How cruel millionaire couple forced dogs to have too many litters
£400,000 fine for breeders who made up to £20k per puppy
‘You’ll pay the price for that folly’
A CRUEL couple who ran an ‘extremely profitable’ unlicensed dog breeding business from their country home have been fined more than £400,000.
Karl and Victoria Shellard – whose joint assets totalled more than £1million – took advantage of the boom in online pet sales.
They claimed to be ‘experienced breeders’ and ‘leaders in distinguished bulldogs of all colours’.
This allowed them to sell puppies for anything between £1,500 and £20,000 through their company Posher Bulls, which advertised online and on social media.
But a court heard the Shellards were unregistered and forced their breeding bitches to deliver more than one litter a year, breaking animal welfare laws.
One dog, Coco, delivered six litters within four years. In total, their breeding dogs produced 67 litters over six years and in just one year there were 43 litters delivered by caesarean section.
Mr Shellard, 43, and Victoria Shellard, 40, were both fined £19,000 by a judge at Cardiff Crown Court and were ordered to pay back £372,531 – or face two years in prison. They were also ordered to pay court costs of £43,775.
The Shellards pleaded guilty to animal welfare offences of breeding dogs without a licence and nine counts of failing to ensure the needs of a protected animal for which they were responsible.
On Thursday Cardiff Crown Court heard the pair made £372,531 selling puppies between 2014 and 2020 and had £1.04million in assets.
The couple, who used to run a hairloss replacement business but worked full time on puppy breeding because it was so lucrative, live in a £500,000 home in Bonvilston, a village west of Cardiff.
Mr Shellard and mother-of-three Mrs Shellard were repeatedly told to apply for a breeding licence from Vale of Glamorgan council from January 2018 but did not.
Their four-bedroom detached home was raided in December 2019 along with two other properties connected with the business. Investigators found 20 dogs in an outbuilding at their home and a laboratory with microscopes and breeding equipment. They found 24 more dogs at a nearby property and six dogs 15 miles away.
Officers also found a signed partcompleted Breeder Licence Application Form which Mr Shellard claimed he had not sent off because they were trying to sell their home and would need to change the address.
The couple finally applied for a licence in January 2020 but it was not granted due to poorly-managed health issues, unfit accommodation and lack of space for dogs, a lack of understanding of the guidelines and poor isolation facilities for unvaccinated dogs.
The pair last week admitted back-to-back breeding – where dogs had delivered more than one litter in a 12-month period.
Tim Evans, prosecuting, said: ‘This back-to-back breeding would have been a licensing offence had they been licensed breeders. It is something that even legitimate breeders should never do. But, irrespective of the absence of a breeder’s licence, it is an animal welfare offence as the recovery from a caesarean section takes many months and the Shellards were artificially inseminating these dogs long before they were healthy enough to undergo a pregnancy and yet another procedure.’
An investigation revealed the Shellards attempted to avoid authorities by using ‘coownership contracts’ where they paid others to officially own or house the dogs.
Heath Edwards, defending, said the business became ‘nationally and internationally recognised’ for the quality of the dogs which were ‘healthy and of unquestionable pedigree’.
But Judge David Wynn Morgan said: ‘You could have run an extremely profitable business if you were properly registered but you’re going to pay the price for that folly.’