Dog Smuggling - a COVID19 phenomenon?

Dog Smuggling is not a phenomenon restricted to Britain. Search the internet and you will easily find distressing images of dogs being smuggled across borders whether it be the Yulin dog meat festival or in India being transported across the state borders of West Bengal and Assam to Nagaland for human consumption. And yet here in Britain we are now in a downward spiral of dog or rather puppy smuggling which whilst does not end in the savage consumption of the animal does provide enduring suffering.

Britain is a country of animal lovers and by far a nation of dog lovers with 24% of adults living with a dog. This relationship has been shown to foster in the present COVID19 pandemic and a recent survey found that 86% of respondents felt they had bonded more with their dogs since being in lockdown, whilst 60% thought their dog had helped them maintain a regular routine and 43% said that their dog had reduced their anxiety. And so more people are adopting more and more dogs, but the question posed in this paper is where do these dogs come from?

Part of the family

Pet animals have become an increasingly important part of everyday human identities and lives in recent years, ownership has doubled since the 1960s. Studies show that during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries our attitudes towards pet animals have also changed. New forms of post-modern relationships have emerged that have transformed “pets” into “companion animals” and “owners” into “caretakers”. Companion animals are increasingly integrated in the home, with many people regarding them as established members of the family. Over ￡5.4 billion is now spent in the UK per year on pet-related products and services, including food and accessories, grooming, walking and veterinary care. As the internet has taken over our lives, we see social media filled with Instagram Cats, Dogs of Twitter and hamsters with their own Facebook pages.

But in law animals (and this papers’ focus, Dogs) are not treated as a companion

Stories around the world continue to reinforce the intransigence of governments to protect our family canine members. Longer prison sentences are given to offenders for smuggling cigarettes than for smuggling puppies. Horrific stories can be found everywhere - Singapore where an odd-job labourer tried to smuggle 12 puppies, crammed into the spare tyre compartment of a car, from Malaysia into Singapore. There was no food or water and three puppies later died. They were found dehydrated with inflammatory conditions within their lungs and hearts. The Drug Enforcement Administration of the USA arrested 22 Colombian nationals for smuggling heroin into the United States via various methods, including surgically implanting the drug into puppies. At least three puppies died from having liquid heroin packets placed inside them and then being stitched back up.  The authorities confiscated 24 kilograms of heroin — or about $2 million worth on the street — at airports in Miami and New York, and in Medellín, Bogotá and Cartagena, Colombia.

Looking across Europe

Whenever research is completed it never fails to unearth horrendous facts about the way we treat non-human animals. From the selective breeding of chickens, dairy mothers and of course dogs, to the wilful indifference we show to fish and the science that tells us conclusively that they not only feel pain but suffer as well.

But sometimes a truth jumps out. The fact that companion animals - those which most people call “pets” - are trafficked across Europe in numbers comparable to weapons and drugs, is just staggering. This speaks volumes about the illicit nature of the pet trade, with unscrupulous, black market organisations taking advantage of our love of animals.

A recent resolution adopted by European MEPs called for a mandatory registration system for cats and dogs, plus the definition of puppy farms to pave the way for greater regulation. The authors of the resolution estimated that 46,000 dogs are sold every month between EU member states, the majority of them unregistered. “It’s very complicated to give an estimate because it’s a black figure, like drug trafficking,” said MEP Pascal Durand highlighting that “it remains a very profitable and extremely widespread trade”.

Durand’s European People's Party counterpart Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé agreed, stating that “according to Interpol, trafficking in wild animals and pets is the third most common form of international trafficking after weapons and drugs”. Cats, dogs, rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, not to mention the many wild animals trafficked across Europe’s borders - for as long as there are people willing to buy them - they will continue to be captured or bred in terrible conditions where their welfare is deemed too costly to ensure safety.

PEOPLE WILLING TO BUY FROM UNKNOWN SOURCES ARE FUELLING THIS TRADE & MUST STOP

In the UK, we have domestic pet farms and “woefully inadequate puppy-mill regulations,” according to PETA UK. These dogs, seen as little more than breeding machines for profiteers, receive little to no veterinary care, not to mention a lack of any semblance of care or affection. Parasites are rife in these squalid conditions, and a range of congenital and hereditary conditions are common in mills the world over. Many pet shops source their animals from mills, and it is almost impossible to know where an animal acquired from a pet shop has come from - for this reason alone…… 

ADOPT DON’T SHOP

Continuing the Puppy Mill and Smuggling Horrors

The motives behind illegal puppy importation are sometimes not immediately obvious. However, a closer look reveals a big business driven by profit at the expense of the health and welfare of the underage puppies. Importers aim to get around regulations because customers demand puppies as young as 8-weeks. Profits decline by the thousands with each month a puppy ages.

