- Target:
- Purbeck District Council
- Region:
- United Kingdom
- Website:
- www.thecourtyardcraftcentre.co.uk
The Three Oaks Animal Kabin (http://www.thecourtyardcraftcentre.co.uk/three-oaks.htm) is a pet shop based at The Courtyard Craft Centre, Lytchett Minster, Poole, Dorset.
Despite the cheerful appearance of the web site, the pet shop is a dreary portakabin located at this country craft centre.
I was dismayed to find when I walked in a medium sized 2-storey cage with a very young female cat (definitely under 12 months) and her litter of kittens - for sale in the pet shop.
The mum cat was crying at the door to the cage and was very stressed looking. The kittens were huddled together silently.
Further down there was another young cat 'for sale' in a very small cage. She seemed to have some sort of injured paw as she was holding it in the air. Again, she was crying at the door and was very unhappy.
I asked the shopkeeper (a young woman) whether it was some sort of rescue centre (I had no idea it was legal to sell cats and kittens in a pet shop as I've never seen one selling them in the UK) and she said no it was a pet shop, and that the mother female cat was their cat and goes out to get pregnant, while the other cat is for sale but "gets let out of the cage at 5pm".
Apart from the unsatisfactory coniditons of these cats, I feel it is completely irresponsible for a local council to grant a license for this sort of thing. The RSPCA, Cats Protection League, Wood Green Animal Shelter and many more animal charities are full to capacity with cats and kittens at the moment, and the rates of stray and abandoned pets is at an all time high. To grant a license that allows this pet shop to keep generating and selling kittens is irresponsible and it needs revoking immediately.
The pet shop has many, many more areas of trade and not being able to sell kittens and cats would only be a very tiny inconvenience to their overall business.
We, the undersigned, call on Purbeck District Council to revoke the license that was granted to The Three Oaks Animal Kabin, Lytchett Minster, to sell cats and kittens.
We feel that the conditions in which the cats and kittens are kept are not acceptable, and also that with the rising levels of stray and abandoned cats and kittens in the UK, a pet shop should not be deliberately breeding and selling kittens and adding to the problem.
Animal shelters throughout the country are full to capacity with unwanted cats and kittens at the moment (crisis levels), and as such we feel it is very irresponsible to allow this pet shop to continue breeding kittens for profit in the manner they are doing so.
We feel the negative impact on the business would be very minor due to their large range of other products, and that this would be far outwayed by the benefits to animal welfare.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Ban the Sale of Kittens from The Three Oaks Animal Kabin petition to Purbeck District Council was written by Gemma McLean and is in the category Animal Welfare at GoPetition.