Puppy Farming & the Border Collie

This morning we noted that we had received 19380 hits on our Border Collie Rescue on Line website, worldwide, over the previous 24 hrs.

Most significantly, 723 of those hits were from UK visitors to our puppy farming pages between 8 am and midnight last night. There had been less than 80 views of that page in the previous 24 hours.
This surge followed the airing of Rogue Traders investigation into puppy farming on the BBC last night. For anyone who missed it, have a look at the BBC iPlayer here - http://tiny.cc/YO7O3 (although you may have to be quick as programs are only available for one week after broadcast).

People finding our site must have entered the words Puppy Farming and Border Collie in order to get our pages in the results. If they were searching for other breeds (or simply articles on Puppy farming, they would have been less likely to come across us).
Shortly after the program finished we got a call and decided to re-open the office and answer the phone for a while, in case there were more. There were - 17 in all and quite a few emails. It started again at 7 o'clock this morning, so the program certainly pressed buttons with a lot of people.

An article in the Telegraph on line yesterday outlines the concerns shared by many dog rescue organisations, including the RSPCA who are now running a dedicated campaign to raise awareness of the problem. http://tiny.cc/9dqLW

The Government consumer watchdog body, Consumer Direct, say the number of complaints from members of the public regarding purchases of animals and pets has almost doubled since 2006 from 2,793 to 4,627 in 2008. However, we suspect this is the very tip of the iceberg as many people would be reluctant to make a complaint on this matter for a variety of complicated and emotionally driven reasons. Most people who contact us for advice say they don't want to make a report when we suggest they do so.

The rogue traders program identified the main source of poorly bred puppy farm dogs to be the Republic of Ireland where, unlike in the UK, commercial dog breeding is unregulated.
This will not have been news to many involved in dog rescue. No matter what breed we rescue, we hear from people affected by such problems regularly and sometimes take in their problems dogs - those that have survived.

So, as revealed by the program, tens of thousands of pups are imported into the UK each year to be sold through pet shops, breeders and unlicensed dealers/agents to an unsuspecting public.

The dealer and agents tend to work though newspaper adverts and mobile phones, doing business in public car parks, service stations or by delivery to the door of the buyer. There may be a certain furtiveness about their activities that could arouse suspicion, but still they get away with it.
It seems that some people just get sucked in with the idea of getting a new pup and even when alarm bells ring they still go through with the transaction.

Breeders should only be selling pups they have bred themselves. They should be licenced to do so if they are commercial. Yet many supplement their own output by buying in pups and passing them off as their own. The reason for the subterfuge is that to buy and sell (other than those they breed) they should have a traders licence as well as a breeders licence. Being devious saves money and awkward additional regulation and inspection. Possibly avoids a bit of tax as well as income from 'under the counter pups' may well be hidden and not be declared.

Pet shops should be buying from legal sources and be fully licenced and inspected with clear records of where they get each pup from. You would expect a pet shop to be respectable and have reliable sources of quality pups, yet many of the pups sold through pet shops originate from unlicensed puppy farmers.

One of the biggest problems in this illegal and callous trade is the implementation and enforcement of the laws that are designed to regulate it and protect the animals from exploitation and the public.from being ripped off.
There is legislation in place but much of it is enforced by local authorities who do a poor job. Even those who try to do a good job are inhibited by a number of factors, the main one being - everyone has a right to make a living.
There are, in human terms, so many more serious crimes taking place that the fate of puppies has to take a low priority, so - even if a crime appears to be committed, the Police can hardly spare the manpower to investigate it.

Local authorities seem quite happy to take licence money - so much so that in many cases, when they catch a rogue breeder or dealer, all they really want to do is get them on board and licenced.
They do not seem to possess the will, manpower or resources to do proper and regular inspections and anyway - they have to give notice! How bad is that!

And in all of this, everyone attempting to enforce the law has to be very careful because if they make a single mistake in evidence or procedure the courts will throw the case out on a technicality and the person they were attempting to prosecute will seek compensation (and probably have it awarded) because everyone has a right to make a living and their living had been interfered with and they can therefore claim back the cost.
The law, as it stands, and the people that enforce it cannot be relied on to protect the pups or the public from exploitation and abuse. The whole system needs a good shake up.

The onus lies with us - the general public - to protect ourselves. Buyer beware.

While we continue to be weak and selfish in our desires to possess a pup we can be, and are, easily manipulated. We should be asking questions and when in any doubt, walking away and putting in a complaint to consumer direct.

If we stop supporting this unholy trade it will stop and the problem will go away.
Thousands of dogs lives will be saved - not to mention all the tears and heartbreak when a sickly pup dies - or if it survives the initial problems, suffers a miserable and foreshortened life due to long term hereditary diseases - or it grows into a monster because of behavioural problems brought on by poor breeding or socialisation and has to be re-homed or PTS after biting someone.

Breeders will not breed if they can't sell. They don't breed pups because of altruistic ideals and the love of dogs - they do it for money.
When the money stops they will do something else - perhaps more seriously criminal in the eyes of the Police, whereupon they will be arrested and banged up.

And there is an aspect of this trade that was not mentioned in the program - bogus rescues.
Animal rescue is not regulated in the UK and many dog dealers have cottoned on to the idea that if they call themselves a 'rescue' they can import pups and dogs from Ireland and sell them on without the need for any sort of licence or inspection.
Better still, they avoid the suspicion that such activities can arouse and people may even give them 'donations' to support their 'good cause'. They will even get their stock in trade given free.
Now what retailer would turn down an opporunity like that.
There are many dodgy people out there paying their rent and making a good living out of 'rescue' and many good hearted people supporting them in doing so.
Yet, any donations made to such 'rescues' would be subject to taxation as they are actually, in the legal sense, doing business. That is, if their activities are known to the taxman.
Seems like money down the drain any way you look at it.

It should be said that many legitimate rescue charities bring dogs and pups from Ireland, however they will have some sort of legally binding charitable status. The bogus ones do not.
Even so - with a huge number of unwanted dogs in the UK, born and bred here, it does not make sense to import dogs from Ireland and charities that do so are really letting the public down.

Essentially we should clean up our own back yard before we start to allow our neighbour to tip his surplus over our fence and for every dog imported from Ireland and re-homed in the UK, a 'local' dog looses out on a home. Many end up being PTS, so by taking on an Irish dog you are not saving one from being put down. That old chestnut is played out. You are simply transferring the sentence to another.

Charities are supposed to function for the benefit of the public. That is the essential criteria that gives charitable status. The legal definition.
Is it for the benefit of the public to refuse to help someone with a problem with their dog? Refuse to alleviate their suffering and distress, often caused by circumstances that prevent them from keeping their dog, because the rescue centre is full of dogs the charity has brought in from Ireland?
Is that what UK citizens support UK charities to do? Turn away UK dogs that need homes?

The incidental side effect being that in Ireland the problem of their puppy farm surplus at home is being resolved by our homes and our finances - so what's the incentive for them to clean up their act? We are doing it for them.
Many of their politicians can't even see there is a problem. The euthansaia rates are going down so things must be improving. Why legislate and deprive the country of a source or income and themselves a source of tax revenue?

UK rescue centres are constantly full and turning away dogs that UK citizens are asking them to take in. It does not make sense that any dogs are imported from Ireland. Commercially bred or rescued.

We don't have enough homes for our own.