Further to the delivery of this petition a year ago, Mark Singleton, Director of Pets4Homes responded that he was taking the issue seriously and that they were ‘working hard’ to not approve adverts of pets for Christmas. He also said that he was looking at adding a warning message to all adverts around Christmas and link to the pet adoption sections, as well as post an article about the issue of pets given as gifts for Christmas.
Has anything changed? Nothing whatsoever! I have been reporting adverts, same as last year, with breeders and private sellers advertising ‘Christmas' puppies and kittens as early as beginning of October, as soon as their animals got pregnant! NONE OF THEM ARE LICENSED despite the licensing law that was implemented in October 2018. That law says that breeders should display their licence when advertising online and that anyone breeding three or more litters in a 12 month period to sell to the public has to have a license. Of course, the breeders are dodging the rules by creating multiple accounts. I have so far reported 39 adverts and there’s still 4 weeks to go to Christmas. They are getting more and more frequent and Pets4Homes are doing nothing to stop them going live. At any time of the year, they happily offer a platform for puppy farmers and smugglers of designer dogs to advertise the animals they exploit completely anonymously. This is complicity of criminal activity!
From April next year, Lucy’s Law is due to be implemented, which means third party sales will be banned. Is Mark Singleton going to ignore that too?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gove-delivers-lucys-law-to-protect-puppies-and-kittens
Apart from sharing this petition, if you would like to complain:
Email Pets4Homes: support@pets4homes.co.uk
Write on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Pets4Homes
Tweet them: @pets4homes
CARIAD has excellent information on their page for reporting breeders and sellers: https://www.cariadcampaign.co.uk/report/
How many unwanted pets will be abandoned after Christmas this year again?! The issue is bad enough all year round!
Isabelle Rineau
BaBBA Campaign (Ban all Baby Bunny Ads)
@babbacampaign