Pups from Holland may carry deadly virus

Looking to buy a puppy as pet? Cross your fingers for your happiness may just be short-lived. According to latest reports, majority of puppies imported from The Netherlands are taking ill.

Out of the 15 cases of puppies brought in with serious illnesses, 14 were imported from The Netherlands and carried officially authorised papers.

"Puppies for sale in Dubai from the Netherlands. Buyers beware!" says the title of a blog post on 'Europuppieblog'.

Lately, the puppy market in Dubai and Abu Dhabi has been flooded with young puppies being sold for as much as Dh5,000 each, a relatively good deal. The puppies are often from The Netherlands, and as the story goes, they often fall ill and later die.

Peter Jaworski, who works as a Vet in Dubai, told 'Emirates24|7': "We have seen an influx of puppies that are infected with parvovirus."

Parvovirus, commonly called parvo, is a highly contagious virus among dogs, and young puppies carrying this virus do not live long. "When the puppy is as young as eight weeks, it has only 90 per cent chance of survival," he explains.

And because the virus is easily transmitted among animals and because of the often fatal consequences, the Ministry of Environment and Water (MOEW) applies strict rules when it comes to puppy import into the UAE.

Each dog must be vaccinated, and this must be supported with the right documents, rules MOEW. However, it seems that the right documents are not the problem.

"Here they are, the passport copies of puppies that have come in seriously ill," says the manager of the veterinary clinic where Peter works, and she hands me a folder with 15 copies, from the period between February and June 2011 only. All passports except for one are authorised by Dutch vets, and all necessary vaccination stamps are present. But the reality is different.

"When a puppy is still has its milk teeth, he cannot possibly be four months old, although that is the age mentioned on the passport," Peter explains.

Age is crucial, because vaccinations against parvo are only fully affective after four months. Although the first vaccination should be given after eight weeks, the last one should be administered after 12 weeks, and then the puppy needs another three weeks to gain immunity against the deadly virus, explains Lucasz Juszkiewicz, a vet working at the same clinic.

Younger puppies are more popular on the UAE market. “Female Beagle Puppy – 14 weeks - imported from Holland: Dh5,000," says an ad online, and even established pet shops are known to sell puppies under the legal age.

The vets of the clinic are frustrated of having to constantly tell customers that they are being fooled, that their newly-purchased, eight-weeks-old puppy has only a few more hours to live.

Several of them have tried to reach out to the public to raise awareness, but they are been discouraged because the young puppy market in the UAE is flourishing, and older puppies don't sell, as Peter speculates.

Wilco Rasenberg, who works at De Rashof, says: "I do have a customer exporting puppies to the UAE. But I personally trust this customer. He has been in this business for 40 years - he came to our clinic when my father was working here."

His customer deals with puppies from The Netherlands and from East-European countries, but the doctor does not know which ones are exported to the UAE. "I do a regular check-up; I observe the puppy to determine its age and whether it is in good health. Then I vaccinate them. I don't do a blood test, that would be very time consuming," he says.

The doctor and his customer see no harm in their business, but the puppy dealer, who prefers to remain anonymous, says not to import puppies from East-Europe. “I work with proper Dutch breeders and under the umbrella of an organisation of professionals, who annually test the vaccinations we are giving the puppies. As a matter of fact, we have just improved the health security for puppies as a new vaccination has been introduced recently,” he explains.

Furthermore, they do not agree with many of the statements of the Dubai-based animal doctors. “It is proven that younger puppies can effectively be vaccinated,” the dealer says, and Rasenberg adds that even when puppies are vaccinated, the risk of getting infected with parvo is not excluded. The vet considers age hard to determine, and says that an immune system can differ from pup to pup.

“I highly doubt that the pups of my client are the problem, and it seems much more likely to me that viruses develop once the puppy is in the UAE”, he says. “When a puppy dealer in the UAE repeatedly buys his puppies from a Dutch provider that does not indicate any wrong-doing on the side of this provider,” he adds. “The UAE dealer might be the source of the virus.”

The Dutch puppy dealer that exports the puppies to the UAE says to have multiple customers here, about whom he knows little. “Once they are out of The Netherlands, they are out of my reach. I am not involved with what happens in the UAE.”

Similarly, vet Janita Bruurs too has a customer who imports puppies to the UAE, although she claims this customer collects his puppies in The Netherlands. She gives them an observatory health check and vaccinates. She claims they are legally imported.

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