There are many issues and ethics within rescue that some people spend a lot of time arguing about, but this one is interesting....


would you donate to a rescue centre if you knew it was importing dogs specifically to rehome?

how would you feel if you found that taking a dog from one of these rescue centres meant that a dog in Sheffield was PTS in it's place?

If there was free space not being used in Sheffield and too many dogs to cope with somewhere else then I think that bringing dogs to Sheffield is perfectly valid, but if it means that there is insufficient capacity to look after local dogs then the failure of planning would make me question what was going on there.

in answer to your post Meds, there are dogs being PTS in England because the spaces in rescue are being taken up with imported dogs

apparently it's something to do with supply and demand

dogs are being brought in from a location renowned for puppy farming, so people coming into the rescue centre can have a better choice of dogs

now I could be wrong, but if you want to be that specific about the dog you're getting, do you not go to a breeder? and does providing a retail outlet for these dogs imported from elsewhere only create a demand at the supply end? does that justify the entire situation?

Thats a hard one Strix how could you decide which dog should live or die ?. i would want to save both,the dogs are dogs regaurdles of where they come from,so as i say i would want to save both .but i agree dogs should not be imported to supply demands especaily
by rescues (its hard enough to rehome the ones we have all ready).there should be more controls on puppy farms worldwide . but i would still have to had saved both ?????

I agree Pets@Home, but there are a finite number of kennels, and this rescue says it's importing them whilst refusing dogs looking for homes locally - which has it's consequences :(

in answer to your question, they're deciding that it's local dogs who should die :(

This is difficult and a subject that has been argued on many rescue forums. There are specifically many rescues which take dogs from Ireland as an example, the Irish Poundies have a rougher deal then our poundies in the fact that:

1. There arnt many "no kill" rescues in Ireland, so therefore many more die than in England.

2. The conditions in which dogs are kept in Ireland are dire, much worse than here.

3. In Ireland their view of dog welfare is nothing like ours and methods of euthanasia in some pounds are cruel.

Puppy farming is more widespread in Wales and Ireland due to the vast amount of "out of the way" rural properties going cheap, so how do you decide which dogs to rescue and from where. I do not envy any rescue being faced with a decision on which dog to save, it is a dilemma that we all face.

It is difficult since so many dogs in Ireland have been deemed banned breeds by the councils so there are lots that have come from social housing estates that are being PTS now. And Im aware of the puppy farming issues in Wales- in fact, didnt some puppy farmers actually get Govt funding to set themselves up in the business of dog breeding to compensate for loss of other farming income?