05/12/2024
‼️TAKE A STAND AGAINST ANIMAL EXPLOITATION‼️
We are asking for your support in ending the sale of animals in Pets at Home stores, as the UK is currently facing a *rescue crisis*
To help do so, we would like to appeal to Pets at Home’s registered charity, Pets Foundation, who allegedly exist to “make the world a better place for pets”.
The foundation cannot ignore that one of the leading contributors to animal neglect, relinquishment and crippling UK rescue centres is the selling of irresponsibly bred animals at Pets at Home stores.
Please help us by emailing [email protected] or messaging Pets Foundation expressing your concerns.
You can copy/paste this pre written message attatched, or feel free to use the information to formulate your own response:
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Dear Pets Foundation,
I am writing to discuss a topic which I believe is very important to the ethos of the charity, and which you could greatly help in resolving.
As I’m sure you are aware, the UK is currently facing an animal rescue crisis. Organisations and independent volunteer rescuers are at breaking point, with many having huge waiting lists of animals needing rescue space, and the animals in their care struggling to find homes.
Pets Foundation is, of course, doing important work to tackle this issue, with the money donated to rescues, research into minimising animal relinquishment, and rehoming animals in need through the Pets at Home adoption centres to relieve some burden from rescue centres.
However, the foundation cannot ignore one of the leading causes of this crisis: the sale of animals in pet shops. This is why I am asking for the Pet Foundations support to
end the sale of live animals in Pets at Home stores.
The animals sold in Pets at Home stores are supplied by intensive animal breeding facilities. These large warehouses have rows of ‘rodent racks’, shelving units of plastic tubs which house groups of small animals who are continuously bred. The breeding animals sadly rarely escape from these squalid places. The babies are packed up into crowded containers and transported across the country (usually without food or water) to be sold in stores.
One study by Cotton Tails Rescue found that 60% of animals handed in to rescues were originally bought from pet shops. People often see the cute animals on display and buy them on impulse, believing them to be ‘cheap’ and ‘easy’ animals to care for. As I’m sure you are aware, this is far from the truth. The animals sold at Pets at Home are complex creatures, regarded as exotic animals by veterinarians, who need much larger enclosures than are currently sold at Pets at Home (a few enclosures fit the bare minimum size requirements, but these are not widely recommended) and have very specific needs.
The spaces in the Pets Foundation adoption centres are very often taken up by animals who originated from Pets at Home, meaning the charity is essentially only able to attempt to fix the problem that Pets at Home has actively added to.
The easiest solution would of course be for Pets at Home to stop perpetuating the cycle of animals being bought and left unwanted, and to use the positive work of Pets Foundation to forge a new business focus; supporting the ‘adopt don’t shop’ ethos and actually making this country a better place for all animals.
I truly hope you can see the positive potential for change, and the need to put morality before profit to actually help the lives of animals.
Sincerely,
__________
