Owners face increased costs and bureaucracy to travel across the Channel
Post-Brexit regulations have led to “significant consequences” for guide and other assistance dog owners, who are facing steep costs and complicated planning to visit France, guide dog associations have warned.
Instead of the previous Pet Passport, which lasted for a dog’s lifetime, and allowed owners to take their dogs to France and around Europe, owners must now pay upwards of £150 for an Animal Health Certificate (AHC) for every trip to France, no more than 10 days before departure.
They must also ensure their pet is microchipped, vaccinated against rabies and has had a tapeworm treatment.
The requirements are the same as those for all pet owners wanting to travel between the UK and France. These regulations apply for non-EU countries, so for the UK regulations changed when it left the European Union.
“There is no exemption for assistance dogs from these requirements,” Guide Dogs UK told The Connexion, adding it was “deeply disappointed” no agreement was reached on pet travel at the end of the transition period.
Read more: Can I take my dog on a cross-channel UK-France ferry?
Guide dog associations have stressed the costs are unfair, as guide dogs are essential to the lives of their owners.
“Assistance dogs are not pets – they are as necessary for their owners as a wheelchair, hearing aid, or any other essential piece of equipment. Charging a person with disabilities €200 to take their assistance dog with them (editor’s note – the price of some AHCs), is the same as charging them €200 to take their wheelchair,” said Martin Atkin of Assistance Dogs International, a coalition of nonprofit organisations that train and place assistance dogs.
“Assistance dog users who travel regularly to Europe for work, or who need to travel urgently, to visit a sick relative for example, face prohibitively expensive costs and bureaucracy that people without disabilities do not incur.”
Similar rules are in place for EU nationals taking their assistance dogs to the UK, but they are allowed to use the Pet Passport, valid for the life of the pet, and do not require an AHC. Their guide dogs must also be vaccinated against rabies, have a microchip and treated for tapeworm.
Associations told The Connexion they had raised concerns with the UK and EU governments but had seen no progress on the issue.
Guide Dogs UK noted the “steep increase” in the cost of AHCs as well as “how their complexity and inflexibility is preventing people with guide dogs from working, attending important events at short notice as well as general travel”.
One solution to the issue could be to give the UK Part 1 listed status. A ‘Part 1’ country is one that is within the EU’s pet travel scheme, which has more lenient conditions such as shorter waiting times or less stringent vaccine requirements.
Assistance Dogs International said its preference was that the EU Pet Passport be reinstated for all dogs, not just assistance dogs.
“If there is special dispensation for assistance dogs only, this potentially opens the floodgates to unscrupulous dog owners to fraudulently present their dog as an assistance dog, thereby circumventing the need for them to obtain an AHC,” it said.