‘Puppy Farming’ is an abuse of animals for profit. Those reading this and expressing revulsion at the callous cruelty it reveals would do well to remember a vital fact.
‘It is consumer demand that fuels this shocking exploitation’
The demand for designer dogs, an unwillingness to join a legitimate breeder’s waiting list, and the impulse purchase, all play a vital role in ensuring the puppy farmers of this world thrive at the expense of animal welfare. As long as there are people daft enough to buy a pup advertised in a ‘Pets Classified’ without as much as seeing it with its mother the puppy farmers will fulfil the need and get fat at the expense of the animals.
The USPCA has, on many occasions, led or assisted in raids at puppy farms throughout Ireland. The conditions we uncovered were an affront to the most basic of animal welfare standards. Bitches and litters kept in wrecked cars with a mixture of damp straw and faeces for bedding. Out dated and rotting foodstuffs fed to pregnant bitches. Spurious veterinary certificates and false pedigree paperwork, young barely weaned pups shipped out in cardboard boxes. Is it any wonder welfare charities throughout the British Isles receive numerous calls from heart broken purchasers whose precious new puppy has died from disease?
With a quick buck to be made a local selection of seedy entrepreneurs have set up puppy farms in NI mainly located in Fermanagh/Tyrone. The USPCA will do all in its power to confront and curtail these operations. We need the support of PSNI and Public Prosecution Service to prosecute where cruelty is uncovered. The existing Animal Welfare law is hopelessly outdated and inadequate, in the next year an updated Act will come before the Stormont Assembly, this will add bite to the authorities bark.
A few simple precautions will help you avoid the heartache of acquiring a sickly animal.
‘Get it wrong and you could end up buying heartache and a season ticket to the vet’.
