The new Walloon animal welfare reform worries many breeders. This provides in particular for the increase in the size of the spaces for the animals. Céline Tellier, Walloon Minister for Animal Welfare, responded to the arguments of Julie Alcantara, member of the Federation of Belgian Breeders, on the set of It’s not every day on Sunday.
There are approximately 1.6 million domestic dogs in Belgium, distributed among some 1.3 million owners, according to a study by Comeos. Belgium is also the country in the world where there are the most dogs and cats per inhabitant. Many people buy them from breeders, but their work will soon be much more regulated by the new Walloon Animal Welfare Reform.
One of the most important changes concerns the spaces for the animals. “We have standards that are more than 20 years old“, points out the Walloon Minister of Animal Welfare, Céline Tellier. On the set of It’s not every day on Sunday, she argues: “In current texts, a Chihuahua can be kept in a space of one square meter for its entire life. This is unacceptable“. The new regulations thus aim to enlarge these spaces. “For a chihuahua it will be four times larger, for other animals it is twice as large. We have at least doubled these surfaces“, explains Céline Tellier.
It is directly the consumer who will be impacted
The new reform, however, displeases some animal breeders, including Julie Alcantara, who is a member of the Belgian Breeders Federation. She fears the consequences of this new regulation on the price of dogs: “The pensions will have to re-impact all this work that they will have to start, which will drive up the prices of the pensions. This will also restrict reception places“. She therefore regrets that consumers are the first to be impacted.
The reproduction of animals can no longer be done as before, with this new reform. “We made sure that breeding females can have a little more recovery time between litters“, reports the minister. The importation of puppies is now prohibited by the reform, while they are 6,000 to be imported per year, according to Céline Tellier. She adds that these are as many puppies that can be bred by Walloon breeders Julie Alcantara nuance however, she fears that the puppies will henceforth be imported elsewhere than in Wallonia: “We must not forget that Flanders, Brussels and France still have the authorization to import dogs intended for resale“, recalls the breeder.
Wallonia is avant-garde when it comes to animal welfare
Céline Tellier reassures, however, by explaining that a period of adaptation is planned, from “5 years for sellers and breeders and 10 years for shelters“. Although the matter is regionalized, the Minister of Animal Welfare hopes that the other Regions will follow: “Wallonia is avant-garde in terms of animal welfare, at the level of the European Union itself.“.