Lucy's Law and Lockdown
This is from an article I feel so strongly about.
Apologies for it being so long, but I will try and stick to the most important bits only.
I don't know how many of you have heard about ' Lucy's Law' which was supposed to passed in April this year.
" April was supposed to be an historic month for animal welfare. Lucy's Law was supposed to bring in groundbreaking legislation that would end the third-party sellong of pets. No more pups and kittens in pet shops and no more nasty entrepreneurs buying up imported, battery-farmed pups cheap from shady dealers and reselling them over the internet, posing as 'home breeders.'
After Lucy's Law, the public would only be able to buy direct from the breeder and witness first hand how these little souls were reared.
Then came Lockdown.
The public responded to lockdown by switching from hoarding toilet rolls to panic-buying puppies.
Prices on Gumtree started to rise.
The Daily Mail helped fuel puppe lust with a piece about the PM's sister finding true love after rushing out and buying an expensive Cockpoo pup days before the travel ban.
The puppy was gorgeous, and now everybody wanted one.
It was soon announced that people could no longer travel to view their pups. (This is why animal rescues couldn't let animals go anymore - plus they couldn't do homechecks).
However, the 'licences breeders' could now use registered animal couriers to deliver their 'stock.'
DEFRA has inadvertently given the puppy farmers permission to sell pups like pizza!
The prices on Gumtree continued soaring. I was even hearing of people being 'gazumped'!
The puppy farmers liked delivering direct, as they could cut out the middle man and so make even more money.
Soon Gumtree had many 'Wanted' ads for puppies as litters started to sell out so quickly.
Almost inevitably, there was a huge surge in puppy thefts.
One licenced Doodle breeder had 22 of her dogs stolen, some being pregnant bitches plus two litters of puppies too young to be away from their mother.
Meanwhile the puppy farms were enjoying a holiday from being inspected as vets were only dealing with emergency cases, and local councils weren't enforcing licensing either.
Some of the greediest 'farmers' were even taking deposits for litters not even in the country yet - as they were now having to import puppies from foreign puppy farms as they had sold out of their own stock.
One pet shop even started selling the sick, worn out, exhausted adult ex-breeding stock for thousands of pounds, re-branding it as 'Rescue.'
Action Fraud also spotted a a spike in the sale of imaginary pups with 524 cases in April alone, treble the cases of March.
It is understandable that people crave the love of a dog in difficult times, but let's hope that as lockdown eases, puppy deliveries will stop and Lucy's Law can finally start to put an end to this breeding slavery."
The End.
I worry about all these innocent young souls that have been shipped from pillar to post all their short life with no maternal guidance, no proper rearing or love.
Apart from their emotional and physical health, what do those who bought these poor animals think they are going to do with them once they go back to work? Are they going to dump them in rescue, or leave them sitting alone staring at the kitchen wall all day after they have just got used to companionship for the first time in their lives?