3 min read
It's not often you are likely to find a Jewish vet standing up in Parliament to fight for a cause many know nothing about or choose to ignore. But Marc Abraham is no typical vet and the cause that he is campaigning for may be one that many would say is unimportant compared to human suffering.
Yet Marc has taken on a huge campaign to raise awareness -and money - in a bid to destroy the UK's cruel trade of puppy farming.
He has campaigned so hard for this issue, helped by a host of dog-loving celebrity friends including Ricky Gervais, Brian May, Patsy Palmer, Sarah Harding, David Gandy and Liam Gallagher that he secured an extraordinary 100,000 signatures, which won him a three-hour debate in the House of Commons.
Marc's charity PupAid is now in its sixth year. The first event took place in Brighton and it has grown to become one of North London's most popular family outings.
But there is a fascinating twist to this story. Because downstairs, below the public gallery just off Central Lobby, there is a plaque dedicated to 10,000 Jewish children who escaped from Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport. Marc's grandmother Judy Benton - then a 17-year-old - was one of the young refugees who survived on her wits, buying a nurse's outfit to escape so that she did not look like other refugees. Tragically, Judy never saw her parents again and she later discovered that they had been murdered in Auschwitz.
"When I was old enough to understand what all this meant I became mindful that, coming from a Jewish background, we should always look out for the most vulnerable in society" says Marc.
"To me, this was something that not only applied to humans but also to animals." Fascinated by his pets - which included a cat and a tortoise - when he was growing up, Marc describes how, as a self-confessed "geeky individual" he was totally enthralled by all creatures great and small and the emotional bonds that were indelible formed
"Everyone in our family loved animals and I always had several pets. To be honest, I was shy and nerdy and far happier collecting caterpillars and moths to show at school than playing sport," he says.
"But, at the age of just three - after a fly had laid eggs in an open wound on my tortoise Speedy's leg - I removed the maggot with a twig and his leg got better. When I realised what I had done, that I had actually helped Speedy get better I knew that looking after animals was all that mattered to me. We lived in Stanmore which was fairly pastoral back then and my dad made nature trails for me and my sister Danielle to follow."
Once he had taken his Royal Veterinary College degree, Marc became an surgeon travelling the world.
"I have worked in the Mumbai slums, post-tsunami Thailand, the West Bank, Ukraine, China, Brazil, and Peru with many desperately poor volunteer workers who were also trying to save the lives of the indigenous animals.''
Now permanently based in the UK, he has earned himself a high profile in the media and is often seen on TV in a bid to educate the public about, for example, the most responsible way to choose a dog or how to know if an animal has been ill-treated.
In 2009, Marc set up a campaign called PupAid to highlight the growing problem of puppy farming, the mass commercial production of puppies purely for profit and without any thought for the welfare or happiness of the animal.
So this is where we come back to the subject that is so close to Marc's heart and took him to his own three-hour debate in the main chamber of the Commons.
"I am absolutely passionate about the UK's cruel puppy farming trade," he says. "Conditions on these puppy farms are usually disgusting. The animals are filthy and suffer from deadly parvovirus, flea infestations, constant diarrhoea and congenital diseases potentially causing hearing and heart problems when they are older.
"These poor pups are taken from their mother at a very young age and invariably end up suffering behavioural problems and, because of this, many will die an agonising death.
"This is nothing new but it is the chain from the puppy farm to the consumer which is totally legal and that is appalling.
''Local authorities have the power to close down these despicable places but this rarely happens and it's just not good enough." Marc says.
"Coming from a Jewish background, I think that most of us look out for the most vulnerable in society, the underdog - whether human or animal - and that is the reason that I fought so hard to get my debate in Parliament.
"Of course I am proud of what I've achieved so far but really it was my grandma Judy - who is now 94 and who has always been my inspiration - who, thankfully, is still here today - who showed me that anything is possible if you really want it and one should never, ever give up."
PupAid will be at Primrose Hill on Saturday September 5 from 10am to 5pm. For details, contact www.pupaid.org
