Online Puppy Mills

The online sale of puppies is one of the fastest-growing Internet scams! There is no place more dangerous to acquire your new puppy than over the Internet.

Many prospective pet owners feel that by not patronizing pet shops, they are avoiding puppy mills and unscrupulous breeders. Yet, these scam artists and their ilk lurk in cyberspace, preying on naïve and uninformed puppy purchasers, engaging in false and deceptive advertising and selling very sick puppies with no oversight from local, state or federal agencies.

Online puppy millers hide behind pictures of adorable puppies that are nothing more than generic images lifted off public websites. Buyers find out too late that the puppy they’ve just picked up at the airport is actually imported from a puppy mill in the Midwest or even Russia or Hungary. Eastern European puppies are cheap, plentiful and very sick, yet buyers report paying thousands for these fragile little dogs who are imported into the US weeks before they are weaned in order to be sold before they lose their cute “puppy look."

Health guarantees provided by sellers are oftentimes not worth the paper they’re printed on. Puppies are either over-vaccinated or not at all and are delivered to their new homes loaded with parasites, suffering from kennel cough, pneumonia, fleas, and mange. What’s a new owner to do when the sick puppy has been shipped from another state, sometimes thousands of miles away?

Sadly, consumers don’t have a leg to stand on. Only 17 states have puppy “lemon laws” and a buyer only has recourse if the state where the puppy is sold has a pet consumer protection law. For instance, NJ residents have no rights if they purchases a puppy from Oklahoma which, incidentally, is one of the worst states for consumer or animal protection.

When surfing the Internet, be aware of these red flags:

Cash, money orders or PayPal sales.

Be suspicious of Web sites that offer to ship you a puppy immediately or meet you “halfway” in exchange for  payment.  
 
High prices. A breeder or seller may have a fancy web site and charge high prices, but that doesn't guarantee the quality of the pet or the reputation of the breeder.

Testimonials. Much of what you read on websites is so contrived it’s a joke. Beware of the flowery, over-the-top accolades. Chances are they were written by someone other than a real buyer.

Lack of paperwork. Remember, registration papers do not guarantee a healthy animal – only that the puppy or possibly her parents are registered. There are over 40 dog registries and many of them are just garbage, with certificates created on the computer. If the Internet seller promises to send registration papers at a later date, watch out. Some breeders will say they have American Kennel Club (AKC) puppies to hook you and then send papers from some other registry. The AKC is just the oldest and most well-known registry in the country and even its papers do not mean you're getting a healthy pet.