Gone to the dogs
New Zealand has an unregulated puppy-breeding industry where unscrupulous operators can flourish, so why aren’t we following the lead of overseas governments?
Our perennial passion for pets has given rise to an unregulated puppy-breeding industry where unscrupulous operators can flourish.
He was curled up around a tiny plastic rugby ball, one of two eight-week-old pomeranian puppies in a Christchurch pet shop window. Cute as a button with heart-melting eyes, he had no pedigree papers but both parents, I was told, were registered purebreds – and he could be mine for a cool $1590. Five days later, both he and his brother had been sold.
Online, the pre-Christmas puppy trade was far more brisk. In mid-December, 274 puppies were for sale on Trade Me. The most common breeds were terriers, labradors and bulldogs and the prices were high: a female schnoodle, a cross between a miniature schnauzer and a toy poodle, would have put me back $2000; a pug puppy $2300; a purebred Italian mastiff puppy with full pedigree papers $4000. On the NzBuySell website, there were 1460 dog listings, including french bulldog puppies selling for $3000 and a shih tzu-bichon cross for $1150.
Ours is a country of dog lovers and we are particularly smitten by those lap-sized balls of adoring fluff and fur. Figures from the New Zealand Companion Animal Council report a national population of 683,000 companion dogs. In just over a quarter of all households there are pet dogs demanding walks.
But the demand, particularly for certain breeds and crossbreeds, is fuelling an industry that is neither cute nor loving. The sale of cats and dogs in pet shops, the boom in online trading platforms and the popularity of so-called designer crossbreeds have paved the way for a rash of commercial breeders feeding the market with litter after litter born to bitches being used purely as breeding machines.
Advertised as “family-bred” puppies and often photographed with a couple of children, they are put on the market with minimum concern for their welfare and an eye for maximum profit. Says Lesley Butler from the PAWS Animal Shelter in Feilding, “They are sold like a commodity, as if you are going to a dairy to buy a pint of milk.”
Butler has visited properties where 70-80 female dogs are raised in kennels or cages and bred every six months. When they are no longer producing, they are flicked off to another puppy farmer who might try to get one more litter out of them.
Butler will not name names. She has worked for 12 years to earn the trust of breeders so she can at least take ex-breeding females to the shelter for rehoming. But even this process is not easy. She describes west highland and yorkshire terriers – smaller dogs are popular breeders because they are cheaper to feed, take up less space and retain the “cute factor” for longer
Veterinary staff will talk off the record about inhumane treatment, repeated caesareans and puppies kept in bathtubs.
– having to be rehabilitated before being sent to a new home.
“They are six, seven, eight years old and all they have done is live in a small kennel and breed. They are friendly enough, but they have no social skills. They are not house-trained; if you put them in a home environment with a TV, radio, kids, they’re terrified.”
Multiple pregnancies also take a physical toll. If managed correctly, says Rochelle Ferguson, companion animal veterinary operations manager with the New Zealand Veterinary Association (NZVA), the risks are minimal. “But if they are not well cared for and they are not in good body condition, that extra stress does compromise their health. It draws on their reserve, their muscles, the minerals in their bones and reduces their immunity, so they are susceptible to infection.” As dogs get older, she says, their reproductive performance declines and interventions such as caesarean sections are more likely.
Often, too, the puppies themselves are not flourishing. A few years ago, Ferguson was called on to inspect puppies from a central North Island breeder, who was selling about 100 litters a year. She found them thin and infested with worms, their coats dull – everything she would have expected from dogs kept in large numbers in one understaffed facility.
These physical problems can usually be addressed, but much more difficult are the psychological and behavioural outcomes of poor socialisation, when puppies are not given the opportunity to interact with other animals, owners and children.
“There’s a critical period in puppies, between three and 12 weeks, when they are very accepting of new experi- ences, so you want to lay down as many new experiences during that time as you can and that helps them grow into more well-balanced dogs. We’re seeing puppies that have been kept in isolation, then thrown into new homes before they are self-sufficient and able to cope.”
TIP OF THE ICEBERG
Such issues are the small visible tip of a massive animal-welfare iceberg that is becoming apparent in countries around the world. Recent reports of puppy mills or puppy farms – large-scale operations feeding the domestic pet market with little regard for animal welfare or breeding standards – have appalled readers and welfare organisations in the US and UK.
Last year, Rolling Stone magazine featured a rescue by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in which dozens of yorkie, maltese and poodle mix puppies were found living in deplorable conditions before being sold off in pet shops and on websites. The parent dogs were “in desperate shape”, the magazine reported, wi t h cataracts, matted fur, rotten teeth, feeble limbs and paws scalded by urine. “If you buy a puppy from a pet store,” HSUS campaign director John Goodwin told Rolling Stone, “this is what
“There is no law to protect the welfare of these vulnerable dogs: they can literally be bred until they drop dead. The public don’t know.”
you’re paying for and nothing else: a dog raised in puppy-mill evil.”
Campaigns have earned celebrity endorsement from the likes of comedian Ricky Gervais and actor Peter Egan, who are both outspoken dog advocates. Gervais regularly tweets about rescue dogs and Egan is patron of a London charity called All Dogs Matter. Sometimes, a celeb’s devotion to dogs goes too far. Johnny Depp and former wife Amber Heard so adored their teacup yorkshire terriers they flouted Australia’s biosecurity laws and brought them into Queensland on a private jet in 2015, earning a mountain of criticism on social media and a fine.
In the UK last year, the RSPCA reported a 132% rise over five years in the number of complaints it received about the country’s £100 million back-street puppy sales industry. Over that time, the charity rescued more than 1200 pups from puppy farms. In a press release, RSPCA chief inspector Ian Briggs blamed the increasing prevalence of inhumane puppy-breeding practices on the growing popularity of certain breeds – most commonly french bulldogs, labradors, jack russells, pugs and german shepherds.
“As responsible breeders struggle to keep up with demand, underground breeders and traders are filling the gap in the market and are offering puppies at cheaper prices and without waiting lists – often with disastrous consequences.”
Just how widespread such large-scale operations are here is hard to gauge. Many kennels are in the countryside, out of earshot of neighbours whose complaints about barking might attract the attention of local councils. Dog-welfare organisations and veterinary staff will talk off the record about