Consumers urged to avoid buying puppies online
With Ireland dubbed the puppy farm capital of Europe with nearly 100,000 puppies bred every year, concerns have been raised about puppies being sold on over a dozen websites.
As a nation of dog lovers, we buy 50,000 dogs every year, but Kathrina Bentley from Dog’s Trust Ireland said buyers need to look beyond endearing pictures and investigate where the dogs were born.
“When you do see that cute picture of a puppy online everybody goes ‘Aww’ and then maybe the kids kick in with the pester power and it’s too easy to hit click and buy and send €600 and go collect the following day,” said Ms Bentley.
“We have the horrible tagline of the puppy farm capital of Europe. There are up to 100,000 bred here annually with 52,000 approximately going across to the UK and Europe. There are just too many puppies.
“People want to click on a mouse and collect a dog the following day without the proper thought. There are unscrupulous breeders who are breeding for profit and not with the welfare of the mum and the pups in mind.”
She said dogs not vaccinated against diseases, especially the potentially fatal parvovirus, need expensive, emergency care and can still die from the disease. “You have no way of knowing if they have had vaccinations or if they have been in-bred from a photograph online,” she said.
“Unfortunately a lot of those puppies can take quite poorly quite quickly because they may not have been vaccinated for the early stages and can pick up a lot of bugs, particularly parvovirus. It is a horrible, horrible disease. It is vomiting and diarrhoea and can be fatal. People can be left with huge vet bills.”
The Consumer Show on RTÉ One catalogued a case where three Dublin sisters — Annemarie Higgins, Eithne Early, and Mairéad Ardill — each bought a cavachon pup from an online seller in 2013 but all three became ill with parvovirus. Ten days after bringing him home, Mairéad had to have her pup put down, leaving her with bills of over €2,000.
The Dog’s Trust is joining with the ISPCA and a string of other welfare organisation and advertising sites to form the Irish Pet Advertising Advisory Group.
“There are 19 websites in Ireland that sell animals,” said Ms Bentley. “We are all coming together to improve the standards of online advertising of pets — dogs, cats, donkeys, horses.
”Over 15,000 dogs are going into pounds nationwide so people should actually consider their local pound or rescue centre.”
www.dogstrust.ie
- The Consumer Show airs on RTÉ One on Wednesday at 8.30pm
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