Dec. 6 – After a puppy adoption in Colorado went wrong, Centennial State regulators want to make sure out-of-state pets don’t bring in an unwanted guest: rabies.
This could spell big trouble for little paws in New Mexico.
A proposed rule would require all cats, dogs and ferrets entering Colorado to first receive a rabies vaccine and that pet transporters give the Colorado Department of Agriculture a week’s notice of when and where the transport will take place.
Kittens and puppies that are too young cannot be vaccinated against rabies. The earliest is about 3 months old.
Earlier this year, a puppy imported from Colorado by a rescue organization tested positive for rabies, resulting in a costly public health incident and the euthanasia of a dozen puppies. Every year, thousands of animals are transported from neighboring states to Colorado, where successful spay-neuter programs have reduced the number of unwanted companion animals.
In New Mexico, where many shelters are under strain, some warn that the changes could make transportation to Colorado more difficult, leading to an increase in overcrowding and ultimately euthanasia. There are a handful of cases of rabies in wildlife in New Mexico each year, but rabies in cats and dogs is relatively rare.
The Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley has transported approximately 500 animals to other states. More than half are puppies and kittens under three months of age, said rescue coordinator Liz Seely. Young kittens and puppies are particularly vulnerable to disease, especially in large shelters, Seely said. Many rescues are based on foster homes; the smaller setting limits the risk of illness.
Transports are such a large part of the shelter’s activities that two vehicles have been dedicated to it.
The journeys aren’t easy, says executive director Clint Thacker. It can take nine to 10 hours to drive from Southern New Mexico to Colorado partners, and an employee must leave the office at night. He remembers stopping along the way to bottle-feed kittens while making some trips himself.
“It takes a lot of energy and time,” Thacker said. “We are all committed to this. So if they throw this out…
He walked away.
‘We should euthanize animals to wait’
New Mexico lags behind in spay and neuter programs, Thacker said, while Colorado started decades ago. About 30 or more animals are brought to the community shelter in Las Cruces every day. Rescues can remove some of the capacity burden and reduce the need to euthanize animals to make room.
In a text message to The New Mexican, Española Humane communications director Mattie Allen said the shelter is sending “tons” of puppies to Colorado.
‘It’s not just the part of the rabies vaccine – it’s the [one] week’s notice of time, location and pets,” Allen wrote.
Almost every week, Seely said, the shelter sees possible litters of puppies and kittens coming in, some of which are still too young to be adopted. They can be fostered, but finding local foster parents can be easier said than done. When litters come in, it is sometimes an “emergency” to find a suitable rescue.
If you wait seven days, the capacity may go over the limit.
“We can wait for them, but … we would have to euthanize animals to wait,” Thacker said.
More than 12,000 cats and dogs were euthanized at New Mexico shelters last year, according to data reported by Best Friends Animal Society.
While other states struggle with animal shelter capacity, Brittany Krumholz, director of Colorado Puppy Rescue, says rescues in Colorado often have more bandwidth. Strict animal regulations and successful spay and neuter programs have reduced the state’s unwanted pet populations, Krumholz said, and there is a high demand for rescue animals.
Although the shelter sometimes takes in older dogs, it specializes in newborn puppies and puppies that need to be bottle-fed. Krumholz estimates that about 60% of the animals Colorado Puppy Rescue takes in from other states would not qualify under the proposed rule. And she worries the regulations could negatively impact partners in other states. Last year, the Colorado Pet Animal Care and Facilities Act program, which is under the Colorado Department of Agriculture, reported that more than 12,000 puppies had been moved to Colorado from other states.
“Their euthanasia numbers are only going to skyrocket because Colorado is the outlet for many of these states that have high populations of unwanted pets,” Krumholz said.
That doesn’t mean Colorado Puppy Rescue isn’t concerned about introducing disease. Krumholz said the rescue has been bringing in fewer puppies from Texas and more from New Mexico because the organization has been bringing in more dogs with illnesses from Texas. They also take precautions to ensure that different litters and animals from different shelters do not mix together when they first come to the state.
“We just want to make sure we don’t risk all the lives of all our animals by being careless,” Krumholz said.
Colorado officials say the rule will help
During a virtual meeting in October, PACFA Program Division Chief Nick Fisher recalled another stakeholder meeting held in 2019 to address several incidents where shelters and rescues “knowingly” brought in animals with diseases.
That resulted in the development of a disease control and treatment plan that went into effect in 2023, Fisher said.
But things haven’t quite gone according to plan.
“What we’ve found over the last 16, 17 months is that not many people are adhering to that,” Fisher said.
An unvaccinated, 12-week-old puppy exposed to rabies was brought to the state from Texas and adopted earlier this year.
Testing for rabies is performed on the brain, so the entire litter had to be euthanized and several people who came into contact with the puppies had to undergo post-exposure prophylaxis. One additional puppy tested positive for rabies, although Colorado State Veterinarian Allison Kohnen noted that some of the other 11 littermates may have developed it later. Rabies has an incubation period that can last several weeks or even months.
The incident came at a high cost, Jennifer Ludwig, public health director for Arapahoe County, in the Denver area, said at the meeting. For Arapahoe County alone — it involved nine counties and several government agencies — the investigation took 390 hours of staff time, totaling about $20,000, Ludwig said. For the 45 people who came into contact with the two positive puppies, the recommended treatment could cost thousands of dollars even with insurance, Kohnen said.
“This addition of a rabies vaccination requirement could significantly reduce the risk of importing rabies-infected animals from other states into Colorado. It could also significantly reduce the likelihood that euthanasia will be required following a known or suspected exposure to rabies, as the rabies vaccine is highly harmful. effective in preventing disease,” Kohnen said.
There have been 11 cases of rabies in New Mexico this year, mostly in bats. The rate for dogs is much lower. According to data from the Ministry of Health, only one dog and three cats tested positive for rabies between 2014 and 2023. In Texas, the state has reported an average of about ten positive cases in dogs per year over the same ten-year period.
A case of rabies in dogs in Bernalillo County was “rare” in 2023, a Department of Health news release said at the time, breaking a 10-year streak for the state and a 17-year streak for Bernalillo County. The puppy had “recently” arrived in the state and the press release stated that he was suspected to have contracted rabies in Texas.
At the October meeting, some members of the rescue community were skeptical that the rule, as written, would have the intended effect. Some speakers hypothesized that because of rabies’ long incubation period, an animal could be exposed, vaccinated, transported, and later develop the disease.
“It feels like a really bad knee-jerk reaction to what happened to spark this,” Thacker said. ‘You don’t even really address the issue. “Why don’t you specifically address what happened and say that no animal exposed to rabies can transmit it?”
