I've now had chance to read the response of Carmarthenshire County Council after the Channel 5 programme about puppy farms. If you didn't see the programme, watch it here: http://bit.ly/4qhW4p
You can read the full response here http://tinyurl.comlcmzd7
I've read it, and now I'm very confused. It says: "Local authorities cannot revoke licences." They can give them out in the first place, but if things are not right, it seems they have to wait for action to be taken in the magistrates' court and then, possibly, the licence can be revoked.
That's not right. What happens to those poor dogs and puppies while this is taking place?
It says: "There were no major issues that required immediate intervention or enforcement action and the complaints about poor lighting, lack of exercise, stimulation and social contact were not substantiated or supported by the veterinary surgeon."
I watched that film and it looked pretty bad to me. I saw dogs circling obsessively, dog beds chewed up because there was nothing else in the run for the dogs to chew on or play with. I get taken for four walks a day, lots of playtime with my ball, and I have loads of activity toys for when my person is working. And that's only just enough for a lively dog like me.
How can a vet say that living in isolation in what look like old pig pens is satisfactory for a dog?
If the conditions that we all saw in that film conform to the regulations, then those regulations must surely be changed.
There are a lot of good people who are trying to do just that. You can find out more here: http://tinyurl.com/l6oog2
But one of the things all you humans who read this can do is TELL people. Tell them never, ever to buy a puppy from a pet shop, and to spread the word to everyone they know not to do so. You may think you're "rescuing" a puppy but all you're doing is causing more to be bred in these terrible puppy farms.
This is another good post that will explain better than I, a mere dog, can do http://tinyurl.com/mo6nqo
Above all, please tell the children. They are where the hope lies for the future. If they knew, they would not let this terrible thing continue into future generations.
Please tell everyone you know it's time to BAN PUPPY FARMING.
mercredi 12 août 2009
mercredi 5 août 2009
What part of no don't you understand?
I Watched the Channel 5 programme about puppy farms last night. If you missed it, you can see it here: http://bit.ly/4qhW4p or on the Channel 5 website. Part 2 is on tonight so I hope you will all make a huge effort to watch it.
The nice reporter who presented it has a blog. You can read that here: http://bit.ly/wFT6q
It was terrible, every bit as bad as I thought. Things are being done – you can read about one here: http://bit.ly/KVZ3v But it simply isn't enough. And I was even more horrified when someone sent me this link: http://tinyurl.com/lddlw9
I know, you've seen it all before, same pictures, same story, blah-de-blah. But please look at the dateline on that article. That's right, it's 1997. So just how long has this appalling state of affairs been going on, and precisely what are you human beans doing about it?
Bordaire collees are smart and can count. So I know that's at least 12 years. So that's two lifetimes for poor breeding bitches who are allowed to breed for 6 years. Imagine how many puppies that makes.
It seems that the puppy farms featured, who were all legal in that they held licenses, get to keep their licences: http://twitpic.com/cu1g3 Can that be right? And I've been told that councils: “not only license these breeders they defend them to the hilt by restricting RSPCA access.”
I'm still waiting to hear if that's true. I sent a Tweet to my friends at the RSPCA but haven't yet had their reply. I'll update you when I do. Because that's even more worrying.
I'm a dog, so I don't understand what happened to the word “no” among you humans. If councils really haven't got the resources to regulate these places properly, why do they licence them? Why don't the public get on their back legs and say no, enough is enough, this is not right. We don't want to be part of a society that does this to its animals.
Breeding a healthy, pedigree dog costs a lot of money. There are proper health checks to be made on both parents, and the puppies. There's registration, and vaccination and all the rest of it. So if you want to buy a puppy you can be sure will be healthy and safe to be amongst your children, it is going to cost you hundreds of pounds.
If it doesn't cost that much, you need to be asking yourself why. Then look at those pictures, and you'll have your answer.
You need to be contacting your MP and saying no, this is not right, it must stop. We all need to be educating children, because they are the hope of the future to say no, I don't want any part of this trade, I'd rather choose a dog from a dog's home than support puppy farming.
Because believe me, us dogs home dogs are so grateful to be given a new chance in life, we make the most wonderful, loyal companions.
Please, everybody, do something. Don't make me bite you.
Ci
The nice reporter who presented it has a blog. You can read that here: http://bit.ly/wFT6q
It was terrible, every bit as bad as I thought. Things are being done – you can read about one here: http://bit.ly/KVZ3v But it simply isn't enough. And I was even more horrified when someone sent me this link: http://tinyurl.com/lddlw9
I know, you've seen it all before, same pictures, same story, blah-de-blah. But please look at the dateline on that article. That's right, it's 1997. So just how long has this appalling state of affairs been going on, and precisely what are you human beans doing about it?