The puppy-loving public creating the demand, is part of the problem

Many dogs are bred irresponsibly in large numbers in “puppy mills” where the risk of congenital abnormalities and disease is high. Importers then fly them as cargo in large batches, claiming them as “rescue” dogs, valued at ￡0 on their paperwork, and allowing the importers to evade entry and broker fees.

If the illegal puppies enter the country, they are marketed to the public through social media sites or even on legitimate-looking breeder websites. Some importers cheaply breed or board high-demand types of puppies in-country. The dogs are then sold to unsuspecting families at a cost of ￡2,000 to ￡3,000 - the potential profit is exponential.

In the USA another ruse is to recruit a “flight parent,” offering travellers a free flight in exchange for claiming the dogs as their own on their flight to the United States. The importers tell the unsuspecting “flight parent” they are helping to transport rescue dogs to meet their adoptive owners at the airport. They then give a description of the new families or transporters and a meeting point at the airport to make the exchange. The transaction between the flight parent and the puppy’s new family leaves no paper trail.

Returning to the UK

Back in 2017 Nigel Huddleston MP raised in Parliament this issue and stated that whilst it is difficult to get an accurate picture of the scale of the problem Dogs Trust www.dogstrust.org.uk research suggests that the illegal import and sale of puppies is an underground issue worth many tens of millions of pounds—perhaps up to ￡100 million—per year. Hundreds of puppies are intercepted at our ports each year, and that is just the tip of the iceberg; thousands more must slip through the net. Britain is a particularly attractive target for puppy smugglers because of the relatively high prices that many breeds command; breeds such as pugs, dachshunds and bulldogs fetch up to ￡1,500 each in the UK. Puppy smuggling gangs can make up to ￡35,000 a week from the trade. This industry is supported by people motivated entirely by money with a callous indifference to animal welfare.

The modes operandi are that puppies as young as four weeks old are taken from their mothers in Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and elsewhere, and transported hundreds of miles in terrible conditions to British ports, often with little food and water. They are often transported using false pet passports, and they are frequently too young to have had the proper vaccinations. At ports, their false documents all too often are believed, and not enough border officials are trained to be able accurately to assess the age of a young puppy—if they are visually checked at all. Those young puppies are then sold on to often well-meaning but unsuspecting families, who of course fall in love with them the first time they set eyes on them. Only later, when the puppies succumb to the stress of their arduous journeys or are taken to a vet who ascertains their true age, do those families realise the problem. The puppies are sent on to quarantine, where they receive appropriate medical attention. That can cost families ￡100’s if not ￡1,000’s before they can finally take the puppies home.

BREXIT may help…

Whilst the UK remains divided on Brexit the difficulty on importing puppies into the UK may well be hindered by the complex paperwork. Between March and the end of November 2020, Dogs Trust rescued 257 puppies illegally imported into the country from abroad, as well as 16 heavily pregnant mums who have gone on to give birth to an additional 61 puppies. These alone were worth over ￡570,000. There is increasing support and a Cumbrian MP is stepping up in the fight to stop the illegal importation of puppies into the UK. Dr Neil Hudson MP for Penrith and The Border, who is the only vet in the House of Commons, has joined forces with the Dogs Trust’s new “Parliamentary Puppy Smuggling Taskforce” to call on the Government to put a halt to the trade.

Bulldog Mark-up

Sadly, the increase in COVID19 puppy smuggling has seen huge increases in puppy prices. A French MEP cited the example of a bulldog that costs €50 to breed in Bulgaria, is sold for €450 to a pet shop, and ultimately sold to customers for €1,100. Lib Dem MP Angela Smith said: “We’re not talking about puppy -smuggling here – we’re talking about puppy -trafficking. It’s absolutely evil.”

Ian Briggs, Chief Inspector, RSPCA Special Operations Unit noted: “The sort of people involved in this are -involved in other crimes too. They have got no regard for the puppies and no regard for anyone else. We need to change consumer habits because it is too easy to buy a dog. The aim is to try and change the attitude that you do not want to buy a dog as cheaply as possible. What you want is quality.”

Certainly, increasing the minimum age pups can be imported from 15 weeks to 24 weeks could also help. 

What you can do!

For over six years Dog charities especially Dogs Trust www.dogstrust.org.uk have been calling on the British Government to help put an end to puppy smuggling after exposing this abhorrent trade. Current legislation is not fit for purpose. We need urgent action to cut these markets off at the source and close the loopholes which put innocent puppies at risk. Dogs Trust has released alarming new research to highlight the scale of the problem and call for urgent Government action to:

·       Raise the minimum age for puppies to enter the UK to six months.

·       Increase penalties for smugglers.

Despite the problem being highlighted for many years, the British Government is yet to take any significant action. With the end of the Brexit transition, the time is now for Government to act. But until the ineptitude of the Government is overturned please share this paper or at least this phrase:

Don’t turn a blind eye to the evil smuggling trade - adopt the dog you want!