31 December, 2014. 08:59
CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | [email protected]
This festive season is shaping up to be a desperate time for many dog breeders, as increasing pressure from animal rights extremists has seen a sharp decline in the sales for many traditional Australian puppy farms.
“It’s been a tough year for all of us, the sales are way way down in what has traditionally been our peak revenue period” explains caged puppy farmer, Angus Ballinger.
“It used to be that buying a puppy from a shop window was a rite of passage for many Australians, but with organisations like PETA and the WWF guilting consumers into paying more for free range dogs it’s getting harder for us farmers to make a living,”
Angus claims that he is “just your average hard working small business owner” and that for three generations his family has farmed puppies – It’s the only sort of work they know. Angus’ wife, Sheila, says what infuriates them the most is that this used to be a trusted profession – but now people treat her like “Cruella Deville”
“Sure they don’t have much room to move, but they can eat as much as they can stomach and when you compare what sort of square footage these dogs get in relativity to their body size it’s really not all that different to what you might find in low income housing.”
“I’m just hoping that things pick up before the school holidays end, or failing that that we can offload a few in the back to school sales. Because if we can’t sell these puppies then f**k, I dunno hey – we’ll definitely have to sell at least one of the houses at Yamba”
Perfect