Bordaire collees are smart and can count. So I know that's at least 12 years. So that's two lifetimes for poor breeding bitches who are allowed to breed for 6 years. Imagine how many puppies that makes.
It seems that the puppy farms featured, who were all legal in that they held licenses, get to keep their licences: http://twitpic.com/cu1g3 Can that be right? And I've been told that councils: “not only license these breeders they defend them to the hilt by restricting RSPCA access.”
I'm still waiting to hear if that's true. I sent a Tweet to my friends at the RSPCA but haven't yet had their reply. I'll update you when I do. Because that's even more worrying.
I'm a dog, so I don't understand what happened to the word “no” among you humans. If councils really haven't got the resources to regulate these places properly, why do they licence them? Why don't the public get on their back legs and say no, enough is enough, this is not right. We don't want to be part of a society that does this to its animals.
Breeding a healthy, pedigree dog costs a lot of money. There are proper health checks to be made on both parents, and the puppies. There's registration, and vaccination and all the rest of it. So if you want to buy a puppy you can be sure will be healthy and safe to be amongst your children, it is going to cost you hundreds of pounds.
If it doesn't cost that much, you need to be asking yourself why. Then look at those pictures, and you'll have your answer.
You need to be contacting your MP and saying no, this is not right, it must stop. We all need to be educating children, because they are the hope of the future to say no, I don't want any part of this trade, I'd rather choose a dog from a dog's home than support puppy farming.
Because believe me, us dogs home dogs are so grateful to be given a new chance in life, we make the most wonderful, loyal companions.
Please, everybody, do something. Don't make me bite you.
Ci
lundi 3 août 2009
And they call it puppy love?
My new mistress loves me. She's bought me some smashing toys, and my very own DogBag tent. I've got a Babble Ball which talks to me in heenglish to help me learn it, a Jolly Ball, a Buster Cube and a squeaky purple dinosaur.
But she says she would never have picked me out of a litter of puppies. That's because I've got an undershot jaw which makes me look a bit goofy, my front legs aren't the straightest and she says I've got Hitler's medical condition, whatever that means, although that's now been fixed with an operation. So that set me wondering about how human beans should pick puppies, and where they should get them from.
I've been learning all about what they call puppy farms in the UK and puppy mills in America. I started off by watching this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlJ5kYIl82Q and I couldn't believe my eyes. Why would people do such things to dogs? Why would anyone want to buy a puppy if they knew it started its life like that? And it made me ask, is this legal?
I was quite glad never to have been to UK when I learned it is, in a way. As long as these puppy farms get a licence from their local authority, they are legal. They are supposed to be inspected to make sure they comply with welfare regulations. You can read about them here: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/welfare/domestic/
And there are powers to check up on any places that don't have licences. You can read the law on this here: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1991/Ukpga_19910064_en_1.htm
There's also a thing called an Animal Welfare charter, which you can read about here: http://www.labouranimalwelfare.org/the-animals-charter/general-principles It sounds marvellous. Except when I looked up how many local authorities had signed up to it, I couldn't find any. The charter actually quotes Mr Gandhi, who must have been a very good human bean. He said:
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
So please can anyone tell me why you call Britain Great?
Why are councils allowing such things to happen? I'm a dog, I don't understand it. But people see poor little puppies in pet shops, feel sorry for them, buy them, so the shop orders more from the puppy farms and so it goes on.
It seems to me that two things need to happen as soon as possible:
People everywhere need to be educated about these terrible places so they only ever buy puppies from proper breeders. They should go to their homes and see the puppies with their mothers. They should never buy puppies in shops and never, ever buy them on the internet.
Councils should be made to enforce the regulations that exist. They should inspect places immediately there is a complaint or even the suspicion of one. And they should use their existing powers to close any places not following the rules. I wonder how many such places could be closed overnight if they did that?
There are a lot of very good human beans trying to do exactly that. If you look on Twitter at the trending topic banpuppyfarming you'll see all the excellent things that are already being done, like Puppy Farm Awareness Day 19th Sept 2009 in Brighton. You can find out about that here http://www.marcthevet.com/june-2009-round-up-join-me-for-the-fight-against-puppy-farming/
But it needs more and more people to know what is going on and join in the campaign to stop it.
I hope you will do that. Don't make me bite you.
Ci
dimanche 2 août 2009
A bit about me to start with
I'm a French dog, a bordaire collee. I was born in the Cantal region of the Auvergne and for the first two years of my life, I had a very good home. I was well cared for, well trained, beautifully kept, with a clean, shiny coat and thought I had a pretty good life.
