Rogue puppy dealers are using Facebook and Instagram to trade across Europe, often selling animals with fashionable mutilations such as cropped ears, an investigation has found.
Analysis of hundreds of posts found that trade is rife in underage pets and dogs bred with exaggerated features including excessive skin folds, which cause dermatitis, and very short muzzles, which leave animals struggling to breathe.
The craze for such puppies has allowed breeders to cash in using social media, where pets are easily advertised despite rules curbing the sale of live animals.
Sellers easily evade the social media giants’ guidelines by using code words, and emojis and hashtags with secret meanings, according to a report by the Four Paws global animal-welfare organisation.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, says it removes adverts that breach its rules as soon as it becomes aware of them. But the report says the platforms are hot spots for cruel and unethical puppy sellers.
Underage puppies for sale are often bred in poor conditions and transported illegally across borders from eastern Europe, according to the investigators.
Y’know, there’s all these “[platform] used for [horrible deed]” headlines. It’s always weird to me, because yeah, people use Facebook for everything. I bet they wore cloths from Walmart while they did it, too! The horror!
Sadly necessary disclaimer that I don’t like social media monopolies.
It should be illegal to profit from the sale of a living being. It’s slavery, pure and simple.
Four Paws supports genital mutilation of dogs and cats including complete removal of reproductive organs in many cases.
But that’s not really considered mutilation now, is it? Most responsible animal welfare orgs impose sterilization on the dogs and cats that come through their doors to help control their populations.
You not agreeing with that is fine, but accusing them of mutilating animals crosses a line.
“Fun” fact, before we routinely spayed and neutered animals, putting a sack of kittens or puppies in a pond was a normal chore.
It was either that, or fight starving street dogs.
My point was only that it is possible to use hyperbole to make a minor procedure seem like a torture session.
There is good mutilation and there is bad mutilation, but it’s still mutilation! We accept spaying and neutering even though they are definitely mutilation because they have overall benefits in terms of fewer animals needing to be euthanized. We don’t accept ear cropping and tail docking because they lack benefits. But all the procedures entail risk.
You really should have put a /s on OP then, and maybe explained your actual point beneath.
You see spaying as mutilation whereas most of us don’t … because not spaying or neutering cats and dogs means the populations will be out of control; rabies, distemper and other deadly diseases will run rampant; feline leukemia will kill thousands in a painfull death.
As I said before it’s fine if you see it as mutilation, but do not suppose that we must all adopt your perspective.
Your point was that we judge the harm of a procedure proportional to its benefits, basically. I don’t really get why you felt the need. Do you support the use of these procedures such as tail/ear docking?
This is now stale, but my greater point was that it is possible to exaggerate how brutal these procedures are in an effort to mislead. Groups like this will use scary language like amputation and mutilation, but they never refer to ovo-hystorectomy in the same way.
The lesser point was that I agree that spaying and neutering is a good thing. Part of that is the benefit to the animal. But none of these surgeries traumatize the animal for life, either. Social costs of ear cropping? Really? Is there no social cost to having no balls?
You are sadly super misinformed. Spay and neuter animals. Unlicensed Breeding and poor treatment of those animals is the crime here.
