The Lady Is A Champ - Passports for Pets head Lady Frewell - Brief Article

Interview, June, 2000 by Elizabeth Hurley

ENGLAND'S LADY FRETWELL FIGHTS TOOTH AND NAIL SO THAT DOGS AND CATS MAY TRAVEL FREELY

Rumor has it that the English love their dogs more than their children. This may not be true, but I certainly know some English women who love their dogs more than their husbands--but that's another story. English people have always been besotted with dogs, so it was one of life's mysteries why the U.K. had the cruelest and most antiquated quarantine system in the world. As an unashamed dog-worshiper, I put my late dog, Nico, through the system when I moved from the U.S. back to the U.K. some years ago. It was a wretched experience, and I vowed not to get another dog until the laws changed. Now, thanks to the marvelous crusade led by the indomitable Englishwoman Lady Fretwell, things are finally looking up. I struggled out of bed after a lethal night shoot to telephone her.

ELIZABETH HURLEY: Is this an awful time to call you? You're probably getting ready for a dinner party or something.

LADY FRETWELL: Not at all! Actually I've been gardening.

EH: Oh, lucky, lucky you. I'm in San Francisco, where it's very rainy and very gray. I think, for the purposes of this interview, I should pretend to be even more moronic than I really am. Most Americans don't have the faintest idea about quarantine and the new developments so I'm going to ask you some half-willed questions.

LF: OK.

EH: What exactly have you and your organization, Passports for Pets, been up to?

LF: We started the big battle five and a half years ago to reform the quarantine situation in the United Kingdom.

EH: Which was what, exactly?

LF: Well, all cats and dogs from whichever country had to go into quarantine for six months on arrival in the U.K., Even if they'd been taken Out of the country by mistake. I had one person who flew from Scotland to London with his dog, and his plane was briefly diverted to Amsterdam. Although they never left the plane, his dog was quarantined for six months. It was that pathetic.

EH: That's truly terrible. Animals were quarantined so they couldn't bring rabies into Britain?

LF: That is the theory.

EH: Now, how often was rabies brought into quarantine kennels?

LF: There has not been a case of rabies developing in a quarantined dog for the last thirty years. These are animals coming from all over the world. Not one case of rabies in quarantine.

EH: How could the government keep up all the quarantine centers with data like that coming out all the time? It must have made people gasp and stretch one's eyes a bit.

LF: Well, it really wasn't coming out. There was a sort of conspiracy of silence. They just kept repeating the dreary old record of forty years ago. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." "We haven't had an outbreak of rabies [ldots] so it must work, mustn't it?" Without bothering to look at other countries, which have switched to a more modern system and been rabies-free.

EH: Like Sweden?

LF: Absolutely. Sweden's been rabies-free for much longer than we have. They switched five and a half years ago to a passport system, and there's a lot of happy Swedes.

EH: [laughsl They've had no outbreak of rabies since switching?

LF: None at all. Also, I think one of the factors that persuaded this government to change the regulations was the sheer amount of smuggling that was going on. People thought the law was asinine, and more and more people were smuggling.

EH: That's true, because when I was debating whether to put my dog through quarantine I was offered ways to smuggle her into England.

LF: There was an enormous amount of smuggling. Some people were caught, but we don't know how many were successful--because obviously people weren't going to volunteer such information.

EH: Smuggled dogs need no documentation or proof of inoculation, so the old laws probably left the U.K. even more open to a rabies outbreak. What is the new procedure for bringing a dog or cat into the U.K.?

LF: First of all, only Western Europe is in the pilot scheme, which is on trial this year. It started on February 28. All dogs and cats must be microchipped [have a chip attached to the animal's earl and vaccinated against rabies. After thirty days a blood test is performed, and six months later the animal can come into the United Kingdom.

EH: Good God!

LF: It sounds a little dreary, but you don't have to repeat the process. Then you are free to bring your pets in and out of the U.K. However, you've got to come in through a licensed operator. At the moment, those are only the car-train shuttle, most of the ferries coming across from France, British Midland Airlines and, rather strangely, FINNAIR.

EH: Heavens. What a nightmare. Let's all move to Helsinki. British Airways hasn't joined them?

LF: No. They said they found it a bit complicated. They have been pretty hopeless, actually.

EH: Shame on British Airways! What about Virgin Atlantic Airways?

LF: Virgin? No, no nothing.

EH: What's wrong with Richard Branson?

I thought he was supposed to be a "friend of the people?" I shall write to him at once!

LF: We do need more airlines to break the stranglehold of coming through France. The pilot scheme only covers Western Europe, but we hope it will lead to further implementation--Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan.