Napier man Gareth Lewis battling to get his Moroccan dog back to New Zealand

Gareth Lewis and his adopted dog Charlie have come too far not to make it back to Hawke’s Bay.

Lewis, a Napier native, has largely lived overseas since first heading to Australia’s mines 15 years
ago.

A chef and baker, the 34-year-old Taradale High School old boy makes a buck in Swiss fine-dining establishments these days.

But when he’s not working, he’s riding a motorbike through some of the most remote and rugged terrain in the world.

Lewis has lived, worked and ridden across more than 50 countries in the last 15 years and it was in Morocco that he and Charlie first became acquainted.

Covid-19 had closed Morocco’s borders and Lewis was camping in a small village called Imsouane when he came across a puppy cowering nearby.

Charlie, as Lewis came to name her, is one of about three million street dogs roaming in Morocco.

She was tiny and she was sick and something tugged at Lewis’ heartstrings.

“I was still completely oblivious to the crazy path I was setting our lives on. Just a naive guy on his bike saying ‘a dog, I like dogs’,” Lewis said.

Nursing Charlie back to health has been a long and expensive exercise, involving various vets, vaccines and spells in quarantine. A bout of parvovirus nearly killed her, but Lewis never gave up.

The pair are now in the Swiss Alps, where Lewis is back working at a restaurant. His motorbike is in South America, where he shipped it eight months ago thinking they’d return to New Zealand from there.

It now appears Canada will provide the quickest route home for Lewis and Charlie, once everything is sorted with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).

He says he and MPI’s animal imports team have been in contact almost since the day he adopted Charlie, but a return to New Zealand remains no nearer.

“All of this has naturally cost me almost every cent I have, but leaving Charlie is not an option I will consider,’’ Lewis said.

To get to Switzerland, via boat to Barcelona and then motorbike across northern Spain, France and into the Alps, Charlie needed the requisite paperwork proving she was disease and illness-free.

Owners can directly import dogs to New Zealand from Switzerland, under MPI’s guidelines, so Lewis is confused by the continuing delays.

Manager of animal health for MPI, Stephen Cobb, confirmed they “have had contact” from Lewis but could offer no further information about this particular case, other than a rundown of the biosecurity rules for importing a cat or dog.

“If a cat or dog has not been vaccinated against rabies and has been in a rabies-infected country, it takes a minimum of six months to prepare a pet because rabies import requirements need to be met,“ Cobb said.

“Dogs also need to have some other tests done for diseases that are not present in New Zealand and dogs and cats require treatments for internal and external parasites.

“All cats and dogs, except those from Australia, require an import permit to enter and need to be placed in quarantine for 10 days once they arrive in New Zealand.

“During quarantine they are checked by an MPI veterinarian to ensure they are free from fleas and ticks and any signs of infectious disease.“