Pets4homes

[williowrosenburg]

Just quickly, are adverts on pets4homes normally puppy farms? Or similar?

We can't go via a recuse as have a 4 year old. All breeders we contact have wait lists till 2022!!

Just don't want to be duped into getting a potentially poorly puppy.

Thx

I would definitely avoid.

A friend of mine recently got a puppy from there, when she took the pup to the vet, the micro chip wasn't recognised and the dog is now in quarantine for 6 weeks costing her hundreds of pounds. They think the puppy may have come from abroad.

In my own experience, I have come across people wanting me to take the pup before it was ready, people telling me that because a dog was a mix between 3 different breeds that it is worth more and one wanted to meet in a car park and not meet mum etc.

I think there are some genuine people who need to sell a puppy because their bitch has accidentally gotten pregnant, but you really need to tread carefully.

We found our pup through the kennel club after trying unsuccessfully for a rescue due to having children and another dog already. We had to wait, but it was worth it for the peace of mind.

Some rescue dogs are suitable for homing with children of any age - like Roxy who came up on my newsfeed this morning

www.facebook.com/612353142492401/posts/1189899338071109/

(and Lexi and Rose)

I would avoid. As a pp said, there may be some genuine people on there but my impression is that the majority are either people looking to make money from breeding their non-health tested pets, or fronts for puppy farms - the well-known trick of farmed pups being removed to a family home to be sold from there, sometimes with an unrelated 'stunt bitch' posing as mum.

If you are looking for a pedigree dog, the best route to go down is via a breed club - look online for an established organisation, there will be a long history of events such as dog shows. They should be able to put you in touch with a genuine, reputable breeder who health-tests. That's how we got our CKCS who was with us for 14 wonderful years, with no serious health problems despite the breed being notorious for them - because the breeders tested rigorously before mating their dogs.

Expect to be put on a waiting list - we waited over a year for our boy - but it was well worth the wait.

Some genuine people on there but also an easy way for puppy farms to flog their puppies. If you can do A LOT of research on the person you are buying the puppy from, see puppy with his litter mates and mum, get puppy vet checked before handing over the money etc then maybe OK, otherwise avoid.

We got our dogs from there, clearly you need to be careful but not all are from puppy farms. One of ours was from a reputable breeder, the other was a first litter from a family dog. I wasn’t duped. Both had health certificates and are great healthy dogs. But you really do need to be careful I guess.

www.champdogs.co.uk. Only for KC registered breeders, with breed clubs, information & photos (KC site does not have pics). It's where I found the fantastic breeders for my 2 dogs.

We bought our puppy from there last month. Naive first timers but did a lot of research ( or so I thought ) and the family live in the same area as us though we didn’t know them.

Went to visit a while back and met the mum and all the litter. Had first choice and reserved our boy. Was told he would be microchipped. We collected him at 8 weeks on the dot, arranged needles and the vet said he wasn’t microchipped. He also was a bit aggressive during his consultation.
The puppies were not socialised much by the sound of it as both parents were out at work all day and it’s been a hard month training him.

We paid 2k for a pedigree Siberian Husky. He’s a saddleback husky so quite rare and has had a full health check. I wouldn’t do it again though.

When looking for a dpuppy last year I looked at all options. Mainly for breed suggestions!! I actually reported sooo many dodgy ads on many similar sites. We bought from a breeder and saw her home /dc /ddogs. Although the dpuppies lived outside it wasn't a dpuppy farm. So difficult to judge /make the right decision... Good luck op..

I bought both my dogs from there but they were a few years old (was looking for older, already trained dogs rather than puppies) and were being sold for seemingly genuine circumstances (big changes in previous owners lives). One dog had fleas and wasn’t vaccinated as promised but sorted that straight away.

Prev owners also stayed in touch for a few months afterwards to check settled ok.

I am very lucky as both dogs are wonderful. I suspect one was probably used for breeding pre me as he was a pedigree and wasn’t very well socialised when I got him but he soon came out of his shell.

I did research and enquire about many many dogs before these two though and also visited the dogs at their homes first before making the decision and think I touched lucky with genuine owners. I don’t think I’d buy a puppy from there as suspect they are puppy farms and don’t want to encourage that practice for the welfare of the poor pups involved

I wouldn’t OP - too many unscrupulous people on there for my liking who don’t seem to care much about dogs.

