Just watched this BBC Scotland documentary. This is happening in a positively Orwellian environment. Newspeak has nothing on it. My definition of welfare is clearly at odds with those who are granting licences for these establishments at any rate.
Not sure why the vet worked or the puppy farm for as long as he did, knowing what was so totally and utterly wrong. The inspectors seemed toothless as did the border controls. There is evidence that this trade is illegal but nothing has been done.
This is not just about people evading the law, this is about the law not giving a stuff.
I despair of everyone involved; breeders, sellers and buyers.
This is where the so-called “love” of animals has taken us: this trade is being fuelled by the sentimental purchasers buying fluffy baby substitutes and idiots who take these dogs into rescue, just leaving room for the next batch. The people who bought puppies are just as culpable as the people who bred them and sold them. They treated them as commodities just as much as the sellers did by looking on a website and picking the cute fluffy bundle with the silly name. They could have just as easily used their time online to research how to buy and care for a dog.
Just look at the puppy carried away from the dealers or the cadaver: the first wrapped in a blanket and the second with a soft toy. Dogs come ready fitted with waterproof temperature regulation- it’s called their coat (well, those that we haven’t bred to be bald). What use is a ghastly Disneyfied Eeyore going to be to a dead dog? Like as not these would be the same owners who instruct groomers to shave their dogs to within an inch of their lives because they are too lazy to groom them, or dye them pink and purple then dress them in frilly skirts and bling.
Until we start treating dogs as the separate species they are, there will always be a ready market for the profiteers. The responsibility for this trade lies at both ends of a spectrum that is bolstered by the weasel words of legislation.