It’s Time To Speak – Puppy Farms

IT’S TIME TO SPEAK UP

– David Margan Puppy Farms are a scourge, they are the antithesis of quality breeding, animal welfare and consumer rights.

They increasingly also damage the reputation and the businesses of our super qualified breeders.

Their existence is a result of a failure of regulation, they exist because they are allowed to exist.

At the same time Dogs Queensland breeders are having their BIN numbers and reputations stolen by backyard fraudsters the state has licensed.

This broken system has to be fixed.

During the pandemic with its attendant dramatic increase in the demand for puppies, puppy factories have flourished in Queensland.

So it’s especially pleasing that on 14 October, 2021, the Sunshine Coast Council, refused a development application by Diamond Valley Kennels (DVK) to double the size of their ‘puppy farm’.

The Councillors voted down the proposal by an astonishing 8-1 vote despite the application being recommended by Council officers who stated that; “animal welfare concerns were not considered as part of the recommended approval because it was regulated by the State government and therefore not a town planning matter.” Instead, the coast’s elected representatives may have taken notice of the negative community response to the application with the Council receiving more than 400,000 submissions, an Australian record that led to the Council’s computer systems going into meltdown.

But why do we allow such operations to even exist in Queensland when other jurisdictions have moved to outlaw such businesses and the sale of dogs and cats by anyone other than a registered qualified breeder?

In 2018, Victoria became the first state in Australia to ban the sale of animals in pet shops – supplied by puppy farms and have introduced a cap on the number of breeding dogs that can be kept while the Western Australian government are currently implementing similar regulations.

In England, as of 6 April 2020, the Government introduced new legislation especially targeting ‘puppy farms’ and ‘pet shops’ to improve the welfare of pets by banning third-party sale of puppies and kittens.

This is known as Lucy’s Law and means it’s now illegal for commercial dealers to sell puppies and kittens

The farm in Inverell, in northern NSW, was raided by 10 RSPCA trucks after allegations that the bodies of dogs were found scattered about the property and “one dog had been placed inside a dog food bag and left there to rot”. (Photo for illustrative purposes only)