ANTI-PUPPY farm campaigners are planning two large protests on the back of a 32,000-signature petition which called on Ceredigion County Council to free dogs from an illegal dog breeder.

Protests will take place in Cardiff and London on Monday, 30 October, calling on policy-makers to change the law surrounding intensive dog breeding facilities and the sale of puppies. Organising the rallies is the campaign group Care and Respect Includes All Dogs, or Cariad.

The announcement comes on the back of huge support nationwide for a petition launched in the wake of the conviction of an illegal puppy breeder from Llanwnnen, near Lampeter.

In January, farmer Richard Samuel Morgan Jones, 31, was convicted of breeding dogs without a licence and causing unnecessary suffering to 21 dogs in his care.

Jones was sentenced to nine weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, and banned from keeping dogs for four years.

On appeal, Jones secured a change in the terms of his ban so he was only banned from dealing in dogs for a period of six years, but was allowed to keep dogs.

Susan Rouhan, an anti-puppy farm campaigner, has gathered 32,403 signatures on a petition calling on the council to help free Jones’ dogs.

The petition has now been used as a springboard to bring various campaign groups together under the umbrella of an outright ban on puppy farms.

For more information on the Cardiff rally, visit https://www.facebook.com/CARIADcampaign/

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