What to know before acquiring or giving a pet – Insurance for Pets
- LEFEBVRE, Mr ERIC Understanding Insurance: How Does It Work? What Should You Know? What To Expect For The Future? (The Mechanics Of Insurance, Band 1)Binding : Taschenbuch, Label : SBVV, Schweizer Buchhändler- und Verleger-Verband, Publisher : SBVV, Schweizer Buchhändler- und Verleger-Verband, medium : Taschenbuch, numberOfPages : 367, publicationDate : 2019-05-08, authors : LEFEBVRE, Mr ERIC, ISBN : 3952510203
A thoughtful act
One of the fundamental parameters to take into account is: will you be able to ensure his well-being? Will you have the material and financial capacity to feed him and provide him with the necessary care? Can you hand it over to someone while on vacation or take it with you?
Food and routine maintenance of a dog cost on average between 500 and 1000 euros per year. To these annual fees can be added insurance costs as well as unforeseen events: veterinary surgery, transport or boarding, behavioral assessment or treatment of a lifelong illness.
Acquiring a pet is a long-term commitment: some breeds can live from ten to twenty years. And a « baby » animal can grow into a sometimes bulky adult animal.
What race ?
For a dog, your choice should be guided by its size in adulthood, your living environment, your availability and the budget you can devote for its maintenance and care. The animal will ask you for your time and attention every day. The dog needs to be taken out several times a day. Even more than the cat, the dog needs to play and be stimulated in order to be sociable with humans but also with his peers.
Hypertypes in Pets
A hypertype is the extreme exaggeration of a morphological trait of a breed standard. We find hypertyped breeds mainly in dogs but also in cats. Brachycephalic breeds, either with a flattened face, are a very common example of hypertyped breeds, including, among others, the French bulldog, the English bulldog, or the pug in dogs but also the Persian in cats. A very strong enthusiasm is noted for these last races.
These morphological characteristics, considered endearing, can run counter to the well-being and health of these animals. Some breeders then seek to select animals for these desired attributes and thus meet demand. Hypertypes take dogs and cats away from their racial norm, leading to inbreeding within these hypertyped populations and causing real suffering to the animal.
However, article R.214-23 of the Rural and Maritime Fisheries Code prohibits this type of practice: « The selection of pets on criteria likely to compromise their health and well-being as well as those of their descendants is prohibited ». In addition, article R.215-5-1 specifies that this prohibition is punished by the fine provided for 4th class contraventions.
In 2018, the French Veterinary Academy adopted a position against these excesses.
Hypertypes are often equated with « programmed abuse ». This selection can in fact be responsible for diseases for which the animals concerned are often genetically predisposed (dermatological, respiratory, ocular, locomotor, behavioral, reproductive disorders, etc.). For example, the flattened face of brachycephali can cause respiratory problems, resulting in particular in snoring noises; or their wrinkled skin which is responsible for infected dermatitis. In addition, this inappropriate selection results in an unusually high rate of Caesarean sections.
Hypertypes must then be assimilated to a « pathological state » of the animal because its health and well-being are strongly impacted.
Areas mainly affected by hypertypes:
- the face;
- the folds of the face;
- nostrils ;
- the eyes ;
- ears ;
- tail ;
- the members.
It is important to take into consideration the fact that the acquisition of a hypertyped breed animal can generate significant costs. A large part of these animals will need preventive or corrective surgery or even lifelong treatment. Such animals then require more care and attention, it is a more consequent commitment to take into account upstream of their acquisition.
Upstream of the acquisition of an animal, the future owner must ensure that the transfer obligations are met. Thus, article L.214-8 of the Rural and Maritime Fisheries Code stipulates that any transfer of dogs or cats must be accompanied by several information and documents, including one clearly mentioning the characteristics and needs of the animal making the subject of an assignment. Any future purchaser of a hypertyped breed animal must then be informed of the risks to the health and well-being of the transferred animal due to its morphological characteristics.
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Where is he from ?
Acquiring a dog or a cat requires knowing its provenance. Despite the vigilance of the competent services, some imports are still carried out under questionable conditions.
Vigilance must be increased on the Internet and free newspaper advertisements: many animals are the result of illicit trafficking. Also beware of imprecise or anonymous announcements in which neither the professional contact details of the breeder (SIRET number) nor the identification number of the puppy or its mother appear, which are mandatory information imposed by law. The best guarantee against trafficking is to be able to see the puppy or kitten with its mother.
Animal donations
- donations do not require registration and obtaining a Siren number. However, the same obligations must be observed when publishing an advertisement as for sales (except Siren number);
- the advertisement must clearly state « free »;
- only identified animals over eight weeks old can be donated;
- the donor must also provide a veterinary certificate to the new owner.
Identification, an act of protection
Identification can be done using two methods:
- by tattooing letters and numbers on the skin of the inner side of the pinna or on the inside of the thigh;
- by an electronic chip the size of a grain of rice, injected under the skin. The code, made up of 15 digits, can be read using a special reader and will allow the animal to be identified.
Whatever the method, the principle is to assign a unique number to each animal and to register it in a national file with the contact details of the owner. It is also possible to connect directly to the national file of dogs, cats and ferrets to report a new phone number, a change of address (even temporary during the holidays) or the death of an animal. The Europetnet site allows owners to find their pets throughout Europe.
Giving an identity to your animal is to facilitate its search in case of loss and reduce the risk of theft, it is also to avoid euthanasia if it is taken to the pound. An identified animal has a 90% chance of being returned to its owner, compared to only 15% if it is not.
At what age should he be identified?
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for dogs, identification must be carried out before the age of 4 months;
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for cats, identification must be done before the age of 7 months. This obligation is also valid for all specimens born after January 1, 2012.
Regulations
According to article L214-1 of the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code « Any animal being a sentient being must be placed by its owner in conditions compatible with the biological imperatives of its species ». Article L214-3 of the Rural and Maritime Fisheries Code stipulates that: « It is forbidden to mistreat domestic animals as well as wild animals tamed or held in captivity ». Any animal abuse is therefore prohibited and punishable.
As for abandonment, the regulations concern the penalties incurred, i.e. 2 years’ imprisonment and a fine of € 30,000, according to article 521-1 of the Penal Code: « The fact, publicly or not, of exercising serious abuses, or of a sexual nature, or of committing an act of cruelty towards a domestic animal, or tamed, or held in captivity, is punished by two years of imprisonment and 30,000 euros fine […]. The same penalties also apply to the abandonment of a domestic animal, tamed or held in captivity ”. These penalties may be supplemented by a temporary or definitive ban on keeping an animal as well as by a ban, for a maximum of 5 years, from exercising the professional activity which made it possible to prepare or carry out the abandonment.
It is important to know the current legislation regarding the pet trade. In fact, any sale and transfer for payment or free of charge requires specific information which must appear clearly on the animal display facilities, as stipulated by the ministerial decree of July 31, 2012.
To deal with trafficking and abandonment of pets, the pet trade is regulated, namely:
For more information on the trade and protection of companion animals, consult the ordinance n ° 2015-1243 of October 7, 2015 relating to the trade and the protection of companion animals.
