ABOUT THE FOAL GROUP
15th November 2020
20th January 2022
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With much sadness, Jordan retired as a Director of FOAL on 20 January 2022, to further his writing ambitions, which we look forward to reading in due course. It has been our pleasure to have been able to work with Jordan and to forge a friendship with him, that will continue.
We wish Jordan well with his writing, which we know will be insightful, educational and may be on occasion controversial, tackling welfare issues that many know exist but are either restricted from raising or feel unable to publicly address for a multitude of reasons.
We have included Jordan’s full statement below -
“Hello beautiful people! Today I have retired from The FOAL Group and will be spending life at a somewhat more sedate pace focusing on writing. It has been an absolute honour and pleasure to work with my co-directors Sarah and Nicola who are hugely talented animal welfare campaigner, with whom I have had the pleasure of becoming good friends. Although we will no longer be working together, I very much look forward to supporting and collaborating with them from the side lines with all their future campaigning work.
They will be continuing to run the #FlopNotCrop campaign so please head over to Focus On Animal Law - FOAL to keep up with any future updates as the legislation progresses through parliament and with all the other numerous campaigns they actively support. I’d like to thank all the organisations and individuals I have had the pleasure of collaborating with throughout the course of my directorship at FOAL and the #FlopNotCrop campaign.
Finally, I’d like to say a huge thank you to Sarah and Nicola for all their support and guidance over the course of the campaign, without it I’m in no doubt that I’d have been distracted by paying chess with many more pigeons along the way and the campaign wouldn’t have progressed with the incredible speed, zest and vigour that it did.
I’ll fill you in further with regards to my writing once I have started it! Much love, Light and happiness to you all! XX“
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We are absolutely delighted to introduce and welcome Jordan Shelley as a new Co-Director of The FOAL Group. Jordan brings a wealth of animal knowledge to the team and we will be working together on his #FlopNotCrop campaign.
Jordan is an established and respected behaviourist, trainer and animal welfare campaigner, has taught workshops and seminars to clients both in this country and abroad and has been a regular part of a vast number of animal welfare campaigns.
Some of you may know Jordan and his background on the One Show. In 2011 Jordan found himself on the wrong side of the dog training community after appearing on The One Show and faced heavy criticism and complaints following his use of outdated aversive dominance-based training methods.
Jordan took the criticism on board and opened his mind to offers to learn about alternatives, so much so, he got on a plane and went to the States to be mentored by Dr Ian Dunbar to learn about science-based dog training. On his return to the UK Jordan was mentored by Steve Mann amongst many others in the industry and began his educational journey to become a positive trainer. Jordan is now a deeply passionate outspoken advocate for compassionate science-based training methods.
The courage it takes to admit that your honestly held beliefs and practices may be wrong for the animals is a quality we admire. Being wrong can be uncomfortable but accepting it and being open and prepared to completely change your practices shows a commitment to animal welfare we respect and admire.
We are extremely excited by what the future holds for The FOAL Group, more of which will follow hopefully soon, but in the meantime we wish to reassure you that our ethos remains as it always has, in the best interests of the animals.
As always, we appreciate your continued support, and we know that you will extend a warm welcome to Jordan.
August 2020
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Our journey started with working on and achieving a change in the Law to protect our service animals. Over the course of 18 months we helped bring in the new Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act 2019 in England & Wales (often referred to as “Finn's Law”), working closely with Sir Oliver Heald MP, Lord Trenchard, PC Wardell, (RPD Finn’s handler) and you, the animal caring public.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/15/introduction
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We also worked with Liam Kerr MSP to ensure that those who harm service animals in Scotland would be held similarly accountable (also known as #FinnsLawScotland) and that penalties for serious animal welfare offences were increased to 5 years.
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After a lot of work and campaigning from multiple agencies, the extensive Animals and Wildlife (Scotland) Act 2020 came into force on 30th November 2020 and incorporates both protection for service animals and the increase to maximum sentencing of 5 years.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2020/14/contents/enacted
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We continue to support the campaign to introduce changes to Northern Ireland Animal Welfare legislation being run by Bernadette Kelly, Alex Easton MLA and DAERA that will bring protection for their service animals and increase sentencing to 5 years. Some of you may recognise this campaign as #ServiceAnimalsNorthernIreland, formally known as #FinnsLawNIreland.
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We continue to work alongside campaigner Charles Price, DERA and business colleagues on the Isle of Man as the Island updates its Animal Welfare legislation. Following on from a very positive meeting we attended with DERA in June 2019 and subsequent statement from Minister Geoffrey Boot, we are reassured that the updated legislation will introduce protections for service animals and sentencing. Some of you may recognise this campaign as #FinnsLawIOM.
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We are currently adding our voices in support of several current campaigns to improve the United Kingdom's Animal Law, such as Dr Daniel Allen with the #PetTheftReform campaign; Debbie Matthews from #VetsGetScanning with the #FernsLaw campaign. Both campaigns have run successful petitions, exceeding 100,000 signatures and both currently await a date for the petition aims to be debated in the House of Commons.
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/178d390a-c67c-441f-b2c1-345deddb408b?in=11:06:49&out=11:08:24
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The way in which society treats and views it's animals sets the standards for how society interacts with each other. Anyone who dismisses animal abuse because the victim is "just a dog”, “just a pig”, “just a horse” misses the point. Violence is violence and violence towards animals is commonly a precursor to the most horrific violence against the person.
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This is why we are focused on creating robust legislation that will improve the quality of life for animals. Legislation that will also hold those who abuse or fail to protect animals suitably accountable.
we love our animals
