Echinococcus & Falsified passports

Any owner of a Serbian dog who did not arrive with a Serbian passport and/or FAVN test results and health certificate, PLEASE read this. Also, if your dog is from any European and you suspect it has a falsified passport (look for handwritten vaccine batch numbers, unregistered microchip, clear plastic stickers in passport, mistakes with dates, description of your dog) please read and consider if you want to discuss your concerns with your vet or trading standards.

I have been asked for clarification on the microchips. When a dog is microchipped, the vet should enter the details into the countries database, this connects the vet who microchipped the animal, the passport number and the chip number. As many dogs from abroad are being brought in with false details in their passport, no vet wants to be connected to that (they can explain away their signature or stamp as being forged but not how it was entered in the system under their name) as they risk losing their license. In our instance and most of the dogs being brought in from Serbia, the chips are being inserted by the rescuers themselves, some of these are very cheap "imported" chips that do not even scan but all of them will not be entered into the database. When the chip is canned, it will register as being the same number as on the passport and as with ours, might provide the country the chip is from but no further information as it is not officially registered in the Romanian database.

The Passport below is only to show the comparison of a handwritten entry which is 1 red flag of a potentially falsified passport. The passport shown on the left IS falsified as the dog was in Serbia days before this passport was made and did not have an FAVN or CVED and the dates of passport issue do not correspond with other information.

If you have a dog from Dejan or Paws United, Margaret Shelter or Danyflor in Romania it is highly likely your dog has not been wormed or vaccinated. If you have not yet done so, please worm your dog and the specific worm you are targeting is Echinococcus granulosus or Hydatid worm. THIS is why dogs from abroad are wormed, it is not to rid them of the common tape worm we have in this country. 

In Serbia, up to 69.23% of dogs have this worm depending on the region and whether the dogs are rural or urban. That means potentially 69 out of every 100 dogs being brought in from Serbia could have this worm. My dog was not treated for tapeworm in Serbia or Romania, his passport states he was but he wasn't. 

The eggs of this worm can be passed to humans by the dog licking your face or you petting an infected dog or from the dogs lead etc. Children mostly contract the disease while playing in a garden or park and coming into contact with contaminated faeces. I would post pictures of the horrific damage this disease does but they are very graphic so instead, you can choose whether you want to see for yourself how serious this issue is or just trust me when I tell you it is horrible. You can read about the disease 

WHO.INT

and google search images for Hydatid cysts though be warned, it's not nice.