Animals Australia’s ‘How well do you know your best friend’ campaign against puppy factories
Animals Australia has launched a campaign targeting “covert and inhumane” puppy farms.
Created by Loud, the ‘How Well Do You Know Your Best Friend?’ campaign encourages potential dog owners to adopt a pet, rather than buy one online or from a pet store.
In a statement, Loud said up to 90 percent of puppies are sourced from a so-called “puppy farm”.
Steven Thomson, executive creative director of LOUD said: “Working on this campaign has been a disturbing eye-opener for everyone involved.
“This is a unique look at an astonishingly overlooked issue from the perspective of those who can actually make a difference,” said Lyn White, Campaign Director at Animals Australia, “greater awareness will help end this commercial cycle of cruelty and hopefully lead to more dogs being adopted.”
CREDITS:
LOUD
- Executive Creative Director: Steven Thomson
- Creative Director: Paul Bennell
- Writers: Steven Thomson/Christian Kernot
- Art Directors: Paul Bennell/Kiah Barker
- Agency Producer: Steve Dubé
- Account Director: Sam McDonnell
- Account Manager: Kristy Leslie
- Account Executive: Laura Tenison
FILM
- Production company: Finch
- Director: Gregor Jordan
- Executive Producer: Roy de Giorgio
- Line producer: Emma Thompson
- Editor: Adam Wills
- Post production: Heckler
- Sound: Nylon
- Music: Dustin O’Halloran
- Agency Producer: Ian Ford
STILLS
- Production Company: Pool Collective
- Photographer: Simon Harsent
- EP: Cameron Day
- Line Producer: Petrea Lambert
topics
Animals Australia
Good ad – EXCEPT there is no way that advertising online should be part of any law it has NOTHING to do with Puppy Farms. Reputable REGISTERED Breeders have their own website (for example, in Victoria it is DogzOnline) and it is the only place most of us do advertise! Puppy Farms are the scum of the earth and Pet Shops support the Puppy Farm Trade, so both should be avoided and/or banned. But it is totally unjust to try and insist that people who are doing the right thing should not be allowed to advertise! In this age the Internet is virtually the only place TO advertise! That is the only part of this campaign that has never made sense to me. It would be unfair trade practice to ban the ability of a legal and legitimate Breeder to advertise!
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I have to agree with Kris, we brought our cavoodle Boston from a breeder who advertised online. The dogs she sold were treated great, and the breeder cried when we left with our puppy because she loved him so much. It makes we sad to think puppy farms exist. I would definitely think about adopting our next dog, I like the fact this advert will encourage people to ask first rather than assume the dog they get entered the world cruelty free.
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Just seen the ad on t.v im in tears
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Kris, how many of your pups have ended up at a pound being put to sleep prematurely (whilst still healthy and rehomeable) because no one would adopt them…. as they wanted to buy a new puppy?
Yours is an insidious industry, no matter how much you want to distance yourself from puppy farmers. While dogs (and even more cats) are prematurely put to sleep each year by the hundreds of thousands in this country, contributing to the problem by making a buck out of breeding, is completely unjustifiable.
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Stephanie, if you collected your cavalier x poodle from the breeder’s premises, it sounds like your breeder didn’t do a property inspection at your place- a crucial step when finding pets a home, not to mention a trial period.
Lovely that she cried, but why didn’t she inspect your place, see if fencing was intact and accomodation was suitable, that there wasnt an unfenced pool there that the pup could drown in, check the interaction between the pup and your family and other pets (if any) in the house? These are all factors that should go into whether you adopt or sell a pet to a particular family. If rescue groups can do it, why don’t the vast majority of breeders?
Incidentally, here’s a list of the hundreds of Australian rescue groups you might want to try next time. You can filter by state and key words, ie) breed specific groups: https://www.petrescue.com.au/rescue_directory
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I agree with Kris . But its more than just the drive to ban online advertising/sales of dogs. Its also how they have used purebred dogs, how they do not bother to try and differentiate between illegal puppy farms and breeders that do follow a code of ethics/practice/the law. Its the wording in the add, how the man with the golden retriever s going on about how its got champ bloodlines etc. No champ would come from the footage in that video. Animals Australia is just lumping everyone together and saying that all breeding is bad.
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Kris and friends, defending their turf, can’t see past the $$$$
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Ronda, having rescued and rehomed an Australian Champion Malamute from her owner/ breeder, who was having financial difficulties and was going to euthanise her, don’t assume that all champions are well looked after.
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Calm down everyone. The online advertising they’re talking about is Gumtree, Trading Post and the like, not the sites of reputable breeders. It has been known for a long time that puppy mill owners will advertise on classifieds sites and then sometimes ship the dogs, or meet the purchasers away from the property (at their home or car parks), so the purchaser never sees the horrendous conditions the breeding animals are kept in. Reputable and registered breeders who allow purchasers to come to their homes to view conditions have nothing to fear.
