Anyone who has lived through Hawaii’s 120-day animal import requirement knows that this experience can feel like the longest 120 days of you and your puppy’s life. Anyone who loves their pet as much as I do also knows that it is worth every one of the 120 sunrises until you and your puppy can be reunified on the outside to import them to Hawaii to be with you, assuming you are relocating long-term (or in my case if you already live here and want a specific dog living here with you, too). Here is everything you need to know to make the most of the experience.
- It’s not as scary as you think. Know that the facility appears daunting and depressing especially from the outside looking in the very first time you visit. No joke, from outside of the facility it looks like California’s San Quentin State Penitentiary, with barbed wire and barren dog kennels. But once you become a regular, and see what’s beyond those prison-like fences, it’s actually quite nice on the inside. The caring, attentive staff took excellent care of my Brussels Griffon baby boy. The dogs also aren’t alone in solitary confinement– they are surrounded by other dogs within a distance of less than 3 fenced feet apart. The fencing won’t allow them to give each other rabies; but real talk, they are less socially distanced than humans in a COVID quarantine mandate. They see each other, hear each other, smell each other, and are barking their little heads off all day long as visitors and the feeding carts come and go. Your pup will never feel like they are alone; and all the sounds, smells, and predictable feedings and kennel cleanings are enough excitement to keep them entertained the whole time.
2. Yes, you can visit every single day they are open (Tues-Sat they’re open, closed Sun/Mon), with the exception of holidays. Since I’m obsessed with my dog and he’s my ESA, you better believe I was there every. single. day. to visit my boy. The only time I wasn’t there was when Hawaii went into a mandatory human quarantine for arriving travelers when the pandemic first got real; during which time I appointed Nalu’s dog-uncle Jeric to be his approved visitor. Nalu loved Jeric because Nalu is obsessed with facial hair and trying to smell all my guy friends’ nuts. #BoyDogLife.
3. Come prepared. Bring your own chair, bug spray, a bottle of water, and a light jacket in case you get rained out. Don’t worry– it will not rain inside your dog’s kennel, but as you walk in and out of the Halawa facility, you will indeed get rained on if it’s a rainy day. And Hawaii has rainy days all year round. You will also want to wear non-slip, rubber/washable footwear because the kennels get hosed down at a certain point of every day. And if you arrive after a hose-down, or if you give your pup a bath that day, the concrete interior of the kennel is indeed slippery when wet.
4. Choose a cheap hard-sided crate for puppy, and two (2) cheap blankets that you will rotate out and wash with high frequency. I recommend Petco’s fake sheep wool blankets for $6 or some sort of very cheap, light muslin blanket you’re willing to part ways with once the 120 days are over. That’s right. You will likely be throwing quarantine blankets away as soon as the 120 days is done, unless you want to use them for potty training implements. Why? Because when the dog makes doodoo and shishi, they uncontrollably track it everywhere all over that concrete kennel. Which means they track it onto their blankets, onto their beds, and into their crate.
In our case, I didn’t even bother providing a hard-sided crate. He slept on his quarantine-appointed raised cot bed the entire time. He also had a weird habit of pooping on the bed sometimes too.
I did try to give him blankets because believe it or not it’s not always warm in Hawaii. But unexpectedly, he kept making shishi on his blankets. This wasn’t because he is not meticulous about where he does his business. Trust me when I say my dog is a creature of strict habits. Rather, he was marking the blankets, you guys. Again, #boyDogLife. Whenever the cleaning crew would come through to clean the kennels, they disinfect with strong cleaning agents (possibly bleach, or something for sure strong enough to kill things like Parvo, TBH). Which will likely indiscriminately wipe out the scent of anything gnarly in the kennel. Or maybe not. And given that a dog’s nose is a bajillion times stronger than ours, perhaps they can smell the urine of every other dog who has ever stayed in that kennel. Furthermore, every time he would shishi on his blanket the staff would pick it up and hang it up high where he couldn’t pee on it again. And all this did was fuel his desire to re-mark the blankets every single time I Brought them back washed and clean. It could have also been an anxiety behavior? I’ll never know.
