Takac: Agriculture Ministry Wants to Ban Puppy and Kitten Mills by Law
The Agriculture Ministry wants to ban the breeding of dogs and cats for the purpose of placing them on the market, i.e. puppy and kitten mills, by amending the law on veterinary care, Agriculture Minister Richard Takac told a news conference on Monday.
Bratislava, 27 April (TASR) - The Agriculture Ministry wants to ban the breeding of dogs and cats for the purpose of placing them on the market, i.e. puppy and kitten mills, by amending the law on veterinary care, Agriculture Minister Richard Takac (Smer-SD) told a news conference held on Monday, with Chief Veterinary Officer Martin Chudy and representatives of animal shelters and animal welfare organisations in attendance.
Takac said that he plans to submit the draft amendment for inter-departmental review as soon as possible so that it can take effect as of 2027.
"We want to define, within Act No. 39/2007 on veterinary care, the protection of animals in such a way that we'll ban the breeding, keeping and collecting of dogs and cats for the purpose of placing them on the market," said the minister.
According to Takac, anyone who builds their business on illegal dog breeding will be banned from doing so. "It will be impossible to illegally breed dogs once the amendment takes effect. If someone wants to have an animal, they have options. There are plenty of them in shelters - thousands and thousands of dogs. If someone wants a dog, they can also buy one from a proper breeder where they'll be given papers for it," specified Takac.
"We want to proceed very quickly with the legislative process, as we're limited by the number of parliamentary sessions scheduled for this year. We'll try to move quickly. It's not a difficult amendment; we already have its paragraph wording drafted, and if we manage to have it effective as of 1 January 2027, of course, we would all be satisfied. Some kind of transitional period also needs to be taken into account," stressed Takac.
There are some 110,000 dogs registered in Slovakia, of which around 12 percent (about 15,000) come from legal breeders. "The rest are illegally bred dogs, meaning that they probably come from various puppy mills. We also have many breeding farms and exports that haven't been documented. We're talking about tens of thousands of dogs, perhaps 140,000-150,000 dogs per year produced by barbarians in puppy mills," added the minister.
