The state plans to sell the dogs removed from the kennel in Bauska county / Article

In view of PVD since 2020

“Lieldeviņzare” in Bauska county is the same dog kennel about which Latvian Television’s (LTV) program “4.studija” received a complaint in September 2022. At that time, the owner of the Australian shepherd recognized the photos of her pets on the advertisement portal, which the owner of “Lieldeviņzare” had “borrowed” to attract customers to her business. At that time, the viewer was worried – if the lady has indicated a photo of her dogs in her puppy sale ad, is everything okay with the Australian shepherd dogs in the kennel. He informed the Food and Veterinary Service (PVD) about his concerns, and also contacted the State Police (VP) about the copyright violation, which started the administrative violation process.

Two years ago, PVD counted 36 dogs in the kennel. After a year, this farm had already registered 120 animals in the Agricultural Data Center.

Animal advocates, without waiting for the reaction of the officials, decided to gather evidence so that the uncontrolled breeding of dogs in this kennel would be stopped.

“I just don’t understand the magnitude, it’s terribly difficult for me with five dogs. How can one person have 120 dogs?” said animal advocate Karina Wilson.

Karina, armed with a hidden camera, went to “Lieldeviņzari” to buy a dog. Budget for the purchase – 100 euros. As a result, she bought a Welsh corgi – Cardigan. This is confirmed by a certificate issued by the kennel.

After that, the Latvian Kennel Federation (LKF) determined the dog’s conformity to the breed at the request of animal advocates. “Unfortunately, the LKF recognized him as a corgi metis, which is a corgi mix, because he doesn’t have a lot of what the breed should be,” Wilson said.

This kennel has been under the supervision of inspectors of the Food and Veterinary Service since 2020. PVD admitted that the keeping conditions were unsuitable for the dogs, the aviaries were muddy. As well as uncontrolled breeding of animals; therefore, the legality of issuing dog pedigrees is also questionable.

“Food is not provided, drinking water is not freely available, and we point out these inconsistencies and order them to be corrected. But if these improvements are not observed over a long period of time, then we made the decision that these animals should be removed,” said the Department of Veterinary Facility Supervision of the PVD manager Mairita Riekstiņa.

Dogs now in several shelters

It took almost two weeks to find temporary homes for so many dogs, because it turned out that the state has no money to keep these animals in shelters.

“In normal situations, we hand over animals for safekeeping to the State Security Agency, which also pays someone for keeping these animals. In this case, since there was a large number of animals, unfortunately, the State Security Agency also does not have the money to pay for it. Therefore, we turned to shelters that would be willing to keep these animals for free until they are sold,” explained Riekstiņa.

Shelters, although overflowing with abandoned animals, agreed to take care of the dogs of this kennel for free. In total, 105 dogs were taken to the shelter in Sloka, “Labai tämä” and “Mežavairogi”. The “Ķepu Ķapa” shelter took in 48 dogs.

Gundega Bidere, head of the animal protection society and shelter “Ķepu Ľepā”, pointed out that while the puppies are still growing, the maintenance of this “pack of dogs” costs 220 euros per day.

“When they grow up, they will have to be vaccinated and dewormed. Then the amount will increase by another 20 euros every day. This is what is also painful for us, because we understand that we have to tighten our belts to be able to do this maintain everything,” Bidere admitted.

On the other hand, the manager of the “Mežavairogi” animal shelter, Danuta Priede, believes that PVD was too hasty with the decision to remove the dogs and that the service now faces a difficult task, evaluating all welfare and legal violations. “Currently, the legislation in Latvia does not determine how many dogs may live with a private person,” she added.

The head of “Ľepu Ľepā” calls for volunteers to clean up, so that the dogs of “Lieldeviņzare” in her care learn and understand what it means to communicate with humans. Likewise, some of the dogs that ended up in “Kepu’s Paw” have suffered physical injuries, the bitches are pregnant.

“The injuries are different. There are some dogs whose ears have been bitten off, there are dogs who can see from each other that they have been bitten. One dog boy has bitten off part of his tongue. This is not normal,” Bidere said.

Dogs for sale

The State Security Agency emphasized that after a few weeks, the shelters that took care of the dogs will be offered to buy them at a price determined by the agency’s evaluation commission.

“It must be understood that the keeping of each dog is an expense. According to the contracts we have concluded, it starts at three euros per day. It turns out that it could already be 10 thousand euros per month. We informed PVD about these costs. The regulatory framework provides, that if long-term storage of the property causes losses, then the official decides to hand it over for sale or destruction.

In this case, PVD has decided on the sale of these dogs,”

explained Raivis Mālijs, head of the Forfeited Cases Department of the State Security Agency

Animal protection societies stated that there would be no such problems with the removed dogs if both shelters and animal breeders had the same requirements from the state. Currently, only those who struggle with the consequences of animal overproduction are strictly controlled. For example, if in a shelter there should be one general for every 20 animals, then in kennels one person can take care of even a hundred dogs.