Puppy farms

Interesting item on Radio 4's Today programme this morning: the Dogs Trust are going to push the government about regulating puppy farms. There was a good small breeder talking about the horrors of puppy farms, and someone from Ireland talking about the export of puppies to the UK. Nasty little bit about someone visiting a puppy farm and finding a Cavalier in a pen with a litter - and a dead puppy just dumped on top of the pen, waiting for collection later with several others from other bitches. Altogether an effective item, which I hope will get followed up.

Kate, Oliver and Aled

There was also talk on London Radio, I only caught the end of it, will listen to it again later. The bit I heard was where a caller e mailed in and said "if people want a decent puppy they should go to the Kennel Club for a list of breeders"! Before christmas I went on a demonstration organised by Puppy Love, the comments in the online local paper were totally riduculous, most people do not know what Puppy Farm is or means
http://www.dogs-r-us.org/news.shtml

I usually watch the BBC's Breakfast news programme from very early in the morning until a bit later when I have other things to do. This morning they twice included a 30 second item about the Dogs' Trust campaign against puppy farms saying little about the horrendous conditions in these places and showing two dogs 'enclosed in cramped pens' or something very like that. The visuals consisted of 2 dogs in plastic baskets contained within a beige tiled area, which looked quite clean and fairly wholesome.

I waited for the item to be shown more fully, if it was going to be, but had to give up on it at 8.30 or so, having seen the whole hourly cycle of items round more than twice, but nothing further was shown.

Is the Beeb worried about puting viewers off their breakfast by showing any footage they may have in their film library showing the true conditions of puppy farms, or were they hoping that the majority of their audience had left for the day before showing it?

Seems to me that it's one thing for the BBC to have a go at the world of pedigree dogs, their health and legitimate breeding/breeders, but quite another to campaign against the PFs.

I do wish they would make a documentary about PFs and I would be one of the first to vounteer to be interviewed about them. I would tell them about the girl who washes my hair and is waiting to mate her SBT pup as soon as she comes into her first season, because 'It is good for her', the young workshy layabout I often see in the supermarket who is looking for 'a nice little earner' by using his pet SBT cross at stud. He had no takers so now he tells me he's bought his own pup to mate with him! Then there's the low lifes I hear talking on the local bus who think that 'there's a living for life if you have a dog and a bitch to breed together' because 'all you have to do is let them do it, then rake in the money after 6 weeks!'

In my particular experience of 25 years of showing and associating with breeders large and small I have seen and heard a few things that equally disgust me, but so far as am concerned the majority of the blame lies most firmly with the PFs and the sort BYBs I have cited here.