In 2004, I was working on a story about one of Ireland’s saddest secrets: its large-scale puppy farm industry which supplied poorly-bred, poorly-socialised puppies to unwitting buyers.

Puppy farms were a distressing sight, with up to hundreds of cowering breeding dogs confined in small wire cages. Exhausted females carried litter after successive litter. Timid, often sickly puppies received little human socialisation.