Animal Aid

Our big idea is that this generation doesn't understand how unethical puppy farms are and still continue to buy from them. We are trying to spread awareness so that people realise puppies and breeding animals kept on puppy farms live in appalling conditions. Dogs are often kept in overcrowded and filthy conditions. Breeding animals may be confined permanently in small cages, never being allowed out for a walk, to play or express normal behaviours. Many people who got dogs during the Covid-19 pandemic seemed ignorant to the plight of puppy farms and designer breeds are making a comeback.

Our Social Issue

We understand from the get go that this is a very broad social issue and acknowledge that puppy farms have been an major issue in Ireland for many years, but we feel that any good work done by animal aid activists was undone when the Covid-19 pandemic hit our shores and many people felt the need to fill the social void in their lives with a new furry friend. Rescue centres like the one we collaborated with are very slow to just hand over their animals to people and the process takes some time/comes with some conditions and many people then turned to breeders and puppy farms. Animals were given to people who did not properly prepare for them and many were rehomed at a later time or simply abandoned and the high demand meant many female dogs were forced to be constantly pregnant with litters of certain designer or popular breeds to satisfy consumer demands. We realised that many people don't choose adoption as there is a generalisation that there are too many hoops to jump through in order to satisfy the handlers or they don't fully understand the consequences behind their actions as consumers. Many people even in our own year bought new puppies and designer breeds from puppy farms over the pandemic, which surprised us as we assumed our generation was aware of the adopt don't shop movement. This is why to undertake our research we wanted to work with a local not for profit organisation that would tell us not only WHY you should adopt and not shop, but the conditions that people need to satisfy in order to adopt a pet. We want to take this information, compile it into simple and accessible language and create an eye catching and straightforward leaflet or infographic that can be distributed not only in our own school put to the wider public. We think this will create a small but entirely significant change and educate people about a forgotten and neglected social issue. We have been working hard on our project since September, we have held an animal themed table quiz fundraiser for our local not-for-profit rescue organisation that is dedicated to helping huskies and wolf type breeds and their owners that are in need. We raised over €200 for the centre, we then visited the centre and interviewed the animal handlers about not only WHY people should adopt and not shop but HOW people can adopt an animal, what are the conditions etc. We want to use this information to produce an infographic/leaflet that can be distributed to our wider community.

Why We Chose It

Animal cruelty includes many kinds of mistreatment, from temporarily failing to provide essential care to the malicious killing or repeated torturing of an animal. Most cruelty cases go unnoticed and unpunished because they are not reported and the animals continue to suffer. We chose this issue as we all agreed as a class that many people (even people in our own year groups) are not aware of the ethical issues that surround adopting a pet (particularly dogs). There doesn't seem to be any active campaigns that educate people about HOW one can adopt a pet ethically.

Our Goal

Our big idea is that this generation doesn't understand how unethical puppy farms are and still continue to buy from them. We are trying to spread awareness so that people realise puppies and breeding animals kept on puppy farms live in appalling conditions. Dogs are often kept in overcrowded and filthy conditions. Breeding animals may be confined permanently in small cages, never being allowed out for a walk, to play or express normal behaviours. Many people who got dogs during Covid seemed ignorant to the plight of puppy farms and designer breeds are making a comeback.

Our Innovative Action

We have been working hard on our project since September, we have held an animal themed table quiz fundraiser for our local not-for-profit rescue organisation that is dedicated to helping huskies and wolf type breeds and their owners that are in need. We raised over €200 for the centre, we then visited the centre and interviewed the animal handlers about not only WHY people should adopt and not shop but HOW people can adopt an animal, what are the conditions etc. We want to use this information to produce an infographic/leaflet that can be distributed to our wider community.

Our Impact

We have made a direct difference to the lives of the animals in the Sera Husky animal rescue centre by fundraising for this charity and promoting their survives on our social media pages ( we run Instagram and TikTok) We have made a positive difference in our own school community by delivering talks to students relaying the information about adopting and puppy farms that we have compiled throughout the year. We need to take our project further and we would love further support from YSI we want to produce a leaflet and get this information out to our community.