DWYFOR Meirionnydd MP Liz Saville Roberts has lent her support to a new public awareness campaign to target the growing problem of the illicit and cruel UK puppy trade.

The campaign has been launched by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

The puppy industry is booming, but with many UK breeders and puppy smugglers across Europe producing puppies solely for profit, all too often these animals suffer serious illness or behavioural problems later in life. Others, sadly, do not survive.

IFAW has devised a useful guide, P.U.P.S, for anyone looking to buy a puppy, to ensure they know what to look for to avoid buying an unhealthy, possibly puppy farmed animal.

The guide suggests to those who are intending to buy a puppy to ask themselves if the puppy is with its mum, has the puppy reached the legal age of sale, are all of the puppy’s papers available and in order and is the puppy healthy and energetic.

Mrs Saville Roberts said: “I am very pleased to support this important IFAW campaign to help make people aware of the potential pitfalls before buying a puppy which may have been farmed in squalid conditions and taken from its mother too soon, before it is eight weeks of age.

“It is terrible to think of these puppies being transported a great distance by dealers with little or no thought for their health or welfare. The mothers suffer greatly too, being made to produce litter after litter of puppies until they have outlived their usefulness.”