Puppy Farming
| Published: 31st August 2006 18:02 |
Puppywatch is a small national charity founded in 1989 to document and expose the cruel and inhumane trade of puppy farming, where puppies are indiscriminately bred and sold on to the commercial pet trade.
What is Puppy Farming?
Hidden away from prying eyes, many thousands of female dogs are housed in agricultural barns and sheds, crudely adapted for the purpose of the mass breeding of dogs.
Brood bitches exist solely to produce puppies, mere breeding machines for commercial gain by their owners.
Breeding establishments operate throughout the UK, but since the mid fifties, West Wales has provided one of the major sources of puppies traded commercially throughout the world.
Born into a cold hostile world, tiny puppies, are hostage to fortune. Bred in atrocious conditions where their mothers often live a miserable existence in cramped, crude, unhygienic conditions, they are exposed to stress and disease.
In West Wales, puppy farms have been established for over 40 years, but in the past decade, as demand has dramatically increased, the number of breeding establishments throughout Britain has risen alarming due to the existence of a large dealer network.
The abuse of dogs, cruelly used in the intensive rearing of pedigree puppies in mass-breeding establishments, is both shameful and shocking in our supposedly enlightened times.
No light, No love, No Life
THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU BUY
Pet retailers rely on bulk purchases of puppies from a commercial source - puppies often reared without the familiarity of humans, in an unsuitable barren environment, without love or care, without socialisation or adequate nourishment and with the risk of exposure to stress and disease.
The puppy trade flourishes because of the demand for pedigree dogs. If you are thinking of getting a dog, go to a reputable breeder, or better still a sanctuary or animal shelter. Always beware of adverts in papers offering different breeds of dog. Many will have come from a commercial source, or puppy farm. Please don’t buy a puppy from a pet shop. Each puppy sold can help fuel this miserable trade.
If you buy a puppy from a private home, always ask to see the puppy with its mother. Unscrupulous traders will try to sell puppies purchased from puppy farms as if they were offspring of their own pet dog.
The RSPCA gives the following advice:
Insist on seeing the puppy with its mother where it was raised
Never buy from an unlicensed breeding establishment
If unsure, ask to see the breeder's licence
Avoid adverts offering lots of different breeds for sale
Never buy a pup sold straight from a car boot or at an open-air event like a market
The Kennel Club add:
Always buy from reputable breeders - contact the Kennel Club for breeder details
Never buy if you feel sorry for it - they can invariably be ill
Try and leave the breeder and then report the breeder to local authority or RSPCA
Dog should ideally be raised in home - assess the state of house
The mother should be on site - ideally the father too
Contact
PUPPYWATCH
PO Box 23
NEATH
West Glamorgan SA11 1QP
07748 452900
Puppywatch website
but man so very often betrays
his trusting, loyal companion.
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