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Incidentally, a good breeder, with champion dogs would almost never need to advertise. Those dogs are in high demand. And they’re expensive. If you’re getting a dog that hasn’t already been promised before it was born, and it’s cheaper than usual ($2k and up for many breeds), that should be a huge red flag that something is wrong.
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Rachael price doesn’t equal anything. In fact ‘designer dogs’ command more than pure breds purely due to marketing, trends etc. I’ve been running a rescue service since 2000. I’ve seen films come out featuring a particular breed, seen the prices for that breed quadruple or more, then inevitably 6-12 months later that breed starts coming through the rescues. We’ve rehomed unwanted dogs, sold as pups for $3-$4k.
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Rachael, you’re right about gumtree and trading post being prime advertising sites for the dodgies (please note it’s also where a lot of naive people in good faith advertise their pets ‘free to good home’ only to have them used as bait by dog fighters and greyhound trainers, so if you see a FTGH ad please adopt the pet or notify the advertiser of this, before someone evil gets to it!) You’re also right about the backyard breeders and puppy farmers who offer to meet you ‘half way’ so you don’t see the hovel the dogs are brought up in, let along the sad, sickly, overbred mother who can barely stand up.
But there’s another point to the Animals Australia campaign though, which I think you’ve missed. Look at the ‘talent’. The ad is targeting the yuppy, trend following pet owner who would have a fit if they knew that behind the beautiful website, the gorgeous puppy pics etc etc, is …. a puppy farm!
The designer dogs that I see at the park, owned by doctors, lawyer… even ad execs, often (and I mean often!) come from puppy farms. That’s the whole point of the campaign.
A pretty website does not mean the dogs are not being kept in substandard conditions, it doesn’t mean the dogs will be healthy and it doesn’t mean the owners love them and want good outcomes for their pups. It just means they had a good web designer and are targetting a more upmarket clientele, thus being able to charge more.
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Great ad.
It’s about time people start to become educated about what goes on behind closes doors
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The disturbing thing about puppy farms is how to “out” puppy farms. I have made a complaint to RSPCA as I had three unrelated sources about one but unless I had physically been there they said they didn’t want to know. #frustrating
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Sadly, the only way to shut down most puppy farms is to close pet stores in the city. The vast majority of puppies and kittens are passed on to the pet stores from closed door deals made with these farms.
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Even though I have no sound on my computer just watching the short video sent a message. We have to STOP puppy farms and the horrendous treatment suffered by our best friends.
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We own a puppy farm and ours is clean and tidy each dog will not breed more than 6-9 times I go in every morning 5:00am before school seeing that it belongs to my mum and dad and clean any dog poo out of the enclosures make sure there bedding is ok and every two days each enclosure will have a thorough clean out and each week all dogs have a bath it just pisses me off seeing these puppy farms that are like that I mean it really makes me look good aye
Brief:
All enclosures are equipt with a wooden floor that is stained with lanolin every six months
Each kennel is equipt with suitable bedding that changes depending on the time of the year
Each dogs diet is half a cup of biscuits along with I diced slice of protadog dog food along with and egg size of serving may change due to the dogs size
Puppies are sometimes bottle fed to give the mum relief during this time the dogs are taken on walks during this time and everyday are given affection coats are even supplied if needed along with extra bedding blankets .ect all I’m saying is please don’t judge every puppy farm because some are good RANT OVER!!
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Why can’t we petition
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Why not make it mandatory for breeders to desex all of their out going puppies. . To prevent back yard breeding
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Casey, banning puppy farms has been the aim of animal rights groups globally for decades. The ACT is the first Australian state to do so (good on them!) and that only happened last month. Dennis Napthine the former Vic Premier (and vet by trade) actually loosened the already terrible puppy farm laws in Vic. Many politicians see them as legitimate businesses ….
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Lil – great idea. Reputable breeders already desex their pups and kittens prior to sale (plus conduct home inspections, trial periods and request that, if the home doesn’t work out, no matter how far down the track, they get the dog or cat back.)
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I don’t think any anyone is against legitimate breeders Kris. But unfortunately it’s about the numbers of animals that are destroyed every year (we are talking 100,000s across Australia) – pedigree & other wise that are dumped at pounds as they’re ‘past their cuteness / use by date’. This campaign is not an attack on breeders – we need to evaluate whether people REALLY need a puppy. And they need to know ‘where that cute as a button puppy or kitten’ came from. Breeding is a business – and when many gorgeous mature, great with kids animals are facing death row -this is a VALID question – do we really need to make more puppies & kittens? And HOW MANY do we need to make?
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I can not belive this
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