At the Antibes puppy fair, you can leave with your objectified dog without observing the legal reflection period.
Since October 1, 2022, all first-time purchases of a cat or a dog have been subject to a seven-day reflection period. The adopter must sign a “certificate of commitment and knowledge” one week before the adoption. However, at the Antibes puppy fair held this weekend (February 4 and 5, 2023), it was quite possible to leave with your dog in an hour: just enough time to pay and sign a few papers. The failure to comply with this obligation is unfortunately not an isolated case, as we had already reported concerning a pet shop in Brittany.
A certificate supposed to prevent impulse purchases…
In order to stop impulse purchases and abandonments a few days later by buyers who didn’t understand that a pet is not a stuffed animal, a mandatory seven-day reflection period was introduced at the beginning of October 2022.
So, in theory, you come and meet your new companion, sign this famous certificate of commitment and knowledge, go home, and it’s only a week later, after careful consideration, that you can collect your pet if you haven’t changed your mind.
The idea may seem clever, but in reality it’s totally unsustainable: it can be easily misused, or even completely ignored, and sanctions are hard to enforce.
… which can be easily circumvented
Some breeders, pet shops or even associations suggest that you come with an already signed and dated certificate, after downloading it from the Internet a week beforehand. So you’ve never met the seller or the animal, but you can leave with the latter legally, since you’ve signed the Holy Grail…
However, as was the case this weekend at the Antibes puppy fair, many people have sold their “merchandise” without respecting this deadline, and even backdated the certificate altogether, as the buyers and sellers themselves can testify!
This French bulldog breeder, for example, explains to one of our activists claiming to want to buy a puppy:
“I have it, the certificate, I have one and I make people who haven’t had time to download it fill it out. You have two options: either you sign the certificate today and come and pick up the dog in seven days, or really if you want your dog today, well, we backdate it, we’re obliged to do this.”
Or this man who has just bought a kitten and explains that he signed the certificate the same day, and is therefore in possession of the animal, but that “you can retract afterwards”. So we understand that if he changes his mind, he can return the cat, just like when you buy a sweater in a store and bring it back a few days later because you don’t really need it, or it doesn’t fit.
Derisory penalties
Breeders who don’t respect the reflection period don’t risk much anyway: a fine of 450 euros, the equivalent of a 3rd class fine. But what does 450 euros mean for a puppy they’ve sold for between 1,500 and 2,000 euros? What’s more, how can we prove that the certificate was backdated, so that the culprits can be punished?
Our activists were present at the entrance to the fair to raise awareness and alert visitors to the nonsense of breeding farms and pet shops that exploit animals and flood the shelters every year once buyers have tired of the cute little puppy who now weighs 15 kilos more and still needs to be walked every day. Thanks to our volunteers, dozens of people have turned around to visit the shelters instead of the fair!
Sign our petitions to demand compliance with laws against animal abuse and compulsory sterilization of cats, tens of thousands of which arrive in pounds every year and are then exterminated en masse!