A veterinarian says Trade Me should have one rule for all dogs and ban the sale of all breeds on the online auction site.
Trade Me yesterday introduced a ban on the sale of pugs, British bulldogs and French bulldogs, which are known as brachycephalic breeds.
Vet Dr Kirsten Wylie told Seven Sharp the brachycephalic breed has a shortened foreface with the lower jaw protruding from their upper jaw.
"With that come some issues that've been brought to the fore in the last few years," she said.
Those issues, according to Trade Me, were too great to ignore.
"There's the breathing issues. So they can't regulate their temperature, so dogs will pass out because they can't get enough air in to cool down," said Jon Duffy of Trade Me.
“You can't sell dogs on eBay in America. New Zealand's made it very easy to farm puppies and sell them
"The other thing that is extremely concerning to us is the fact that for many of these breeds, the breeding dog has to have a caesarian section every time she gives birth to a litter. Now that in our opinion is tantamount to irresponsible breeding," Mr Duffy said.
But Dr Wylie, who says she probably deals with a lot more frenchies and bulldogs than a lot of vets, says they're not an unhealthy breed.
She's unhappy that the brachycephalic breed has been singled out for Trade Me's ban and says some other breeds such as German shepherds and labradors have their own health and disease issues, but haven't been targeted.
"I think if they're going to have a ban it should be a blanket ban across all breeds. You can't sell dogs on eBay in America. New Zealand's made it very easy to farm puppies and sell them," Dr Wylie said.
"I think going back to people actually having to access a breeder, meet the breeder, meet the parents, meet the dogs is a far healthier way of people choosing a pet.".
Mr Duffy said with the brachycephalic breeds, 90-to-95 per cent of the animals have some form of the issues, but the instances are much lower with German shepherds and the labradors.
He said a blanket ban on dog sales on Trade me is "not on our radar at the moment".
"But we'd be willing to look at research and I guess put other breeds through the same process that we have with the breeds that have been targeted in this policy round," he said.
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