I have been a resident of the state of Hawaii for the past 27 years and never really thought about Hawaii’s quarantine till I had to bring a dog through the system.
About 4 years ago I imported my first show dog from Canada. I paid $1,500 for her and had to wait till she was 14 months old before she could be shipped over in order to qualify for the new 30-day quarantine/90-day pre-arrival wait option.
I never thought anything of it because at that time the fee was only $285.
After my Doberman got out of quarantine, I noticed that she was afraid of people. If any stranger approached her or got behind her she would try to bite.
No matter how hard I worked with her, I could never get her over that.
Consequently, I could not show her for fear she would bite a judge and cause her to be disqualified from shows. I ultimately had to give away a $1,500 show dog.
In retrospect, I am wondering now if something had happened while she was confined at Halawa Quarantine Station? Our vet noted that her front teeth were ground down.
The quarantine worker said that she had been biting the chain link fencing.
Now why would she bite fencing unless she is agitated? Normally, dogs bite fencing when they are trying to get at other dogs or at people who are harassing them.
We also found out that she could not breed, and we are wondering, in light of the fact we now know the quarantine station uses chemicals and pesticides like Diazinon, which will be banned in the U.S. as of next year, if that was the root of her breeding problems. Diazinon is regularly used in quarantine around pets and people against instructions.
Her breeder said that she had been socialized and had no problem with people and her sister had a litter of puppies so there were no breeding problems that ran in the family line.
A perfectly healthy, once happy animal is just one more in a long list of victims of quarantine. We cannot let this situation continue. Vaccinations are safer than quarantine.
We must end quarantine now for properly vaccinated, microchip ID’d pets.
”’Jennie Wolfe is a member of the Community Quarantine Reform Coalition and Citizens for a Safer Quarantine and a resident of Mililani. She can be reached via email at:”’ mailto:wolfpakdobes@yahoo.com