The shocking reality of the illegal puppy trade

“The available estimates indicate that Europe’s pet trade (cats, dogs, exotic) is the third most profitable illegal trade in the EU, after narcotics and weapons,”Tune in to hear Robyn Lowe in conversation with Rowena Packer and Zoe Belshaw to discuss their research findings into the shocking reality of puppy sale scams and illegal puppy smuggling, where animal health, behaviour and welfare is hugely compromised for financial profit.Rowena is a senior lecturer in companion animal behaviour at RVC and Zoe is a European and RCVS Recognised Specialist in Small Animal Internal Medicine. They discuss their research findings, particularly the increase in puppy sales throughout the pandemic and the change in methods of acquisition.Importing puppies is often illegal and unethical. Ongoing research has shown that there is an increasing trend in the number of puppies purchased with passports (i.e imported puppies), in 2021 at least 1 in 10 puppies were imported. In 2020, Dogs Trust found that 14% of all adverts reviewed were for imported puppies (29% in England), at least 18% of the imported puppies were confirmed by the seller as being under the minimum 15 weeks of age.It is something we in the veterinary profession, and prospective puppy owners, need to know more about, and we hope that this podcast provides some insight and tools to identify when this is likely to be going on, for example any puppy who has been imported under the age of 15 weeks will have been done so illegally.We also discuss the hugely damaging impact this has on the puppies, dams and sires from a behaviour, disease and welfare point of view. This issue is becoming more prevalent, and we have a responsibility to educate ourselves and our clients so that we can try and tackle this, ultimately by identifying puppy sellers who are part of the illegal puppy trade and boycotting these purchases.