Dog rescuers saved 19 dogs (suffering from chronic diseases) from a puppy farm in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

Four rescue groups have joined to rescue these dogs

• Paterson Valley Dog Rescue
• All Breeds Dogs Rescue
• Pollanda Farm Rescue and Rehabilitation
• Nova Pound Pooch Inc.

The manager at Paterson Valley Dog Rescue group,  Caroline Moore said that the dogs who were used for breeding, were picked up earlier this month. She said one of the canines had a broken jaw that was never treated; one needed an eye removed while another had an issue with his reproductive organ.

“Basically they’re all senior dogs that have passed their breeding age.All have excessive vet problems — all of them, and that’s even the young ones, have dental disease. A lot of them have mammary tumors, or other tumors which are mass cell tumors. All the dogs practically have ear infections, and they’re all being looked at,” Ms. Moore said.

The animal welfare groups set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds with  the expectation of finding forever homes for the majority of dogs.

“We’ve put a figure of $20,000 — I mean that’s only $1,000 a dog and although some dogs won’t need that, the minimum on each dog for just desexing and a dental if that’s all they need would be $600 or $700.It doesn’t take much with 19 to know that most of the dogs need far more than that.One dog has a tumor on her kidney — I could potentially get her to a specialist but … that could cost $10,000 all on its own.That’s something I’d love to do but, of course, it’s really impossible for a small rescue to come up with that sort of money.”

Steps To Curb Puppy Farms

Mark Pearson (Animal Justice party) has appealed to the NSW government to impose tougher regulations on the dog breeding industry. He said that most of the rescue groups avoid reporting puppy farms as they are scared that the dogs might be taken and euthanised.

“So they’re in a very serious dilemma in primarily wanting to help as many animals as possible, but also trying to bring about change so that these puppy farms actually cease to exist,” Mr Pearson said.

 He added, “The whole approach to animals is to use them and then dispense with them. So while you have that mindset, which is integral to puppy farming, you will always have extremely serious animal welfare compromises.They can’t be stamped out unless puppy farming is stamped out.”

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Reference : abc.net