Australia fights for its canines rights
Fri 21 October 2011
Anjelica Kilpatrick, Bachelor of Journalism
Australian animal activists are fighting to save the thousands of dogs living and being bred in controversial “puppy farms” around Australia.
Approximately 40 per cent of Australians own a dog, and 53 per cent say they would like to in the future.
The RSPCA website said that Australians had the highest rate of pet ownership in the world.
However few Australians knew where the puppies they saw in pet shop windows and for sale online came from.
Statistics taken from the RSPCA web page said in Victoria alone there were 70 registered and an estimated 60 unregistered puppy farms.
It also said that each puppy farm held anywhere between 200 and 300 dogs kept for breeding at any one time.
The controversial Banksia Park Puppies admitted to breeding 2500 puppies per year from its 300 breeding dogs on their company website.
The dogs were then sold over the internet and ordered by pet shops.
Animal rights activist Debra Tranter was outraged by the conditions of the dogs she had seized from “puppy farms”, and said that they should cease operation.
Ms Tranter said that this would help to solve the issue of canine over-population in Australia.
The RSPCA’s Spokesperson Emma-Jane Morcombe said that the RSPCA had been actively involved in the struggle to abolish these puppy farms and performed 21 separate investigations on dog breeders last year.
The RSPCA‘s campaign “Help us Close Puppy Factories” gained 74,289 signatures of support since its release.
Ms Morcombe said these puppy farms were “an intensive dog breeding facility that is operated under inadequate conditions that fail to meet the dogs' behavioural, social and/or physiological needs".
“Puppies from puppy farms are sold through the internet, newspaper ads, and pet shops or sometimes at the puppy farm itself," Ms Morcombe said.
“Puppy farms may also use a house as a 'shop front' to sell their animals from so you don't get to see the poor conditions they breed dogs in.”
The RSPCA website said many of these animals were being over-bred, receive no veterinary care and were inbred with close relatives.
They lived in overcrowded housing where many of the dogs used for breeding were not let out to exercise or to play with other dogs.
Ms Morcombe also said that puppy farms had an unusually high mortality rate among their dogs.
“RSPCA Australia is strongly opposed to puppy farming,” Ms Morcombe said.
“We advocate regulation of the breeding, supply and sale of companion animals to help set minimum standards and stamp out the mass-production of puppies for profit.”
Founder of ‘Oscar’s Law ’ and Australian of The Year nominee Deborah Tranter set out to educate the Australian public on this matter.
‘Oscars Law’ is a not-for-profit organisation that was created by Ms Tranter after a puppy farm raised dog named Oscar was seized from a puppy farm in central Victoria.
Many of the dogs rescued with Oscar required urgent veterinary care due to being neglected.
Ms Tranter said the matting of these dogs hair was so severe that many were sedated so that the fur could be shaved revealing skin abscesses.
Ms Tranter added that other health problems discovered included rotten teeth, gum disease and severe malnourishment.
While recovering from their surgeries, these dogs were returned by authorities to the puppy farm.
The farm owners have never been charged and the dogs remain on the farm.
Ms Tranter’s recount of her experiences visiting puppy farms describes the conditions that these dogs are forced to live in.
“The smell of a puppy factory is unforgettable, an overwhelming stench of urine and faeces,” Ms Tranter said.
“Many dogs slowly go insane…They spin in circles or pace back and forth in their cells, some never see daylight, and the outside world is a foreign place to them.”
Ms Tranter likened the conditions of the dogs to those of battery hens.
Ms Tranter added that once the dogs were no longer useful for breeding purposes, they were removed from their enclosures and killed.
Ms Tranter said that people who bought dogs from these breeders often had to pay the expensive veterinary bills for the health issues that came from being born in these environments.
“Consumer Affairs receives hundreds of complaints annually from consumers who have been knowingly sold sick animals and have incurred large vet bills,” Ms Tranter said.
“The fact is, pet shops and the factory farmers cut corners at every step of the way to maximise their profits, as a result, the animals and customers suffer.”
With one animal killed every four minutes in Australian pounds, Ms Tranter said that puppy farms were a major contributing factor in the overpopulation of dogs in Australia.
Ms Tranter said local governments should take more responsibility for their role in this growing problem.
“Local Governments are issuing more and more permits to puppy factory farmers to breed more and more dogs,” Ms Tranter said.
“How totally irresponsible it is to allow the mass production and then the mass killing of companion animals.”
‘Oscar’s Law’ plan to hold a “Puppy Factory Awareness Day” on September 18, 2011, outside of Melbourne’s Parliament House.
Image(s) designed by Oscar's Law
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Submitted Comments
Puppy farms are a disgusting blight on a civilised society, and licences to breed should be curtailed until the pounds are near empty.
melinda
This is depressing. Puppy farms are a cruel way to breed dogs.
Wes