Dog Breeding Licences

Have read with interest the Blog by Safe Pets UK on the subject of dog breeding licences and the numbers of dogs a person should be allowed to be licensed for.  They asked, shouldn't there be a ceiling on the number of dogs a person can be licensed for, and the suggested figure was 50 breeding bitches.  Why the figure of  50 should be redeemed acceptable I cannot imagine, as a person with 50 breeding bitches would still be considered a commercial breeder, possibly selling puppies to dealers and pets shops as they do now.  If commercial dog breeding is to be better regulated as it must, then the main purpose behind the owning of a large number of dogs for breeding must be banned.  Most breeders (but not all) that own a large number of dogs for breeding do so to to supply puppies to dealers and pet shops.  Therefore us, as campaigners must persistently provide Governments with good, factual, sound evidence that animal welfare is seriously compromised by allowing the puppy trade to continue.

A statement written by the blogger of Safe Pets UK blog said the following and I quote:

'We are just finishing  Freedom of Information enquiries regarding the issue of dog breeding licences by various councils around the country.  It has long been thought that the majority of the puppy farmers are in Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, Wales and thousands of sick, fearful and aggressive puppies are sold from there all over the UK.  Our study aims to prove for the first time that the problem in those areas is real.   End of quote

My goodness, 'Our study aims to prove for the first time that the problem in those areas is real' this information is not news and to say it is the first time is incorrect, those of us that have campaigned for years as far back as 1991 with Puppy Watch and in recent times the Dogs Trust, RSPCA, Puppy Love Campaigns, Hope UK, Spec, Animal Aid, Nature Watch, the  Kennel Club, Puppy Farming Aware and Puppy Alert have all sang from the same hymn sheet and saying that Wales is the centre of the puppy farming supply trade of irresponsibly bred puppies followed by Eire.  Puppy Alert and Puppy Love Campaigns have for years received information under FOI confirming this fact and have written about it often.  But unfortunately whilst Governments and MPs, AMs place their heads in the sand and quote the Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Act 1999, the Pet Animals Act 1951/91 and Animal Welfare Act as being adequate to control the excesses of dog breeding and the selling of puppies from pet shops, rather than accepting the visual and factual evidence supplied by campaigning groups both large and small as proof nothing will change.

We all have a voice  including Safe Pets UK who hopefully will continue to highlight the puppy trade.  We must all work with one aim in mind to prevent the sale of puppies from dealers and pet shops thus reducing the need for large commercial breeding establishments to operate.