SPCA: Smuggled pups had no food or water

2011-11-24 21:19

Four Angolans have been arrested at the Vioolsdrif border post in the Northern Cape after trying to smuggle 24 dogs out of the country in a trailer. The dogs are being cared for by the SPCA in Upington. (Die Burger)

Lauren Hess

Cape Town - It is highly unlikely that dogs that were saved from being smuggled into Angola at the Vioolsdrift border post in the Northern Cape were to be used in dog fighting, the SPCA said on Thursday.

More than 20 dogs, most of them puppies, were found by border police. Four Angolan men who were transporting the animals were arrested. They had come from the Western Cape and were to be transported through Namibia to Angola.

The dogs found in the trailer had no water or food. They were “quite weak and very scared”, the SPCA’s national inspector for wildlife, Wendy Willson said.

She said she doubted the dogs were going to be used in fighting, as had been previously speculated, as they were mostly the wrong breeds.

Bull mastiffs, Rottweilers, Alsatians and one pitbull were in the trailer.

In fact, most puppies that are smuggled are used for purposes other than fighting such as private security, she revealed.

Northern Cape police said that the puppies could be sold for as much as R84 000 each. The police and members of the SA Revenue Service took part in the bust.

Willson said that puppy smuggling is on the increase but is also a phenomenon not unique to Africa.

Most smugglers transport animals via plane but Willson said that there is an increase in smuggling by land.

The Angolan men were caught as part of an ongoing investigation into animal smuggling which started at OR Tambo.

- News24