There are many traditions with Christmas – some you like and some you don’t.
The annual onslaught of impulse puppy and kitten purchases hits us all in one way or another: there’s the heart-stopping emergency consults with the sickliest ones, the vaccine consults where you question the validity of that rabies certificate, and the disappearance of them before reaching their annual booster… Then rescue centres are bulging by Easter and we wait for the cycle to start again.
Peke practice
As a (now former) Pekingese owner, I’ve always felt the pressure of responsibility to ensure people who see me with my dog don‘t think “she‘s cute” and, as there aren’t many Pekes around, think the best way to get that breed is online as it’s the easiest option.
This was brought home to me last year when Hollie and I had a coffee shop visit and a lady started talking to me about her desire to get a pug puppy. She had decided on two breeders to look at based on their Instagram posts – one in Manchester and one in Inverness.
To clarify, we’re in London…
Admittedly, I did look like a prime pug person, in a coffee shop on a Tuesday afternoon, with my Peke in a buggy.
Alarm bells
Both Instagram posters were willing to ship the dogs, so alarm bells were being well and truly rung for me – but what to do? How could I calmly convince her that time spent looking at cute Instagram pictures was most likely a lie and they were most probably not a true representation of the actual puppies and how they lived? Why would she listen to me for five minutes over weeks or months of checking out beautiful social media feeds full of perfect puppies?
It’s a hard balancing act when you have so many pictures and options available at the touch of a screen, and you know someone is so unlikely to believe you. I decided to avoid screaming “IT’S A PUPPY FARM”, as my inner vet nurse was telling me to do, and go for a more practical approach.
I also was a lady with a dog buggy, so how trusting would she be?
How did she know the account and pictures were real?
This really caused her to pause and she seemed shocked, she’d just told me the final nail in the coffin for scam/puppy farm adverts – the breeder had lots of different types of puppies for sale. She thought this was a positive sign, but to me the Unholy Trinity of scam adverts had been reached:
- Only mobile phone details given with no specific location.
- Happy to transport puppies on their own without meeting prospective owners.
- Multiple breeds of dogs for sale at the same time.
Instagram?
The location of this information was new to me – we associate selling sites such as Gumtree for puppy farm adverts, but apparently social media is just as littered with adverts – and Instagram has a huge following with thousands of adverts appearing under hashtags specifically for puppies for sale.
Back to Coffee Shop Lady – she’s well-meaning, really wants a pug and thinks she’s done good research into breeders. Sadly, she doesn’t know of the Unholy Trinity of puppy farm adverts, but could she have done any other checks good to do for any website purchase from an unknown supplier?
How can clients keep themselves safe?
Initially, clients can learn to look out for the Unholy Trinity. They can also start to investigate the small amount of information available, as most puppy dealers will use the same phone for many sales, as well as repeating pictures and wording of adverts.
- Drop and drag pictures into a Google reverse image search to see where else they are used.
- Google mobile phone numbers and email addresses to see where they appear.
- Copy and paste text from adverts to see how many other places that wording appears.
On social media some accounts have an almost impossible number of pictures of puppies, so get clients to use their common sense (how many dogs must they have if they can put up new puppy images weekly?) or face the reality that all these pictures aren’t legitimate.
Telephone number searches cannot trace secretly a UK number, but Googling a telephone number can bring up adverts attached to the number. You may find Who Called Me a helpful site, as people can report telephone numbers of scams and it’s very up to date, so will reflect the seasonal aspect of this problem.
Puppy buying contract
Earlier this year a number of charities started a campaign to get people to Say No to Puppy Dealers, which includes similar advice that might be good to direct clients to (check the website here) and there’s advice on buying different pets at the Pet Advertising Advisory Group – which also suggests you download the AWF/RSPCA Puppy Contract, so you can check for good quality breeders and find breeders who have signed up to this contract, too.
You’ll also be glad to know there are people working to use tracking technology to trace financial activities of the dealers involved – so thank you Tech for Pets, who work with many of the charities in the links above (including the RWAF) to get data and evidence of the scale of these activities.
On a personal note, at one of the #SayNoToPuppyDealers talks at BSAVA I was stunned to see a picture of a puppy I had nursed appear on-screen. He was one of a litter brought into the UK illegally and was the only one to survive. I’m not one to weep openly at work, but the passing of his siblings tortured me then and it still hurts today. If any of you can stop just one person getting a dying puppy as a gift this Christmas then please do it – share this information to help people make better decisions.
As always #wheresmum and #adoptdontshop
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