Shelter condemns online puppy sales

Martin Janse van Rensburg, spokesperson of Budget Insurance said, “South Africans may have been apprehensive about shopping online when it first began gaining momentum, but things have changed and the number of people doing it is set to rise dramatically year by year.”

However one area of online shopping that has received a lot of attention from animal rights groups and rescue shelters is the online pet trade. As of 25 July online trading portal Gumtree had 3 798 adverts for pets for sale.

Chartwell’s Ark Animal Centre recently rescued a litter of eight seven-week-old puppies which were being advertised as “Free to a good home” on an online trading portal.

Tracy Otto of Ark said that the problem starts with people having unsterilised animals who fall pregnant. “Once the babies are weaned, the owners, who are normally very nice people, if a bit ill-informed, want the best for their puppies but don’t want to take them to the SPCA because they worry they will be put to sleep,” she said.

“The intention is that they will go to ‘nice people’ who will look after them.”

Otto explained that many people don’t know how private welfare works and the only outlet to them is to advertise their animals on online shopping websites. “People are ignorant to the fact that these dogs are used for dog fighting, taken over the border, turned into guard dogs or used for backyard breeding,” she said.

Otto said that a person responding to an ad for a puppy will spin a story of how long they have wanted a puppy and how well they will look after it.

“This is not the case sadly, this is normally a front person,” she said. Otto suggested that the only way to stop the giving away of puppies is to get all dogs sterilised.

Ark Animal Centre is in the process of setting up a spaying and neutering clinic with reduced rates.

Details: 087 742 2211; info@arkanimalcentre.co.za; www.arkanimalcentre.co.za