5. Bring your own hook to hang your dog’s stuff on; and keep a stash of personal dog belongings hung up and out of reach. I kept our soft-sided travel crate in his kennel so he could enjoy going in it when I visited, along with a stash of personal belongings for him. I hung all of this on a metal S-hook I personally brought in; and kept it suspended up and out of reach on the interior kennel fencing. In this stash was an assortment of nylabone chew bones, tug and fetch toys we only used when I was visiting, a leash and collar, a harness, a toothbrush, nail file, and a fur brush. I made sure to file is nails, brush his teeth, and practice his leash manners (along with the wearing of his hardware), every single day I visited. It was our routine. I also recommend that you make sure. your chosen dog toys are NOT made of fabric; because, again, every single toy will be coated with the shishi-doodoo “film” of dog quarantine life. You’ll want to be able to know the toys are getting washed off, especially if the dog is playing with them when you’re away. and yes you should leave toys they can play with and chew on while you’re away.
6. Bring a treat pouch and treats; and make sure to train every day. My training technique must not have been too shabby because he came out of his 120 day quarantine a fairly obedient angel. Training also exercises their brains, helps them shake off any anxiety, and tires them out so they sleep better. The place where I failed is…
7. Use dog quarantine as an opportunity to potty train, too. This tip may be dependent upon the situation puppy will be going back to after you are reunified. In my case and in the case of a lot of Oahu residents, we live in apartments. So hybrid (indoor/outdoor) potty training is a must.
Or, if you’re importing a puppy, you’re going to have to housebreak the puppy regardless. So you might as well start in the quarantine facility. How I recommend doing this is by making sure to bring pee pads or some other portable dog potty with you when you visit. What I recommend is a very low-sided plastic bin such as an under-the-bed storage bin; and try to make this the indoor dog potty. Put the potty bin in the exact same predictable spot every time you visit; and if you catch them about to go potty, plop them into the potty bin. If they go in the bin, treat, praise and celebrate.
In Nalu’s case, he preferred to use the back room of his kennel as his bathroom. He never slept back there– he only shit back there, LOL. Had I known what I know now, I would and should have introduced a potty bin into our training regimen to really dial in his hybrid elimination skillset. But I didn’t know then what I know now. Because now, he will never, and I mean NEVER, pee anywhere indoors at my condo. He will not. He would rather get soaking wet in the pouring rain and shishi outside than pee inside his potty box. Once I realized hybrid elimination training was kinda necessary in this reality, I tried to introduce the potty box too late, after he was already used to peeing outside. and I didn’t realize he would be holding in his shishi for an upwards of 9 hours a day.
8. Develop a routine– it keeps their anxiety down. Whenever a dog is left at quarantine, they cry when the owner leaves 110% of the time. It doesn’t matter how old or young the dog is– all of them know this situation isn’t normal; and all of them long to be with their humans. So when I arrived, and before I left, I would always do it the exact. same. way.
And our routine was this: As soon as I arrived, I would wait until he calmed down and sat down before I would enter the kennel. This trained him not to be an over-excited wreck every time I tried to walk into the door. And every time I left, I threw him two high-reward treats through the pukas in the fencing, and walked out the back side of the kennel– I did not leave the same way I came in.
You might wonder why I made this decision. And that is because my smart AF dog started to associate me walking up to the door as “arrival time”, and me “walking out the door” as departure time. There was one day I accidentally left his bath time accoutrements in the kennel and had to go back and leave a second time– lemme tell you he completely lost his shit that day when I suddenly came back through the front door only to grab stuff and leave again. So when you come, come; and when you go, go out the back. Also, by leaving high-reward treats, he was less likely to freak out when I left. I think it took him about two weeks to stop crying when I left.
9. Pay for the FAVN test while you’re in there, trust me, you’ll thank me for this advice after you read my FAVN blood test post. Again, I’m about to have an entire post on just this topic alone. But trust me when I advise you 120-dayers– just pay for the damn FAVN test while you’re in there, pass it, and bring your dog home 30 days early. You will be grateful you did.
10. Choose your visiting hours wisely b/c commute traffic on H1 is a beeyah. Final tip– Halawa quarantine visiting hours are as follows:
Visiting hours at the quarantine station are: “Tuesdays, Thursdays: 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.Wednesdays: 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Sunday: 12:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.“, last taken from their website November 2021. Honolulu commute peak is also between 2pm and 5pm. So if you don’t wanna be sitting in choke traffic on weekdays, try to get there as soon as visiting hours begin. In my case I got lucky because I was working from home when Nalu was in his 120 day quarantine. So I could wrap it up at 12:30 and hop in the car to visit baby boy, and make it out before commute most days.
puppy & paradise 