Animal sourcing can have a positive or negative impact on the pet experience, as evidenced by recent headlines, where a Calgary man is charged in the deaths of a cat and dog in a high profile animal cruelty case.
Information released about the case indicates the man obtained both animals from Kijiji, a popular Canadian online classified site and critics are condemning the practice of buying and selling animals online.
The 2014 Urban Animal Regional Conferences, which wrapped up last week, focused on animal sourcing as delegates explored the impacts on the urban animal industry and opportunities sourcing presents to industry organizations. In particular, conference attendees - who represent all urban animal industry sectors - discovered the profound impact of negative messaging associated with sourcing and the confusion for pet families when it comes to welcoming a new pet into their home.
Keynote speaker, Dr. Drew Van Niekerk, outlined the importance of industry working collaboratively to create positive pet experiences and the consequences of competition among sectors. When a family is looking to source a pet, he said, the different and negative messages about every source are overwhelming and have the potential to lead to bad pet experiences.
"All the negativity they receive is about 'who cares the most'. It's not about who does a good job or what kind of result they produce," said Van Niekerk. "And ultimately, we in our industry are stuck on using negativity as our marketing capital. That is our fundraising capital. But it's negative and it has long-standing impacts on our society and their trust of us in this industry."
Those against online pet sales argue the sites support puppy mills and backyard breeders by providing a marketplace for disreputable breeders.
"Homing online is difficult on a one-off basis. In this case, the 'source' becomes an unskilled individual," said Van Niekerk. "Breeders, rescues and other third party adopters are the best sources to be using online resources. They are the 'source' not Kijiji, who is the 'medium'. We should let legitimate, trained animal sources home animals in a more modernized and effective manner, regardless of where they do it."
A petition asking Kijiji to remove the sale of animals from its site, and only promote adoption from registered animal rescue groups and shelters is circulating the Internet. Dr. Van Niekerk suggests "this will only move the problem to a different venue where the demand for pets will be supplied. It is far more effective to promote the responsible homing of pets, than it is to shut down the venue. The Internet is not the problem here."
RELATED READING:
Man charged in death of cat and dog in animal cruelty case - CTV Calgary
Pet store pup sold with problems - CTV Vancouver
Kijiji Canada stop puppy mills and prohibit the sale of household pets - Petition
Unfortunately, I am of a different view. Kijiji is a real problem when we talk about exotic birds and parrots. Anyone can post birds for sale, healthy or not, hybrid or not, very young and still handfed or finished handfed and ready to go to a new home. It is about time that efforts be made to better the services offered on Kijiji and to ban people that should not be there in the first place. There are puppy mills but there are also some bird mills ( i.e. nest left on for 12 months and pairs nearly forced to breed all year as opposed to 1 or 2 times a yers.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed that KIJIJI does not care at all if someone is selling under false pretences ou even if it is a case of illegal transactions. Despite several reports being made, the answer is always the same : '' the person has not violated Kijiji policies'' or in some cases not even a response ! That is very far from being a responsible organization. The welfare of all animals seems to be very very far from the eyes of owners and directors of Kijiji. !