According to one report, trafficking of animals - including “pets” - is the third most common form of international trafficking after weapons and drugs. But what exactly does this terrible journey look like for our companion animals?

Whenever we do research for any of our videos, we never fail to unearth horrendous facts about the way we treat non-human animals. From the selective breeding of chickens, dairy mothers and pedigree dogs, to the willful indifference we show to fish and the science that tells us conclusively that they not only feel pain but suffer as well.

But sometimes a truth jumps out. For us, the fact that companion animals - those which most people call “pets” - are trafficked across Europe in numbers comparable to weapons and drugs, is just staggering. This speaks volumes about the illicit nature of the pet trade, with unscrupulous, black market organisations taking advantage of our love of animals.

A resolution adopted by MEPs in February this year called for a mandatory registration system for cats and dogs, plus the definition of puppy farms to pave the way for greater regulation. The authors of the resolution estimated that 46,000 dogs are sold every month between EU member states, the majority of them unregistered.

As reported by Euractive.com: “It’s very complicated to give an estimate because it’s a black figure, like drug trafficking,” said MEP Pascal Durand (Renew), highlighting that “it remains a very profitable and extremely widespread trade”.

Durand’s European People's Party counterpart Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé agreed, stating that “according to Interpol, trafficking in wild animals and pets is the third most common form of international trafficking after weapons and drugs”.

Cats, dogs, rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, not to mention the many wild animals trafficked across Europe’s borders - for as long as there are people willing to buy them, they will continue to be captured or bred in terrible conditions where their welfare is deemed too costly to ensure.

In the UK, we have domestic pet farms and “woefully inadequate puppy-mill regulations,” according to PETA UK. These dogs, seen as little more than breeding machines for profiteers, receive little to no veterinary care, not to mention a lack of any semblance of care or affection. Parasites are rife in these squalid conditions, and a range of congenital and hereditary conditions are common in mills the world over. Many pet shops source their animals from mills, and it is almost impossible to know where an animal acquired from a pet shop has come from - for this reason alone, ‘adopt don’t shop’ should be our guiding mantra.

In Europe, the picture is no better - possibly even worse with some reports saying that regulation is even less stringent than in the UK - hence the move by MEPs to push through new animal welfare resolutions.

This heartbreaking account from a Belgian family, as retold by Eurogroup for Animals and GAIA, is all too common:

"We wanted a puppy. On the website of dog breeder X we saw a cute dwarf. We fell in love immediately. After a short phone call we could immediately pick up the dog. In the store Joske was pressed into my arms. I had to and would have him. We paid 850 euros for him. We never saw Joske's mother. That same evening our dog became very ill and we took him to the vet. Three days later our sweet little Jos was dead. He had kennel cough, parvo and pulmonary edema. He was not 15 weeks old, but 8. He was not vaccinated. He did not have a Belgian passport but a Slovak. Our poor darling Joske came from a puppy factory. How could we be so stupid!"

According to GAIA, a Belgian organisation that campaigns against animal cruelty, the people behind the slick and friendly-looking websites - selling puppies and kittens to unsuspecting families - run farms located mainly in Eastern Europe. There they are able to take advantage of the Schengen zone and its more relaxed border controls to move animals around unchecked, often for hundreds of miles without food and water. While vehicle checks can be conducted, border control officers simply lack the necessary training to recognise when animals are being trafficked.

It seems animals are being transported the length and breadth of Europe. The Foundation for Advice and Action in the Defence of Animals (FAADA), based in Barcelona, recognises the same problem in Spain as in Belgium: 

“Nobody knows exactly how many Puppy Mills there are in Europe, nor how many animals are transported, but lorry accidents on the motorways and routine traffic controls have brought to light animals coming from Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Poland and Czech Republic.”

In 2017, France24 reported that 100 to 150 puppy mills were thought to be operating in the Czech Republic, “many of them on the German and Austrian borders which is a key factor in the illicit trade” said animal rights activists. “Profit margins are hefty. Legally-bred dogs in western EU countries are at least 75 percent more expensive than those illegally bred in their eastern counterparts, according to campaigners.”

Tragically, four out of five puppies transported to Spain die en route, yet the profit is still there, such is the difference in the cost to raise them with no regulation compared to puppies raised by “regulated” breeders.

Politicians and campaign groups are making headway with reforms that will go some way to making it more difficult and therefore less profitable for such illicit farms to operate, including the aforementioned EU-wide register and ID chips. But even with the tightest controls, we still have the problem of too many cats and dogs and not enough loving homes.

Animal shelters are still full, with animals being euthanised at an alarming rate while more are being bred - legally or otherwise - only to further exacerbate the problem. Please, if you are considering taking on a companion animal, never exchange money for them from a pet shop or directly from a breeder via online listings or even if you go to see where they are bred. Always adopt from a shelter.

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