The plight of dogs in inhumane and unsanitary surroundings at puppy mills were revealed in photographs yesterday by animal welfare groups.
The groups called for the government to enforce stricter controls on the breeding of pet dogs.
The Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) and the Taoyuan Animal Protection Association laid the blame with the government for poorly controlling pet breeding farms and allowing illegal farms to raise large numbers of animals in inhumane ways.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Dirty dogs at illegal puppy farm Chia Chia in Taoyuan County’s Longtan Township (龍潭) were pictured in the photographs in poor conditions: Pets were held in small cages with excrement and rotten food scattered beside them and a flea-ridden dead dog was left on top of a cage.
EAST director Chen Yu-ming (陳玉敏) said the puppy mill is legally registered as a company in a building block, while the illegal breeding warehouse is located nearby.
The puppy mill was also found to have used drugs on female dogs, without the supervision of veterinarians, and it had raised donations posing as a voluntary shelter for strays, Chen said.
Yet when the group’s investigator approached the mill the company was selling puppies for about NT$2,000 to NT$4,000 each.
Chen said the dogs that were saved from the puppy mill were infected with multiple diseases, had physical deformities or were in seriously poor health, describing the place as “hell.”
“An estimated 160,000 puppies enter the pet market every year, and about 70,000 strays are put to death at public animal shelters each year,” she said.
She said the figures show that the breeding sources and numbers of pet dogs must be urgently controlled.
The groups urged the central and local governments to enhance its control over breeding farms and to establish an ad hoc task force to investigate the industry, including evaluating the number of pets in the nation held by breeders and determining their living conditions.
The Council of Agriculture’s Animal Husbandry Department Deputy Director Chu Ching-cheng (朱慶誠) said his agency would work on controlling the problem of stray dogs from the source.
Under law, dogs at legal puppy mills must be implanted with chip IDs, female dogs cannot give birth more than three times in two years or more than seven times in their lives and retirement plans must be made for the elderly dogs, Chu said.
Chu said the department will ask the local bureau to investigate the case, and if illegal practices are confirmed, the owner could face a fine of between NT$50,000 and NT$250,000 for illegally breeding animals, and NT$15,000 to NT$75,000 for the neglect of animals.
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