[WATCH] Janice Chetcuti: ‘We never had an animal rights directorate taking enforcement seriously’

Janice Chetcuti is passionate about animal rights but the Nationalist MP laments the lack of enforcement of existing legislation. 

One of the issues she raises is linked to the new rules introduced last year concerning bully breed dogs. She disagrees with the changes making non-pedigree bully dogs illegal to own. 

She believes that rather than obliging pet owners to have pedigree dogs, the enforcement of legislation already in force would have helped curb the number of abandoned bully breed dogs. 

“We already have laws in place to protect these dogs, but unfortunately, we never had an animal rights directorate which takes enforcement seriously,” she tells me. 

Welcoming new laws regulating boarding kennels, Chetcuti insists these regulations were needed. However, she says further amendments such as banning underground garage complexes from being used to house animals would have made the legislation even better.  

Our discussion veers to the realm of party politics and I ask her about the PN’s lack of support in southern districts, which has tanked over the past decade or so.  

Coming from Zejtun, which is part of the Third District, the PN MP says a soul-searching exercise within the party has helped make it more appealing to voters from the area.  

“I am not saying that what it [the PN] was doing was wrong, but it is keeping up with the times,” Chetcuti says.  

With an assisted dying White Paper in the works, as revealed by MaltaToday last year, the MP calls for a mature discussion which brings different views and opinions together. She says the PN has already launched an internal discussion on the matter, but refrains from saying what its stance will be. 

The following is an excerpt of the interview. 

The full interview can also be viewed on Facebook and Spotify. 

In reply to a press conference on the animal hospital you addressed with MP Darren Carabott, the government had said the law obliges veterinary clinics to offer emergency services 24/7. Does this not invalidate your arguments that pet owners do not have access to round-the-clock emergency care for their pets? 

The only place licensed as an animal hospital in Malta is the APH Veterinary Hospital. No clinic has this licence. This licence allows for animals to be kept for overnight care and certain medical operations to be carried out, which is not possible in normal animal clinics.  

Isolation is one of the topics I spoke about. Unfortunately, it is common to come across Canine Parvovirus which is highly contagious and affects puppies. If immediate care is not administered, within 36 hours, the puppy dies. If you have a clinic which does not have isolation facilities, the owners are sent home and told to administer drip and medicine themselves. How many people are capable of administering such care? 

These are small issues which affect people greatly. 

Before Christmas, the Opposition tabled a Private Members’ Bill which government voted against. What was it about? 

Government recently introduced legislation which regulates boarding kennels. While we welcomed the new law… there were two aspects which we as the Opposition did not agree with. The first was that if you want to start operating boarding kennels, you could do so in an underground garage, and this bothered me a bit. We feel this should not be allowed. We are aware of the common situation we have in our country where people get a dog and keep it in their garage.  

We are arguing that if you are going to leave your dog at a kennel, for days and sometimes even weeks, shouldn’t they be exposed to natural light? 

We have also seen situations where people leave their cat or dog at a kennel, and they end up dying overnight… 

I hope that with the new law these issues are resolved, but let’s push to make it even better. Let’s not allow boarding kennels to be permitted in underground garages. They tried to ridicule me when I raised the issue in parliament, and the minister said even people live underground.  

The second thing we did not agree with was the lack of legislation demanding that an animal being held at a boarding kennel be given the required exercise. Let us be intelligent and logical about this; we are not saying that a 15-year-old dog should be taken out for an hour’s walk three times a day, but why shouldn’t it be given some exercise? 

A law which came into force last year, and you criticised it harshly, was the one which states that bully breed dogs need to have a pedigree. When you look at the situation involving certain incidents involving dogs, while not exclusively, they are almost always bully breeds. You say you love animals, should the situation not be addressed? 

Unfortunately, due to their appearance and energy, bully breeds have a bad reputation. I own a bully breed and they amaze me. They are very sensitive – if you get a bully breed and lock them on the roof, you are creating a monster. Every dog can turn into a monster if not properly cared for, but a Chihuahua is different from a Pitbull. 

What bothers me is that we already have laws in place to protect these dogs, but unfortunately, we never had an animal rights directorate which takes enforcement seriously. I am also aware that the directorate is sometimes held back by higherups. Many times… the directorate’s way forward is directed by the office of the minister.  

If we use the laws which are already in place, we would not be in the situation we are in right now. For example, it is illegal to cut the ears and tails of dogs in Malta, but we see it happening every day. 

I agree with you that we lack enforcement in this country, but there is the trend of Pitbull ownership right now. When you have a mistreated Pitbull, it will be a far more dangerous dog than let’s say an English Bulldog… 

But do you feel that having these dogs with a pedigree will solve the situation? 

The pedigree will make the owner more likely to be tracked should they mistreat or abandon these dogs… 

Yes, but again if you do not enforce the dog chipping law, how can you track down the owner?  

[…] 

The only way to solve the situation is to have the people behind these illegalities punished.  

Why are we not doing routine searches for dog chipping? All it needs is a small device which detects the chip. The law allows wardens, police and animal welfare officers to do spot checks. What I say is let’s use the laws we have in place, and we would not see these dogs being abandoned. 

Has the PN started discussing assisted dying internally?  

The PN is criticised for having people who have different ideals, and I think that is a good thing in a political party. Yes, we have started discussing [the issue], and the process is ongoing. We also have to keep in mind that what Janice Chetcuti feels about a subject, is not the only thing that matters, but also that she is part of a team. 

So, where does Janice Chetcuti want this conversation to go? 

I want us to have a healthy conversation where we bring together different ideas. We had situations where we [parliamentary group] started with a certain stance, and ended up with a completely different one. I believe we have to listen to the different voices and cater for the different situations which will fall under this law.