Reservation Fee?

[AnotherOne4]

Can I get some advice please. I have found a puppy I am interested in, and have reached out to the seller. All good, and going well with communication. I have asked if I can go and see the puppy on Saturday, but she has asked for a £300 reservation fee.

Is this normal? I really don't want to pay this. She does say it is refundable. I'd much rather go and visit the pup and THEN pay the reservation fee...

There are tons of Shih Tzu in rescue usually - although they are usually middle aged to ancient (saw one in rescue who was 15!) and seem to often have come in due to elderly owners passing away or going into care homes - so looking for a quieter life with older kids or no kids.

@fufulina

We bought a puppy in December 2020, and I’ve just checked and we did put down a deposit just after the breeder told us he had been born.

At that stage, we were six months into conversations with the breeder and very confident in her. She shows her dogs, had lots of online presence at dog shows, and had a lovely social media group with all the owners of her first litter.

We visited when he was 4 weeks old, then collected at 10 weeks. He was in northern England and we are in the south.

I had already discounted a breeder - refused to even entertain us visiting, was always having new litters - and we have changed our search from cockatoo (I know…) to shih tzu - because I couldn’t work how how to ensure a poo cross wasn’t farmed.

In hindsight - I’m not sure why we agreed to pay the deposit (!!) but we did and he’s lovely and he was brilliantly socialised, and she refused to let us have him until two sets of vaccines and more time with mum and siblings. He’s a really lovely dog. But we were very confident in the breeder, her previous buyers and we understood that she wanted a show of commitment.

Cockatoo to dog is indeed a change. (I know, auto correct, it just made me chuckle.)

Sorry @AnotherOne4!, Shih Tzu not my area. As far as general adverts go, none are fool-proof and you still need to check breeders out, but Champdogs are probably the best bit - they do at least ask for evidence that the main breed-appropriate health testing has been done.

UPDATE Just got an email from the website stating that the user has been blocked.

(WTF is wrong with people. Why try and scam someone, and use puppies/dogs as a way of doing it. Oh it's made me so mad! lol)