Dog owners get reprieve, but some still anxious over U.S. border rules

Some dog owners say the temporary exemption Canada has received from the most onerous new U.S. rules for bringing dogs across the border doesn't go far enough and the reprieve needs to be made permanent.

Earlier this month the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that as of Aug. 1, dogs coming into the U.S. from Canada — a rabies-free country — would face the same updated restrictions being imposed on dog owners from high-risk countries. 

Canada pushed back, and on Tuesday the CDC updated its policy by creating three categories of rules dog owners must follow when bringing a dog into the United States. 

Two of those categories deal with dogs that are entering the U.S. from high-risk countries, while the third outlines the rules for dogs entering from a low-risk or rabies-free country, like Canada. 

While the rules for dogs entering from Canada let owners avoid the most burdensome regulations, they still require new steps that some dog owners say are expensive and may in some cases rule out travel to the U.S. 

One requires all dogs entering the U.S. from Canada to "have a microchip that can be detected with a universal scanner to identify them." 

Daniel Dickmeyer lives on Salt Spring Island in B.C. and travels across the border every few months to visit his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren in Seattle. 

His 11-year-old black lab, April, makes the journey with him every time. She has been vaccinated for rabies but has not been chipped. 

"I know it's supposedly a safe operation, but it's $200 here," Dickmeyer said. "Particularly on our island, there aren't enough vets to go around … it's going to be a kind of a big hassle just to get the chip process arranged."

Health Minister Mark Holland warned Tuesday that the relaxed rules may only be temporary and described the CDC decision as a nine-month "grace period."

"We're going to continue our hard work to make sure when that nine-month period is over that folks can still take their dogs back and forth across the border," Holland said.

The CDC rules published online this week do not mention the grace period. CBC News reached out to the CDC, but the response Wednesday did not clarify how long the exemption would be in place.

If the grace period is not made permanent, only dogs that had been vaccinated for rabies after they have been fitted with a microchip would be let into the U.S. 

That means Dickmeyer would have to not only pay for a microchip for April, but also to get her double vaccinated for rabies if he wants her to visit his son's family.