Then my owners had a baby. Suddenly everything changed. They said I was "trop vif" (too lively). And before I knew what was happening, I was sent off to the dog's home at a place called Gerzat. It was terrible. I'm only quite small for a bordaire collee and I was stuck in a cage with another dog, surrounded by yet more dogs who barked all the time and I was terrified.
People kept coming and staring at me through the bars and I was so frightened I barked and barked at them until they went away. And so I stayed in my cage for what seemed like forever and I thought my world had come to an end.
Then one day two ladies came walking past. One was speaking French with a strange accent. They looked at me but I barked and snarled as usual and they went on by. They went to talk to the lady in charge and after a while, she brought them across to see me. She told them I wasn't a bad dog, just a very frightened one who was terrified by being in the cage, and said if they took me out of the cage they would see for themselves what I was really like.
The one with the funny accent I found out afterwards she is Heenglish) got a lead and asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course I did! Anything to get away from that place. So we went for a walk, and the funny accent person was saying she was very sad after her last dog died and wanted another one but didn't want another bordaire collee, and not a male, and not more than a year old, and not black and white.
So I had to turn on all my Gallic charm because I understood that she might just take me away from that terrible place and give me my own proper home again. And that's just what she did. And it's wonderful. I can't tell you how happy I am again.
But one day she was looking at a film on her computer and it was making her cry. It was this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlJ5kYIl82Q and it was about something called puppy farming. It was absolutely terrible and made me realise that although the dog's home was bad, it was nothing in comparison to what happens to these poor dogs.
So I thought that maybe if I wrote about it, more people would learn about it and might try to do something about it. How can humans hope ever to treat each other with compassion and respect if they can do something as awful as that to dogs? And what kind of a world is it to bring up children if people think that just because they want something, they have to right to have it with no thought about what happens to make it available to them.
I'm not just going to write about the terrible things in life, there are just too many of them. And my life now is very happy. I'll tell you all about my weekly camping trips, with my very own tent to match my mistress's. And all the good things I have now. But first I'd like to tell you all about the shameful thing that is puppy farming and I hope you'll all find out more about it and try to do something to stop it.
You'll find me on Twitter as @banpuppyfarming and you'll find out a lot more at #banpuppyfarming. It's terrible, the images are dreadful. But only if decent people like you watch them then demand that this awful trade is stopped can we all make the world a better place.
Ci
Then my owners had a baby. Suddenly everything changed. They said I was "trop vif" (too lively). And before I knew what was happening, I was sent off to the dog's home at a place called Gerzat. It was terrible. I'm only quite small for a bordaire collee and I was stuck in a cage with another dog, surrounded by yet more dogs who barked all the time and I was terrified.
People kept coming and staring at me through the bars and I was so frightened I barked and barked at them until they went away. And so I stayed in my cage for what seemed like forever and I thought my world had come to an end.
Then one day two ladies came walking past. One was speaking French with a strange accent. They looked at me but I barked and snarled as usual and they went on by. They went to talk to the lady in charge and after a while, she brought them across to see me. She told them I wasn't a bad dog, just a very frightened one who was terrified by being in the cage, and said if they took me out of the cage they would see for themselves what I was really like.
The one with the funny accent I found out afterwards she is Heenglish) got a lead and asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course I did! Anything to get away from that place. So we went for a walk, and the funny accent person was saying she was very sad after her last dog died and wanted another one but didn't want another bordaire collee, and not a male, and not more than a year old, and not black and white.
So I had to turn on all my Gallic charm because I understood that she might just take me away from that terrible place and give me my own proper home again. And that's just what she did. And it's wonderful. I can't tell you how happy I am again.
But one day she was looking at a film on her computer and it was making her cry. It was this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlJ5kYIl82Q and it was about something called puppy farming. It was absolutely terrible and made me realise that although the dog's home was bad, it was nothing in comparison to what happens to these poor dogs.
So I thought that maybe if I wrote about it, more people would learn about it and might try to do something about it. How can humans hope ever to treat each other with compassion and respect if they can do something as awful as that to dogs? And what kind of a world is it to bring up children if people think that just because they want something, they have to right to have it with no thought about what happens to make it available to them.
I'm not just going to write about the terrible things in life, there are just too many of them. And my life now is very happy. I'll tell you all about my weekly camping trips, with my very own tent to match my mistress's. And all the good things I have now. But first I'd like to tell you all about the shameful thing that is puppy farming and I hope you'll all find out more about it and try to do something to stop it.
You'll find me on Twitter as @banpuppyfarming and you'll find out a lot more at #banpuppyfarming. It's terrible, the images are dreadful. But only if decent people like you watch them then demand that this awful trade is stopped can we all make the world a better place.
Ci
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