Have you looked at the wild at heart foundation? They are more relaxed about rescues going to houses with children and often have younger dogs available.
wildatheartfoundation.org/

They're not all puppy farms but there are a lot of people breeding their pets at the moment as a way of cashing in. I had to leave a breed Facebook group because of the number of people posting who didn't have a fucking clue what they were doing.

And now there are a lot more puppies of my dog's breed coming through with issues which are directly related to their poor breeding and will cause lifelong discomfort and endless operations to fix.

So I would be very wary.

Retired greyhound? Rehoming centre we got ours from regularly rehomes dogs to those with children. Don’t let the size put you off - they’re a wonderful temperament!

There will be some decent breeders on there but it's an easy free vehicle by which people can cash in on breeding their un-health tested pets of dubious temperament, interspersed with the usual illegal imports and actual puppy farmed dogs. It's really not a good place to start as a layperson.

£2000 for a Siberian husky is insane and there is nothing rare about 'saddleback' colour.

Don't look for a puppy, look for a breeder. Took me over 6 months to find one I was happy with and will be over a year wait from being accepted onto her list (yes, I got grilled, was ace) by the time we get our puppy. She doesn't have many litters.

All good breeders have a wait list, you should be wary of anyone with puppies already born that are available.

Doing your research and being prepared to wait are the ways to avoid a badly bred puppy. If more people did then there would be less puppy farming and dog theft. Instant gratification when there is a living animal involved is not a good thing.

Thanks all, I had assumed as such.

We are struggling to even get responses from breeders. I guess they are getting requests from a lot of people at the moment but still makes it frustrating. We will stay clear of pets4homes though.

And I'll look at links people have posted. It would be lovely to get a rescue dog rather! Just find so many places won't let them go to a family with small children.... we also have a cat!

This may be an unpopular opinion but I really think you are better off with a puppy than an adult if you have a cat. A puppy easily learns its place while it's still small enough not to be a risk to the cat.

Not all are, but you sound like you aren't sure how to recognise a good breeder so maybe avoid. Try breed websites, personal recommendations. To be honest it isn't hard to tell when someone is putting a lot into their dogs, so I would read up a bit more.

When I bought my pup: Met mum and litter at 3 weeks. Set up was in breeders living room, pups and mum clearly very well cared for. Parents had all required AND recommended health tests, breeder volunteered paperwork. Breeder showed her dogs, had turned their spare room into a private groom room. Dogs clearly the centre of their world and loved to talk about them. Asked me questions and I signed a contract. Received a large puppy pack and basically a book of instructions, lol. You could see the passion and their dogs were lovely to interact with. They weren't the first breeders I contacted, and I did irk some breeders with my probing health testing questions, but that's how you figure out who you want to visit. My breeder was 3 hours away but they were the right one.

Good luck x

I found our pup there, visited the house and met the mum and family. All good
Except it was a puppy farm front ( which obviously didn’t find out until later)

Yes. If you were a decent breeder, why would you need to advertise on a free site, especially these days?

We got our pup through this site, the first person I contacted kept changing details about things and it felt dodgy. The second person where we got our pup from was fine. Family home, mum and dad present with litter mates and well socialised. First saw at 4 weeks and pups were feeding from Mum. If it hasn’t have felt right I would have looked elsewhere.

I got my puppy from there, he was born very locally to me and was an accidental litter. I went to see him with an open mind that if it didn't feel right I'd walk away but the family and set up appeared genuine.

I visited him at home with his mum and siblings every week from when he was 3 weeks old until I took him home at just over 8 weeks. I've also stayed in touch with the breeder and one of his siblings owner.

It worked out for us and I think when you read the blurbs on pets4homes it's fairly easy to spot the dodgy ones.

We bought our lovely pup from that site. DH went to visit the puppy at the owner's house and we only paid half the money before having the pup checked over by our own vet. I think you need to be careful but I wouldn't write every listing off.

Some of the breeders on there are good, reputable and caring but I do think the majority are not.

But then saying that, I think most breeders, regardless of if they are through pets4homes or the breed club or Kennel club or whatever are not what I would consider ethical.

Be patient, it's worth the wait