Post first published January 28th, 2011 Reprinted as this appalling idea is again being promoted in the media.
With a last ditch attempt to make their members seem like something other than profit motivated puppy peddlers, the Pet Industry Association of Australia boss Roger Perkins has proposed their new policy – unwanted pets should be ‘returned’ to the industry who failed them the first time:
The pet industry will take responsibility for finding homes for dogs found dumped on the street or surrendered to shelters if checks reveal the animal was first sold through an accredited pet shop.
The unprecedented initiative has the potential to save the RSPCA, councils and other animal welfare shelters hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in the care and rehousing of unwanted pets.
…….Mr Perkins said individual shops would be “absolved” from taking a pet back. Instead the “industry would take responsibility”, with pets cared for by other members including kennels and groomers.
Details are yet to be released but the point-of-sale documentation is expected to be linked to the dog’s microchip and kept on a database that could be checked whenever a stray is found.
When the PIAA ‘accredited’ major suppliers to pet shops have no qualms at all in killing discarded breeding dogs at the end of their ‘lifecycle’, why on earth would any animal welfare group agree to allow pets to be returned to the pet producers? And with professional animal rescuers lovingly placing these animals so they never end up in rescue again, how insulting the pet shop industry is proclaiming that, although they failed to place the pet in a forever home the first time, that they are now the best ones to place the adult animal.
If the pet shop industry were genuinely interested in animal welfare, then they would sever ties with puppy farmers and open their doors instead to rescue groups to showcase their animals. They would make a long term financial investment in animal welfare, setting up a fund which can be accessed by rescue groups caring for ex-pet shop and puppy farm animals, paid for by a small percentage of all animal product sales. And rather than trying to take pets ‘off rescuers hands’ and continuing to treat them like an inconvenient waste product, they would acknowledge that rescuers are in fact performing a valuable service that can’t be easily replicated, no matter how ‘easy’ it looks to a profit based industry, and that pets shouldn’t be a commodity to be bought, discarded and continue to be onsold throughout their lives.
Unfortunately no matter how much they’ve been spanked lately by an evolved public, the Pet Industry Association of Australia still just doesn’t get it. When pets are products and profits are king, it’s the animals who will continue to suffer.
Just when you think things MIGHT be improving for our companion animals, we have a shocking situation arising. Who thinks this is going to help anyone? These pet shops don’t care, they just want your MONEY.
If dogs are taken back to the shops what will happen? You can’t put adult dogs in a pet shop window, no one will be interested and the dog would go crazy.
These people will just dump them in the nearest pound with some feeble excuse that they, found the dog, someone else found the dog and numerous excuses. How is this going to solve the problem?
Bottom line is….. it won’t.
Judy, did you read the article? While I agree that what they’re proposing is stupid, they aren’t going to put them in pet shop windows and are proposing to link the info to the microchip to trace the sale back to the pet shops so your reasons to disagree have no merit.
Back to the article, I honestly don’t think the groomers and kennels are going to be too happy to clean up the pet shops’ mess either.
Would rather depend on whether pet shops actually microchip their animals. If they dodge that responsibility as they frequently do, the animals can’t be traced back to them anyway. It’s one of the problems we have that although we know a lot of pet shop puppies end up in rescue, their antecedents can’t be traced.
I think Judy’s comment about putting adult dogs in pet shop windows was just to illustrate how totally ridiculous this proposal is.
Of course they will dump them in the nearest shelter. The best outcome for the animals in question would be NOT to be able to be traced back to a pet store. Their best chance is with a caring rescue group.
The Pet Industry Association (Puppy Mills, Inc.) is just posturing. They are trying to look like they are responsible and caring, when by their very definition they are nothing but factory farmers living off the suffering of innocent animals.
What we really need is a law saying “no more breeding as long as animals are being killed in shelters.”
No animal, young or old should be sent to a petshop. I have had many dealings with petshops. How easy would it be for puppy farms to still send their animals to a petshop to be hidden amongst the others who have been “returned”. If they are being returned, does this mean the animal was improperly adopted out by the “accredited” petshop in the first place? There is also the question of disease being spread. I work in rescue and this is the biggest load of rubbish I have ever seen. There are already so many loopholes in legislation regarding the petshop industry that prosecution is almost impossible. Petshops are not interested in money not the welfare of the animals.