The SPCA is calling for an end to puppy farming, which it says results in some dogs spending their entire adult lives pregnant.<\/p>\n
It wants the introduction of dog breeder licensing, clear dog breeding regulations and an updated code of welfare for dogs.<\/p>\n
SPCA senior scientific officer Dr Alison Vaughan told RNZ’s\u00a0Nine to Noon programme today people would be shocked to learn how few rules there were to protect dogs.<\/p>\n
“Anyone can breed and sell puppies. There are no restrictions on the number of breeding dogs a person can keep – unless the council bylaws specify it.<\/p>\n
“There’s no minimum supervision level, so you could have 60 dogs with one person caring for them. There’s no minimum or maximum ages for breeding, no maximum number of litters across a dog’s lifetime, and not even restrictions on things like close inbreeding, such as father-daughter or mother-son breeding.”<\/p>\n
In a statement, Minister of Animal Welfare Andrew Hoggard said he had asked officials to come back to him with advice on the SPCA’s campaign “in due course”.<\/p>\n
“We know roaming dogs are a problem – it’s something this government is actively looking into, and better breed regulation could be part of the solution.<\/p>\n
“I’m committed to delivering certainty for business by progressing the production animal codes. Once NAWAC [the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee] has finished that work, they may prioritise the dog code.”<\/p>\n
Mangere SPCA centre manager Graeme Ford said they were taking in dogs from puppy mills at least once a week.<\/p>\n
“I’ve just had an inspector phone today asking if she can bring in two litters of 10 puppies and four puppies from one household.”<\/p>\n
For the breeding dogs, life could be hell, he said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think they have a life at all. They’re just constantly pregnant, lying there. It takes months to recover from the [caesarean section] surgeries and by the time they recover they’re pregnant again.<\/p>\n
“There is a lot of good breeders out there, so I don’t want to tar them all with the same brush – but there are so many back-street breeders.<\/p>\n
“They think it’s a way of making a quick dollar but that’s just not the case. We desperately need some restrictions.”<\/p>\n
Animal charity Helping You Help Animals (HUHA) is right behind the SPCA’s campaign.<\/p>\n
Founder and chief executive Carolyn Press Mckenzie said they constantly saw cases of unethical breeding.<\/p>\n
“It’s flooding New Zealand and there are so many animals that are being born with genetic or hereditary issues. It’s a mess.”<\/p>\n
HUHA has encountered large-scale commercial puppy mill operations.<\/p>\n
“Puppies are just being sold like lollies, it’s really distressing.”<\/p>\n
HUHA recently took in a litter of six bulldogs born with major health problems. Press Mckenzie said they spent thousands of dollars on surgery to enable them to breathe properly.<\/p>\n
One dog, Dennis, was not in a fit state to be rehomed.<\/p>\n
“He is so genetically compromised. His legs don’t work properly, he’s too fragile to do the surgery to help him breathe more. He’s got weird airways – his breathing is just horrible,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It just comes back to the breeder trying to get a specific colour or trying to get a specific snout length.”<\/p>\n
A HUHA petition to prohibit the sale of puppies through pet stores and online traders has garnered more than 40,000 signatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The SPCA is calling for an end to puppy farming, which it says results in some dogs spending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-475641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}