Animal welfare groups are angry about what looks like Government stalling on laws to curb puppy farms, writes Karlin Lillington
Pepper, a black-and-white shih-tzu bearing a close resemblance to a playful dust mop, is one lucky dog. Two years ago, a neglected puppy covered in his own excrement, he was taken to the Ash Animal Rescue sanctuary in Co Wicklow after a Garda Síochána and Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA) raid on a Co Wexford "puppy farm".
Along with dozens of other dogs, Pepper had known nothing but the hell of canine battery farming on one of Ireland's dozens of unregulated puppy farms. Adopted by a Dublin family, he is now a clean, well-fed and much-loved pet, but with the typical psychological and behaviour problems of puppy-farm dogs.
"He is still very distant. He doesn't like cuddles and won't sit on laps, though he's a lapdog breed," says one of his adoptive family. Bred from poor-quality stock and sold by brokers to an unsuspecting public here and abroad, such dogs also often have health problems throughout their lives, says TV3 vet Pete Wedderburn.
Though the plight of dogs such as Pepper hits the headlines here and abroad - prompting a Government promise to tackle the Republic's growing reputation as the puppy-farm capital of Europe - two years on, nothing has changed. Many groups, ranging from the ISPCA and the Irish Kennel Club (IKC) to the national veterinary association, Vicas (Veterinary Ireland Companion Animal Society), worry that the Government has long-fingered the issue and is avoiding implementation of the report of a working group appointed a year ago to find an effective way of addressing it.
Frustrated by this and other festering welfare issues, such as Ireland's unusually high kill rate for dogs in pounds, activists are organising here as they have never before. Among the largest groups is the National Stray Dog and Cat Forum, established in 2001 by representatives of organisations including the IKC, the ISPCA, Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind, local authorities and the Garda Síochána. Two weeks ago, the group reconvened, with more than 100 answering a call to gather in a ballroom at Citywest Hotel. Why?
"There were a number of issues building up at the same time," says Wedderburn, spokesman for the forum and a member of Vicas. "First, the stray dog problem. While 16,598 dogs put down last year is a huge improvement on previous years, the number is still appalling, especially in comparison with the UK. Then, the initiative by the IKC to start microchipping all IKC-registered puppies in January is excellent and significant, and we wanted to alert members. And finally, nothing seems to be happening with the puppy farm report."
THE REPORT IS a particularly sore point. Both the IKC and the forum have issued press releases urging the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, to implement it immediately. Instead, Roche put it out for further public consultation for six weeks, though 27 formal public responses were included in the report. One former senior government minister says he cannot recall another instance of a working group report being put back for public consultation.
Fears about fading Government nerve on the puppy-farm issue were reinforced when Roche told an East Coast FM radio audience recently that any regulation must come through primary legislation, which would mean a long wait to tackle an issue that, Wedderburn says, outrages the public now. He adds that the intention of the department under former minister Martin Cullen was to implement regulation rapidly by carefully reworking the existing Dog Act.
"The department actually took legal advice to make sure that the regulations could be altered in this way and lawyers said yes. The working group proceeded on that basis," Wedderburn says. "It does seem as if the Minister is either not fully informed about these facts, or, more worryingly, he may have decided to ignore them. Thousands of dogs will continue to suffer and die if this is deferred to primary legislation, which could take years to go through the Dáil."
A Department of the Environment spokesman says it has not yet made a final decision on the best form of regulation and will decide in the new year.
Even the normally genteel IKC is now up in arms, annoyed by Roche's claim on radio that because the IKC and two other participants out of 12 submitted additional minority reports, the intent of the working group was not clear.
The Department spokesman says this lack of clarity is the reason the report has been sent back for public consultation.
"We felt we had some things worth saying, but we do not want to hold back progress," says IKC president Sean Delmar. "We need immediate action on this problem, which greatly concerns our members. It was a very diverse working group and we all recognised no single participant would get all they wanted."
Delmar says the IKC currently has no authority to investigate suspect puppy farms, even though it knows that many apply for valuable IKC registrations, intended as a quality mark for breeders following strict IKC health and breeding guidelines. He says the club and dedicated breeders are furious that puppy-farm registrations create a poor reputation abroad for Irish dogs. Delmar also fears that the Government is viewing the mass breeding of dogs as an agricultural issue "when it is a social and welfare issue". He and Wedderburn are encouraging the public to write and urge Roche to implement the report without delay.
THE LONG-STANDING STRAY dog problem is also high on the activist agenda. Campaigners are urging the Government to fund educational programmes on the benefits of neutering animals and they are also angered by the Republic's inconsistent approach to managing dog pounds. The tiny handful of pounds that allow rescue groups to remove dogs for re-homing have the lowest kill rates in the country, says Miriam Anderson, founder of new lobby group Anvil (Animals Need a Voice in Legislation).
More pounds - including those run by the ISPCA, which remain closed to rescues - need to work together with rescues, Anderson says, noting that some now have kill rates of less than 30 per cent. Anderson has lobbied politicians, including the Tánaiste, Mary Harney, to stop some pounds charging rescues "release fees" for animals.
"Rescues save pounds money by removing animals so they needn't be kennelled, or put down," she says. "It's ridiculous that rescues are then charged for the privilege of saving local councils money."
If dogs have it bad, Anderson and other campaigners, such as Jan Emslie, of rescue group Kitten Adoption, say the situation for cats is particularly appalling.
No pound will take in stray cats, so there's no humane euthanasia programme. And at least dogs have a formal footing in Irish law, says Emslie, whereas cats qualify as vermin and exterminators can be used to remove them.
"It's €800 to remove a colony and put them down," says Emslie. "But €800 would spay and neuter a lot of cats."
She's a strong advocate of trap/neuter/ return programmes for wild cats and, like all the other campaigners, argues that Ireland has a terrible spay-and-neuter record generally for pets. Wedderburn is passionate on the issue, and spearheads Ireland's annual Spayweek campaign, when vets offer low-cost neutering.
With dozens of groups beginning to network, campaigners are confident they can start to sway public opinion. If so, every Irish dog (and cat) might at last, have its day.