgery, we continue the game playing adding “Look at That” to the set for things like the examining table, and the different people that come and go while we are there.
After the procedures, when we have the long wait to see if the vet has enough serum for the tests, I run through each dog’s repertoire of tricks. These are mini behavior chains that keep each dog’s focus on me, providing great opportunities to reinforce calmness and making the vet surgery a place where mostly good things happen.
We have only the final visit to go now which will be a breeze. There will be no more blood-taking only a 2nd treatment for internal and external parasites, a treatment for canine heart-worm prevention and a physical vet examination each. Then there is the final check by the Government vet in our region to complete the vet procedures and both dogs will be ready for the next part of the process - the drive to Zurich and the grueling 36 hour ordeal of flying to NZ.
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