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The Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will host a two hour conference on the illegal puppy trade in UCD, Belfield next Thursday.
The conference will take place at 7pm in the Mason Hayes Curran Auditorium of UCD Law School. It will tackle several aspects of the puppy trade industry including:
- What is the puppy trade?
- What is wrong with the puppy trade?
- What is the extent of the puppy trade?
- What are government agencies and animal welfare organisations doing about this trade?
- What can you do?
A number of guest will be speaking at the conference:
Samantha Polling is an award winning investigative journalist with BBC Scotland who investigated the puppy trade across Ireland and Scotland for over two years, and presented the BBC Panorama documentary The Dog Factory.
Mark Abraham, also known as “Mark the Vet” is a practicing vet, author and animal welfare campaigner based in Brighton, England. He founded the “PupAid” in 2009 to highlight the cruelty that puppy farmed dogs are subjected to and he is the UK’s current “Vet of the Year”
Joe Moran is a Senior lobbyist at Eurogroup for animals, the representative confederation of animal protection organisations
at EU level. He leads on companion animals at this confederation and has been vital in the development of the strategic development, coordination and execution of the Protect Our Pets campaign, which aims to introduce compatible systems for the registration of pet animals.
Mark Rafferty is the head of the Scottish SPCA special investigation unit. He is also a former policeman and was one of the founders of the Operation Delphin, a cooperation between Welfare Groups, Taxation and Customs authorities in Ireland and the UK targeting the illegal puppy trade.
Brian Gillen is the CEO of the DSPCA based on the organisation’s campus at Rathfarnham. He has worked with the inspectorate at the DSPCA to target the illegal puppy trade in Ireland and has lobbied for the introduction of
significant legislation in animal welfare in Ireland.
There is no charge for admission to this event and there will be free parking available at UCD. Preregistration is essential.
By Kevin Carney
