Puppies born in cruel puppy farms - businesses that breed massive numbers of puppies for profit - are being sold right now in pet shops and online trading websites across South Australia.

Exposés have shown mother dogs imprisoned in puppy farms being held in a small, barren crate their entire life - never seeing sunlight, deprived of social interaction, companionship, environmental enrichment, and forced to pump out litter after litter of puppies until their bodies give out.

Independent investigations have also reported that many breeding dogs also suffer from untreated, painful health conditions such as eye infections, ear infections, mammary tumours, hip dysplasia and skin infections. Some dogs are even left without adequate food, water or shelter.

The South Australian community would be horrified to know that their beloved pet could have come from one of these horrid places. Yet many dogs sold in pet stores and online have likely come from puppy farms.

In September 2022, the government announced a moratorium and “strong new rules we plan to implement later this year will ensure that puppy factories with hundreds of dogs are prohibited in our state.” It is now 2024 and nothing has changed. 

Not only has nothing changed, it is also getting worse as Puppy farmers move into SA after Victoria and Western Australia introduced legislation to significantly increase the regulation of puppy farming and overbreeding. In February 2024, two women in SA's mid north were convicted of animal welfare offences after more than 100 animals were found living in horrific conditions, many with health conditions so bad they needed to be euthanised. Read more about this case.

We don’t want SA to become Australia’s puppy farming capital. We need to bring our laws up to speed with the rest of the country, ensuring these dogs are given the same protection here as they are across the border.

The AJP will ensure this industrialised ‘factory farming’ of puppies, especially while thousands of healthy, loving dogs are being killed in pounds each year, comes to an end.