Finally, we can check if pet seller is dodgy
THE Department of Agriculture has finally published its register of puppy sellers, following pressure from the Irish Mail on Sunday over the past year.
The Register of Sellers/Suppliers of Pet Animals is part of legislation that came into force last February but the department consistently failed to make the register available to the public.
This week, however, it relented to calls for openness from this newspaper – and the register is now available online on the department’s website.
The register is intended to alert potential pet buyers to rogue or unscrupulous breeders, by allowing them to check to see if the seller is licensed by the department before they buy a pet. The department’s failure to make it public had also been strongly criticised by animal welfare organisations.
‘It is supposed to protect both buyers and animals but how was it to do that if it was kept secret? It was nonsensical,’ said one source.
Anyone selling or supplying more than six dogs, cats or other pets in a year are legally required to register with the department or face prosecution under the Sale and Supply of Pet Animals (Advertising) Regulations. The register displays the county,
department licence number and name of breeder, but not the exact address.
All ads for pets must legally display the licence number. Separately, licence numbers, provided by the local authorities for large-scale commercial breeding, must also be displayed where applicable.
The names on the register include rescue organisations, as they supply pets, and pet shops.
While its publication was largely welcomed, the department was also criticised for allowing, in some cases, just a first name and no surname.
In one example it allowed someone to register simply as ‘Joyce’. ‘How are buyers supposed to check that? It’s ridiculous,’ said one source.
The department has also come in for criticism over the lack of enforcement of online ads that are in breach of the advertising regulations governing the sale of puppies.
When the regulations became law last year, teams of volunteers monitored online sites and reported more than 1,000 ads to the department. No microchips, age of the pup and no puppy farm or pet register licence number were displayed on the ads.
To date not a single prosecution has been taken.
DoneDeal, one of the biggest advertising sites for puppies, pulled its entire pet section after the MoS highlighted how the ads were breaking the law.
Major advertisers had responded to our reports by pulling lucrative corporate advertising from DoneDeal.