Cats and dogs: the end of pet shop sales, the start of ‘click and collect’

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur/One Voice

For several days now, we have been receiving a multitude of reports throughout France informing us that this or that pet shop is continuing to display and sell puppies or kittens. But some also highlight even more despicable actions.

Animals sold like objects with ‘click and collect’

Some pet shops, refusing to put an end to their business that is now illegal, are offering new services: to avoid losing money, they are now encouraging people to buy the animal on their brand’s website before coming to collect it from the shop. Like we do for our grocery shop...

Without even trying to hide it, they also explain that the puppies continue to be delivered to the shop despite the sales ban that dates back almost two weeks! Just after the vote on the 2021 law, we were already denouncing the lack of implementation of these measures in pet shops on the Côte d’Azur.

The Ministry of Agriculture is an instigator

But perhaps our leaders had not anticipated this eventuality...? This is not the case. It is the Ministry of Agriculture themselves who came up with this idea, proposing to regulate this practice instead of banning it:

A ban that is insufficient to a great extent

The spirit of the law has been completely perverted, and impulsive purchases will be able to continue. If we do nothing, this will not get better, because puppy show kind of events are still legal and blithely trample on the reflection period, an already minimal measure imposed by law. And as animal trade has good days ahead of it, personal classified adverts are also still relevant. We are demanding an end to online sales, and it is for this reason that we filed a complaint against Leboncoin last November.

Rodents, fish, birds, and reptiles are not protected and continue to be sold like simple consumer items while associations are regretful of the annual increase in them being abandoned.

As long as animals are sold as objects and then thrown away, our companions will continue to be mistreated. Together, let’s demand an urgent plan against feline straying to put an end to abandonments and to slaughtering in pounds.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice