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<p>Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, it is currently an offence in England and Wales
to carry out a non-exempted mutilation e.g. where it is not carried out for medical
purposes, including the cropping of a dog’s ears. The procedure is considered unnecessary
and compromises the animal’s welfare. Once the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021
comes into force on the 29 June 2021, anyone convicted of such an offence faces being
sent to prison for up to five years, or receiving an unlimited fine, or both.</p><p>
</p><p>This strengthened penalty sends a clear message that animal cruelty will not
be tolerated and will enable our courts to take a firmer approach to cases of illegally
cropping a dog’s ears and other forms of cruelty such as dog fighting, abuse of puppies
and kittens, or gross neglect of farm animals.</p><p> </p><p>On 12 May 2021 the Government
published its Action Plan for Animal Welfare. This is a wide-reaching and ambitious
plan to set out our current and future work on animal welfare. The Government has
a manifesto commitment to crack down on puppy smuggling and one of our key reforms
in the plan is to end the abhorrent, cruel practice of puppy smuggling and low-welfare
pet imports. We are planning to bring in powers that will allow us to prohibit the
importation and non-commercial movement of dogs into Great Britain that have been
subject to low welfare practices, such as ear cropping, in line with our domestic
legislation on these practices.</p>
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