32 J Yeates and D Bowles include disease risks in their dog purchasing decisions—although one would hope consumers would try to choose puppies with minimal risks (which may require looking beyond some popular breeds) A strategy is required to ensure that consumers access the appropriate information (for example, by governmental and non-governmental organisations highlighting the problems) and in a timely fashion—that is, to interrupt consumers’ desire to buy puppies immediately This strategy also requires understanding of legal and illegal vendors, to prevent irresponsible breeders/dealers adapting their selling patterns to respond to these public information messages (see above) Legal Controls: Breeding and Trade Anyone who deliberately breeds for sale, or who trades, puppies should be licensed, whether or not they have physical commercial pet shops, so that local authorities can decide whether they meet the minimum legal standards even if they use a private address In the UK, the Pet Animals Act 1951 needs to be updated (as acknowledged by the Government in 2006 and expected to be published in 2017) to ensure that any seller of dogs is licensed and evidencebased animal welfare standards are applied This view is supported by the 2016 Government consultation on the review of animal establishments licensing in in England, which found that the majority of responses supported a generic licence for selling puppies attached to model licence conditions to improve the welfare conditions in this trade and drive out unscrupulous breeders and traders Requiring every pet shop licence holder to have a designated business premises rather than conduct their business through a private house, so that that premise can be inspected according to the license welfare conditions, would close one loophole At the same time, local authorities need to have the training and capacity to undertake inspections of breeding establishments and investigate complaints The development of a helpline would enable people to report anonymously any person they suspect of breeding or trading puppies illegally (including by not declaring the income) This system could perhaps work on the same lines as the National Benefit Fraud Hotline (https://www.gov.uk/ national-benefit-fraud-hotline), Action Fraud (for any type of fraud: http:// www.actionfraud.police.uk/fraud-az-tax-fraud) or Crimestoppers (which allows reporting of wildlife crime to the NWCU: http://www.nwcu.police uk/crimestoppers/) Since councils (and NGOs) are ultimately responsible for cleaning up the long-term problems associated with irresponsible/illegal breeding/selling of dogs, this should provide an incentive to the authorities to set up such schemes and to act upon such information