- Research published by Dogs Trust Ireland calls for stronger welfare safeguards in new dog breeding establishment legislation
- 95% of participants in Ireland’s Dog Census believe that anyone breeding, selling or transferring ownership of puppies should be recorded on a centralised database
More than eight in ten (84%) Irish adults do not know how to check whether a dog breeder is licensed in Ireland, while four in five (80%) are unaware of how or where to report unethical puppy breeding, according to new research commissioned by Dogs Trust Ireland and conducted by Ipsos B&A with 25,299 members of the public.
The findings come after Dogs Trust Ireland appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food on Wednesday, September 30th, as part of its pre-legislative scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Dog Breeding Establishments (Amendment) Bill 2026. Dogs Trust believes the research demonstrates why Ireland needs a breeding regime that people can trust to deliver the highest standards of welfare.
While Dogs Trust welcomes the proposed legislation, the charity has outlined a number of areas that it believes need to be strengthened if it is to deliver better welfare outcomes for breeding dogs and puppies. Chief among Dogs Trust’s concerns is the proposed staffing requirement for Dog Breeding Establishments. As the legislation is currently drafted, the minimum requirement is based on one full-time equivalent employee for every 20 adult female dogs, with one full-time equivalent defined as 39 hours per week.
Dogs Trust warned that this simple staff ratio approach could lead to a scenario where one staff member could effectively be responsible for the impossible task of caring for 140 dogs, while still falling within the 1:20 staffing calculation. An establishment with 20 breeding females could have 20 litters. At six puppies per litter, that would mean 120 puppies in addition to the 20 adult females, resulting in potentially 140 dogs being on site without any stud or retired dogs being taken into account.
Dogs Trust believes the legislation should instead move towards a welfare-outcome approach, requiring every licensed Dog Breeding Establishment to have a welfare management plan setting out how it will meet the physical, behavioural and psychological needs of every dog and puppy in its care. Establishments should then be inspected and assessed against their ability to deliver those outcomes in practice.
Commenting on the Oireachtas Committee session, Sarah Lynch, Policy Manager at Dogs Trust Ireland, said: “It is vital that anyone who wants to make a puppy part of their family should have confidence that the system behind that breeder has the welfare of dogs as its top priority. We believe that the legislation needs to make sure that every licensed establishment has to be able to demonstrate how dogs born on their premises have received the appropriate level of care, exercise and socialisation. The most important time in a dog’s life is when they’re a puppy, so we need to guarantee them the best care in order for that puppy to go on to live a rewarding life in someone’s home.”
Dogs Trust has also told the Committee that traceability should be at the heart of the new regulatory framework, ensuring that dogs are linked to their parents and breeding establishment. This would ensure transparency about the origin of a dog; establish any health or welfare concerns across litters and establishments; and hold those responsible for breeding dogs accountable. This is reinforced by Ireland’s Dog Census 2025, conducted by Dogs Trust, which found that 95% of respondents agreed that anyone breeding, selling or transferring ownership of a puppy or litter of puppies should be recorded on a centralised database. The new European Regulation on the welfare of dogs and cats will require Ireland to have a national database, so Dogs Trust believes that it should be developed now to underpin the new legislation.
Dogs Trust’s full submission makes a range of additional recommendations, including a maximum number of adult dogs that can be kept at a breeding establishment; statutory competency and training requirements for those caring for dogs, stronger veterinary oversight and fitness-to-breed provisions, and an increase in the minimum first-breeding age from 12 to 18 months.
