UK's Quarantine Law

From Yahoo News:

"Britain eases quarantine rules for visiting pets"

For a famously animal-loving nation, pet owning visitors to Britain have had it remarkably tough. Ever since the 19th century, new arrivals have had to bid a teary farewell to their cat or dog for six months while it sat in quarantine to prove that it did not have rabies. But no longer. As of January 1, Britain will allow animals from the European Union and listed countries such as the United States and Australia to enter with just a rabies vaccination given 21 days beforehand. Pets coming in from unlisted countries such as India, Brazil and South Africa will also need to have been vaccinated and take a blood test, but the subsequent quarantine has been halved to three months. The new measures will bring Britain in line with other EU nations while at the same time ensuring the risk of rabies entering the country remains "extremely low", according to officials. Announcing the change in June, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said: "The UK?s quarantine system was designed to combat the threat of rabies in the 19th century and has now been left far behind by scientific advances.

^ The UK may have needed these quarantine laws up until the Chunnel was opened in the 1990s. Before that it made since for the island-nation to have strict rabies rules. Nowadays it is baseless for pets coming from Western countries to have to be quarantined I'm glad these archaic rules are be done away with for many nationalities. ^

http://news.yahoo.com/britain-eases-quarantine-rules-visiting-pets-