Dog Importing Nation Switzerland
Every day, several hundred adverts for puppies and dogs from animal rescue organisations from all over the world appear on the internet, and it’s extremely difficult for anyone who is not specifically searching for a particular pedigree breed of dog to resist all the heart-rending stories about the fates of dogs from countries such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain and Italy. In addition, people believe that they are doing good by taking a dog from a foreign animal protection organisation, and actively undertaking positive animal protection work. In many cases, however, this proves to be an illusion.
Animal protection, animal support and animal placement organisations pop up all over Europe, like mushrooms out of the ground – in fact, many organisations of this type exist here in Switzerland too. SAP has carried out in-depth research in an attempt to show the ways in which valuable animal protection work being undertaken on site in these countries can be differentiated from unscrupulous profiteering activities. The result, summarised in brief: despite political endeavours to develop uniformity across Europe, animal protection problems vary a great deal across the various European countries. They depend upon factors that can only be controlled in the individual countries and regions themselves. These include the local economic circumstances as well as the (availability or lack of) statutory regulations and the associated provision of resources, as well as the specific national sensibilities of the population in their dealings with animals.