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Posted: 5th June 2024

Kennel Club launches election manifesto
The organisation wants to see restrictions on fireworks and electric shock collars.
The organisation has set out policies it wants from the next government.

Ahead of next month’s general election, The Kennel Club has launched its own manifesto setting out the changes it wants to see the next government make.

‘The Dog People’s Manifesto’ provides an eight-point plan, most of which focuses on alterations to existing legislation. The organisation believes the changes will enable the UK’s dog owners to care for their pets better in a landscape which it says has become ‘more complex, bureaucratic, and burdensome’.

The changes range from amendments to existing legislation to support small scale dog breeders and ensure access to open green spaces for dog walkers, to new rules to protect dogs from fireworks and electric shock collars.

To help improve dog health, The Kennel Club wants the next government to educate breeders and puppy buyers about the Respiratory Function Grading Scheme. The scheme, developed by The Kennel Club and the University of Cambridge, assesses breathing problems in brachycephalic dogs.

The organisation also wants politicians to ensure that any ban on puppy imports includes a tightly controlled exception for breeders who want to import a puppy to increase genetic diversity in a breed or to introduce a new breed. To further help breeders, the manifesto calls for the current business test to be removed from breeder licensing legislation as it can currently deter small-scale home breeders.

Other changes include amending legislation to allow dog owners to challenge Public Spaces Protection Orders which limit their ability to exercise dogs, and overhauling the Dangerous Dogs Act.

To protect dogs from distress, the manifesto calls on the next government to restrict fireworks to licensed events and lower the maximum decibel limit. The Kennel Club also wants to see a ban on electric shock collars finally come into force, after a previous promise to enact regulations on 1 February 2024 was not delivered.

Holly Conway, head of public affairs at The Kennel Club, said: “While animal welfare legislation has made strides forward since 2006, we are now at a crossroads.

“A lot of legislation concerning dogs – whilst positive and well-intended – is poorly enforced, and as such hasn’t been tested. And with calls for even more regulations rife, we must warn of the potentially many unintended negative consequences which could make it more burdensome and complicated for law-abiding, dog-loving people to own, breed and care for their pets. 

“Instead we urge focus on education and changing behaviours so that those who want to continue to breed, own and care for pet dogs can do so in a sensible, well-informed and responsible way.”

The full manifesto can be read here.

Image © Shutterstock



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