Pet shop puppies...

Peetwins

I came across a pet shop web page where it appears they are selling puppies from their shop?!?!? It is in county Louth. I thought this was not normal practice in Ireland although I can't see anywhere that says its illegal. Just unethical. I am disturbed by this as they are not just IKC registered puppies (in that at least these breeders are subject to rules and regulations regarding safe breeding practices) but there also appears to be non registered puppies (PBNR) and mixed breeds. Personally I find this very upsetting as there is a huge problem in Ireland with the overbreeding of puppies and feel a petshop should take more responsibility.

Does anyone know if the new dog breeding guidelines have a section governing this area?

How does anyone know what conditions these pups were bred in and presumably the parent dogs are not in the shop too, or are they????

What are people's feelings on this?

ShaShaBear

This is already been brought to the attention of MANY animal welfare groups, as well as the IKC, but as the owner of the pet shop you are referring to is a senior member of the IKC, I imagine it will go no further than it already has

Peetwins

Thanks for that shashabear. That's very disappointing. Do the IKC not care that he is damaging their reputation and by selling PBNR and mixed breed pups he is not even supporting them! I have sent the ikc an email too and am eagerly awaiting a response.....
You are from Louth how do the locals feel about it? Is the shop supported? Are local rescue groups raising awareness about it?

Does anyone know if other pet shops in Ireland are doing this?

ShaShaBear

Peetwins wrote: »

Thanks for that shashabear. That's very disappointing. Do the IKC not care that he is damaging their reputation and by selling PBNR and mixed breed pups he is not even supporting them! I have sent the ikc an email too and am eagerly awaiting a response.....
You are from Louth how do the locals feel about it? Is the shop supported? Are local rescue groups raising awareness about it?

Does anyone know if other pet shops in Ireland are doing this?

To be honest, I've not seen the Louth welfare groups openly saying anything on the subject. That's not to say they don't care, but one in particular doesn't even have it's own premises, and I imagine they might be treading carefully.
I started a post here about it when I first noticed the trend, and myself and a few other concerned individuals asked some very basic questions about the puppies on sale, which they could not and would not answer, eg "Do you have health history for at least one parent of these puppies?", "Where are these puppies being kept from close of business until opening (which is from 6PM until 9AM the following morning)?", "Why have the puppies not been vaccinated or to see a vet when they are being kept in the presence of other unvaccinated animals who may pose a health risk?", "Why are you bathing the puppies when they come in (they should be clean if mother has been caring for them) and why do you leave them to dry in a small, rusted rabbit cage?", "How are the puppies meant to get adequate water when the bowl is getting filled with absorbant wood-shavings, and how do you prevent food aggression when feeding the pups from the same bowl?" and finally "Why are you charging €120 for mongrel puppies, and why have your past three litters all come from a spaniel bitch?"

People with the same surname as the owner of the three stores (two in Dundalk and one in Drogheda) gave explicit amounts of abuse to people asking these questions, one man insisted that rescues were guilty of photographing dogs in small cages and suggesting they had little or no time left to live if not rehomed, which pressured people into rehoming dogs they can't look after. He also stated that he believed there was no issue in selling puppies from a pet shop, not even at Christmas. Some were very rude, throwing insults! They were finally forced to remove both of their Facebook pages (as people soon migrated to the other one once it was closed to ask them where they managed to get TWO siberian huskey litters in the space of two weeks, right before Christmas).

The owner gave information toward an article that appeared in the Sunday Times regarding the issue, stating that people can no longer afford to register their purebred dogs, and sometimes purebred puppies end up in their shop with no papers because owners have "lost" the parent's papers.
A woman announced on their Facebook page before they closed it that she was offered money by the owner to get her dog pregnant (even though she did NOT have papers) and he sold the subsequent puppies in his pet shop WITH papers!

And as a final note, the owner of these shops is a Crufts judge and a senior member of the IKC :rolleyes:
He, and members of his family have also been making threatening calls to people involved, making threats and suggesting that they will be in touch in the future to take legal action for misinformation and slander :eek:
(Although the trick to misinformation is that we all asked questions which were not answered (so there was NO information), and statements need to be proven false before it can be deemed "misinformation").

Unfortunately not illegal, and both Dundalk pet shops regularly have puppies in store, PB and mongrel as you've noticed.

DBB

Mod hat off: Just to clarify, there were exhaustive efforts made by some to get these pet shops to stop selling pups, and that was 6-7 years ago. It was a pretty sustained campaign, which did go some way to highlighting the problem so that people would not buy pups from sources such as these.
The IKC chairman made comments to me personally about the IKC not approving of what's going on, but unlike the Kennel Club in England, the IKC have no rules re selling pups through pet shops. When we approached the English KC about pups sold in these shops with UK papers, we were ignored.
The campaign cost thousands, but we did not publicise our involvement in it due to our knowing how we would be treated.
So, in case anyone thinks that locals are ignoring this problem, believe me, we haven't. I won't even start to post re the barriers that were put in our way, deliberately.

And on that note, I now must put my mod hat on.
I am concerned that two brand new registered posters started threads today on the same issue. I am concerned that there's some sort of fishing going on.
I am also concerned that people I know have recently been contacted and threatened by people attached to these shops.
I am also concerned, as an age old campaigner against this crowd, that I know how deeply entrenched they and their supporters are, and how they can behave when criticised.
For these reasons, but primarily because I want to protect our members from these goings on, I'm now closing the thread, but I will leave it here so that people who want to read it, can.
Any other threads opened on this subject will be deleted.
Thanks,
DBB