Three unlicensed dog breeders have been prosecuted by Carmarthenshire County Council. Donna Edwards, William Edwards and Elysia Jones of Gelligaeros Bungalow, Cwmffwrd were found guilty of unlicensed dog breeding activity at Swansea Crown Court on 10 February 2025.
Donna Edwards and her partner Mark Thomas had held a dog boarding licence at Gelligaeros for many years before deciding to discontinue boarding dogs and use their boarding kennels as breeding kennels in October 2020.
Donna Edwards had informed the Council that there were 19 dogs being kept at the property. Despite enquiring about a dog breeding licence on a number of occasions and receiving warnings from the Council about unlicensed breeding, an application for a breeding licence was never received from the defendants.
In April 2021, Pets4homes contacted Carmarthenshire County Council to say that they had blocked three accounts in the names of Donna Edwards, William Edwards and Elysia Jones that were all advertising puppies for sale from Gelligaerous Bungalow, Cwmffwrd. After requesting information from Pets4Homes about the number of litters advertised from Gelligaerous, it was found that between June 2020 and March 2021, there had been 8 litters advertised from Gelligaerous.
In achieving a successful prosecution, Carmarthenshire County Council confiscated a total of £81,509.93 from the three defendants, by means of proceeds of crime.
Donna Edwards was sentenced to a 12-month Community Order with 70 hours’ unpaid work and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £85.
Williams Edwards received a 12-month Community Order with 50 hours’ unpaid work and ordered to pay a victim surcharge £85.
Elysia Jones was handed a 12-month Conditional Discharge and a victim surcharge of £20.
Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Decarbonisation and Sustainability – Cllr Aled Vaughan Owen said:
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Council’s Animal Health team for pursuing this case and bring these dog breeders, who were operating illegally, to justice.Let this be a warning to other unlicensed dog breeders that we will come after you if you continue to disregard the law.”
For further information around Carmarthenshire County Council’s work in enforcing animal health, please visit Animal welfare – Carmarthenshire County Council
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