After writing an article about Australian Association Of Pet Dog Breeders president and Murray River Puppies owner Jodi Knox's pet experience, she suggested Peter Wicks contact the RSPCA — so he did. Here's what came of it.
IT WOULD BE GREAT if we could believe everything that we see on the internet, however we all know we cannot.
There are some sites that will make claims without any evidence to back them up, which is why I believe in uploading documentation and providing links.
Buying a pet is much the same, particularly if you are buying from a pet store, over the internet or directly from a puppy farmer.
Many of you will have seen advertisements of puppies looking as pure as the driven snow and staring at the camera with longing eyes. They look almost the result of immaculate conception, however where they were conceived is usually far from immaculate — it is more than likely an utter cesspit, something you won’t see in the ads.
One puppy factory, however, has allegedly gone further than just photoshop and selective information.
Murray River Puppies it seems decided to go one better and claim that they had the endorsement of the RSPCA without any sort of endorsement, blessing, permission or approval.
An official written statement from RSPCA Victoria after I contacted them stated:
'In October 2011, RSPCA Victoria’s legal advisors communicated (several times) with Murray River Puppies about the illegal and unauthorised use of the RSPCA logo and "Smart Puppy Buyers Guide" and the breaches of the RSPCA’s intellectual property.'
It is shocking that a well respected organisation such as the RSPCA would need to go to the extent of seeking legal representation in order to have a company cease using the RSPCA logo to promote the business, that is not endorsed in any way by the RSPCA. However, what is even more shocking is that the legal representation had to communicate with Murray River Puppies “several times” in order for the intentionally misleading and highly deceptive use of the RSPCA’s logos and intellectual property were finally removed.
It gets even worse, though.
The response from RSPCA continues:
This followed two prior formal demands to discontinue the use of and refrain from the use of the RSPCA logo and other materials for reference on the company website.
We also confirmed that there was never any formal consent from the RSPCA to reference the link for the ‘Smart Puppy Buyers Guide’ on the website and that the RSPCA in no way wished to be perceived as promoting or associated with the company.
So, before the lawyers were called in there were formal demands also, all of which Murray River Puppies had failed to act upon or comply with.
This type of behavior from Murray River Puppies shows not only contempt for the RSPCA, it also displays utter contempt and a complete lack of respect for both the law and their customers as well, after all they were the ones being intentionally misled and deceived.
As mentioned in earlier articles on Murray River Puppies and its owner operator Jodi Knox, Jodi is also the president of AAPDB (Australian Association Of Pet Dog Breeders) a pet industry and puppy factory lobby organisation.
What I find truly disturbing is that while Jodi Knox lobbies governments around the country under her AAPDB banner, she is happy to force a heavily government funded organisation such as the RSPCA to waste resources and funds on making her remove their logo from her puppy factory website.
The money that the RSPCA had to spend on so many attempts to have Jodi Knox cease the unlawful use of RSPCA’s logo came straight out of the ministers and governments that she lobbies and budgets. Not only that, it comes from the taxpayers hip pockets — pockets like yours and mine.
The AAPDB has shown itself time and time again to be an organisation that cannot be trusted. It’s former President was forced to stand down after public humiliation about animals suffering terrible neglect under her care hit the news reports, and now we have Jodi Knox with her questionable history, intentional deception and dubious business practices.
It has also come to light recently that the AAPDB is joining forces with another factory farming lobby group, Pets Australia.
Pets Australia, some of you may remember, were the lobby group that printed in their newsletter false reports of charges being laid and fines being issued to animal advocates in Perth.
Unfortunately for Pets Australia, WA Police told the opposite story saying this in a written statement:
“... no charges have been laid and WA Police do not fine people for this type of incident.”
This debacle occurred after a Pet Industry Association Of Australia (PIAA) member pet store was found to have been purchasing from a puppy factory in Northern NSW, despite a PIAA guarantee that none of their stores sold puppies from puppy factories. PIAA has since stripped the store of its PIAA membership.
Also interesting is the fact that the PIAA and AAPDB’s websites are both registered under the same name: Anne Saunders. With AAPDB linked to PIAA and partnering with Pets Australia, for Jo Sillince of Pets Australia, it must feel like being back working at PIAA again after her earlier controversial parting of ways with the oganisation. Happy days for PIAA’s new CEO, I guess.
Pets Australia’s submission to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry constantly refers to AAPDB as if it is a joint submission. I will be scrutinising that submission for readers soon.
With all of these links between AAPDB, PIAA and Pets Australia, they are looking less like independent lobby organisations and more like a cartel.
I guess it’s like the old saying says: birds of a feather…
You can read more by Peter Wicks on his website Wixxyleaks or follow him on Twitter @madwixxy.
Yesterday's piece on the Coalition bio-security scare to shut down exposure of animal cruelty http://t.co/BbnHN9YgaM #auspol #AgGag
— Peter Wicks (@madwixxy) August 14, 2015
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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For 3 years @madwixxy has been writing about #puppyfactories, now one puppy farmer is attempting 2 silence him RT ! http://t.co/f2PxNar2gh
— Oscar's Law (@OscarsLaw) August 11, 2015
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