Chers Lecteurs,

Lorsque vous lirez cet édito, la Société Royale Saint-Hubert aura organisé l’édition 2016 de l’Exposition Canine de la Section Europe de la FCI à Bruxelles.

Plus de 12.000 chiens ont été inscrits à cet événement prestigieux !!! N’est-ce pas incroyable? Cela dépend du regard que l’on porte sur ces chiffres ! C’est incroyable en soi parce qu’un tel nombre de participants place cette Exposition Canine de la Section Europe de la FCI dans le top 3 de toutes les Exposition Canines de la Section Europe de la FCI jamais organisées. C’est incroyable parce que le Monde n’a pas tourné rond ces derniers temps, mais pourtant, les exposants et les éleveurs veulent effectivement vivre leur passion pour les chiens et continuent à participer à toutes sortes d’événements canins, que ce soient des expositions ou des épreuves sportives. Nous les en remercions vivement.

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Yves De Clercq
Directeur Exécutif de la FCI
The Pet Deception
A campaign by Four Paws

Further to some meetings with Four Paws (the first at FCI headquarters in December 2015 and a second one at Four Paws’ offices in May 2016), the FCI is slowly building a new relationship with this organisation and is always receptive to its recommendations regarding animal welfare.

During the meeting in Brussels, Julie Sanders introduced Four Paws’ new campaign revealing risks of online pet trade. We would like to share this campaign with dogsdotcom’s readers and hope it will contribute to the protection of our companions.

FOUR PAWS reveals risks of online pet trade. FOUR PAWS is calling on classified ad sites to implement its animal welfare measures.

FOUR PAWS has revealed shocking evidence of the illegal pet trade on online classified ad sites – with ads offering for sale illegally imported puppies, banned breeds and endangered and wild caught species. As a result people looking for a pet online could end up with a sick, dangerous or even illegal animal. The international animal welfare organisation has carried out research on 42 classified ad sites across 10 countries world-wide (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, South Africa Switzerland and the UK).

A puppy being swapped for a smart phone, a pit bull advertised illegally for professional dog fighting, illegally imported puppies from Lithuania, a pregnant monkey no longer wanted, wild boar being advertised to train hunting dogs, an endangered ring-tailed lemur for sale as a pet and a parrot being swapped for a lap top – are just some of the ads discovered during the research and all caused by a lack of proper regulation of the online pet trade.

“With our international campaign FOUR PAWS wants to stop this “pet deception”, says Julie Sanders, International Director of Companion Animals Department at FOUR PAWS. “As part of the campaign we have developed an online tool which ranks the more commonly used classified ad sites to show the public which sites could be putting them and pets at risk: www.petdeception.org.” Based on a set of requirements developed by FOUR PAWS, the sites are ranked according to which FOUR PAWS measures they have introduced to protect animals sold on their sites. Additionally, supporters can help the cause by signing an online petition calling on leading global brands such as eBay Classified Group who own classified ad sites around the world to adopt the animal welfare measures.

Thousands of classified adverts offering pets are listed across various websites every day, with animals being purchased just like products, at the click of a button. Some sites have as many as 200,000 adverts featuring pets for sale online at any one time, with over 4 million viewers. Classified ad sites benefit from the high click through rate and the resulting advertising revenue.

However many of these sites, even those owned by trusted brands such as eBay Classifieds Group, can be poorly regulated and therefore offer little protection for the pets being advertised and for the people looking online to find a pet.

“We have developed a set of recommended measures and are calling on global brands to lead the way in protecting animals and people by adopting them,” adds Sanders.

The measures include classified ad sites:

  • having to verify sellers identity, so that there is no anonymous selling on the sites for animal sales, to help stop illegal activity
  • running pre checks of all adverts to remove illegal, misleading or inappropriate adverts before they go live
  • having mandatory information in the ad on the animal for example important care, health and documentation details to help the buyer make an informed decision when buying a pet
  • having in place and enforcing a list of animals which are banned from being sold on the site including primates, endangered and wild caught animals, underage animals and pregnant animals to help address animal welfare issues.

The video