Government to respond to Wigan family's petition on puppy farming laws

A petition set up by a Wigan family to toughen laws around the sale of animals in the UK is to be considered by the government.

The "Reggieslaw - Regulate online animal sales petition" was set up by Richard Ackers from Ashton in Makerfield last year after a pet he bought for his family died just days after he took it home.

Last December Richard purchased Reggie for £1,800 but within three hours of arriving back home, he fell ill with diarrhoea.

By the following morning, he had deteriorated and was suffering from both diarrhoea and vomiting which became progressively worse until he was rushed to the vets.

After being given the options of either a major blood transfusion or putting him to sleep and with the vet was recommending the latter, the decision was made to let him go.

Richard said: "I cannot disguise that our decision to follow this advice was one of the most difficult and traumatic that we have ever taken and still affects us to this day."

"Reggie died just four days after we bought him, officially due to parvovirus."

"The end of his very short life was painful and horrific."

It was later discovered that Reggie had been bred at a puppy farm in Northern Ireland and learned the paperwork that the seller provided to Richard was fake.

Richard continues: "Rightly or wrongly my wife and I feel partly responsible for Reggie’s death"

"Like many others we were oblivious at the time to puppy farming and were perhaps too trusting with the reasons we were given for not seeing the puppies’ mother due to Covid-19 restrictions."

In light of the ordeal, the family started a campaign to tighten the rules around puppy farming and animal selling.

"This is personal in the sense that we do not want his death to be in vain," Richard said.

"We fell in love with him immediately and he settled in happily with our family in the short time we had with him."

Find the link to the petition here

They want a number of changes to the law to make it harder for illegal and fraudulent puppy sellers to operate.

They include

• For all breeders to licenced with a fixed address for legal inspections, where mum and pups can be viewed.

• All mums and pups must be seen by a vet within 14 days of birth. Certificates issued by a vet must display the date of visit and practice details. Veterinary records must also include all details of vaccinations, flea and worming, etc.

• Higher penalties for puppy farming

• Minimum pet age of 6 months before import/export from across Great Britain, Northern Ireland and other areas.

• More microchipping regulation.

You can read their full list of recommendations here.

Dozen's of MP's have backed the move including local MP's Yvonne Fovargue and Rosie Cooper. Although they're now hoping Wigan MP and Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy will also get on board.

Richard is now awaiting a response from the government to the petition.

"I keep logging on every day."

"We reached 10,000 within 8 days so they've had 6 days to respond but haven't done yet."

We'll keep you updated as to what the government say.

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