Hello again, I've not been on here for quite a while. I wouldn't worry too much about drastic 'enforcement' in France as they only fuss when animals travel and even then, far less than in the UK. (their main worry is animals being brought in from Morocco via Spain as there was 1 puppy with rabies brought in in 2005 or so). I hope I'm right but there's never been the sort of pet travel phobia about rabies in France that there's been in the UK, despite no cases of rabies ever turning up in pets in quarantine in all these years.
The DEFRA guidelines seem entirely logical and will help people hugely from places like South Africa. If we could have done this, we'd have come straight back to England with our boys, instead of having nearly 2 years (was meant to be 6 months but we all liked it so much
) in France first! But DEFRA at last seem to accept what the other EU countries have always done, which is that if anyone has gone to the trouble and expense of all the vaccinations and paperwork being in order, their pet is incredibly unlikely to have rabies. As the boys' ex vet in SA told me "I think you'd have noticed if the cats had rabies"!
I imagine the people making money out of quarantine kennels are not too happy and will be lobbying that rabies is a 'huge risk'. Along with certain OTT members of the British Veterinary Association.....
