In breach of the law, a pet shop is still offering animals for sale without giving time for consideration
In a Breton pet shop, a buyer can bypass the law and leave with an animal the same day. Along with One Voice, say: Pet shops: I refuse!
From 1 October 2022, the implementation of a commitment and knowledge certification arising from the law against animal abuse should enforce anyone adopting or buying a pet to wait at least seven days from the signature of said certificate and them acquiring a dog, cat, ferret, gerbil, rat, or rabbit. Yet this is not the case! In a pet shop in Brittany, from where a whistle-blower who was aware of our involvement for pet animals entrusted us with a recording, and without a doubt in many other pet shops in France, it is still possible to leave with ‘their’ ‘pet’ animal the same day in complete violation of the law! Together let’s say: “Pet shops: I refuse! ”
A law voted in straight away and immediately evaded!
We already had serious reasons to doubt the scope of the law against animal abuse announced on 30 November 2021. Entrusted to our team just before Christmas, the recording of a surreal exchange between an employee of a pet shop in Brittany and a woman explaining her desire to get a dog shows that, if need be, the commitment and knowledge certification included in the law was nothing but another gimmick, quite incapable of preventing the compulsive purchase of a sentient being.
A wait of an hour instead of a week to obtain their animal-thing
In this pet shop, the client only waited “a good hour” from the moment when they set their sights on what they simply considered to be a cute “ball of fluff”, to the moment they left the shop with their animal-thing in their possession. The time that the employees took to do the paperwork. Say goodbye to the seven days of reflection imposed by law. It was enough for the client to sign another certificate, provided by the pet shop, to “waive the wait set by the law” under the pretext that five minutes of discussion with a salesperson and a few papers would allow them to have sufficient knowledge on the animal that was about to be bought, and that they are completely aware that this purchase is in reality an adoption and therefore a lifetime commitment.
How do we know that this outlandish exchange was an exception? Who will ensure that these worthless certificates have actually been provided and signed, if not the salesperson and the pet shop that employs them, who can visibly evade the law without a second thought? And what is the point of these signatures anyway if it is possible to edit disclaimers at leisure?
Pet shops? I refuse!
Because of classified adverts and pet shops, which turn animals into merchandise like anything else in the consumer system, rescue centres are overflowing with cats and dogs waiting desperately to be adopted by a loving family, while many of them have been victims of abandonment.
We maintain that, out of respect for animals, rescue centres must be preferred over pet shops. Choose a real meeting between an adoptive family and an animal, and adoption after a carefully considered decision, rather than an impulse buy of a sensitive and dependent being who they will not necessarily have the means to look after in the long-term. In April 2022, in Nice, as part of our “Pet shops: I refuse!” campaign, our local branch had already led shock action to report unlawful pet shops that continued to display cats and dogs in the window like common trinkets destined to lure consumers in.
This situation cannot continue! Report any unlawful pet shop to us until these places that objectify animals stop their activities in 2024. Sign our petition to protect our canine and feline companions so that they will no longer be treated as objects. Together, let’s also call for an urgent plan against feline straying
Translated from the French by Joely Justice