Breeder doesn’t allow visits… walk away?

[Hawknotdove]

Hello,

I’ve found a breeder locally with puppies available in the autumn. She seems legitimate in most respects - pictures of her showing dogs and winning Crufts all over FB, sent me vetting questionnaire, then video call and wants to do a home visit. Seems dog-obsessed and has sent me hand-written info sheets on diet, care etc. She comes across as someone who lives for her dogs - possibly to the point of being a bit obsessive.

However, she says she doesn’t allow visits to her own home. She says she will pick 1 or 2 pups (depending on size of litter) than she thinks are a good fit for our family and bring them to my house with the mother when they are old enough. Also, when I did a call to meet her and the dogs, they didn’t appear to be in her house (she says they live in the house but it looked like she’d taken them to a barn for the call).

Finally, she’s bred in line so they have an in-breeding coefficient that’s higher than the breed average.

Shes’s KC assured and the parents are fully health screened.

Honestly, it’s such a mine field!!!

Walk away?

I would appreciate advice. You’ve all been so helpful so far!

Sounds like mine. She didn't want a deposit or payment until I collected, was completely chilled and didn't care when they got sold, just wanted them to be happy. My daughters and I went and hung out with all of the puppies for three hours. She had two litters available, I was clear that I wanted a boy and she suggested that we chose from the boys in the smaller litter because of my children. One was pretty but quite antisocial, the other was less cute but all over us and loads of fun. We left with me saying that we would think and I emailed the next day to say that we would have the fun one. When we collected ours at 12 weeks, she still had one other left and didn't care whether it sold or not she just carried on treating it as her own until she found her home. There was no pressure at any point, she just loves the breed and loves her dogs.

I didn't find her though a website. I spent ages searching for a breeder and was not impressed. I eventually spotted a puppy locally in the breed I wanted who was beautiful and had a great temprement and asked who the breeder was, I got in contact with her and waited for nearly two years before she had another litter. She lived five hours away and we drove up and back in a day to collect. Again, we spent two hours playing with to dogs before we left. It felt like she cared and it was wonderful. She also won krufts this year twice! Best of luck.

No. What’s her breeder licence number?

Go to the local council, ALL breeders must be council registered. Anyone that says otherwise is a liar as DEFRA were very specific.

The whole point of needing a licence to breed was so welfare checks could happen (random checks to root out puppy farms). The dogs are seen by an independent vet and the health tests verified.

You NEVER EVER BUY FROM A BREEDER WITH NO LICENSE.

The only time you would ever choose a puppy for a family was during COVID. Families would put their preferences down, coat colour, size etc and put their 1st and 2nd choice down (pink collar, orange collar) and then you’d have to allocate like that but it’s certainly not a nice way to do it, and should not be the case now!!!

Stay away from this breeder. Call their local council to report in case they’re breeding illegally and inform HMRC as anyone breeding without a license is 100% not reporting their income to HMRC either!

Go to the local council, ALL breeders must be council registered. Anyone that says otherwise is a liar as DEFRA were very specific.

This is not true. There are small hobby breeders operating perfectly legally without a licence. Requirements vary from council to council.

You NEVER EVER BUY FROM A BREEDER WITH NO LICENSE.

I do not know of a single licensed breeder in my breed (which I have been involved in for 40+ years) that I would buy from. I would always buy from someone who has very occasional litters and rears them in the home - although no issue from me whatever if they spend time outside in the right surroundings. These breeders are not licensed.

The changes to licensing regulations really haven't helped the minefield that is puppy buying these days. It used to be so easy to say don't touch anyone licensed with a bargepole. Now there are some good breeders who do need to be licensed - but by no means all of them.

Run don’t walk!

A few red flags for me. Why don't you call the RSPCA to check their veracity.

Also KC registered doesn’t mean anything these days. And being registered with the council is only a requirement if you have so many litters a year. I’m fairly sure both of those are just an exercise to make money on what can be a very hard to tax industry.

Run away no genuine KC breeder would not allow a visit to see both parents

Always see puppy with mum (and dad too if possible). Puppies should not be taken from their mother before 8 weeks at the earliest. I would not buy from someone who won’t let you see pups in their home.

I'm an experienced handler and show at crufts
One of the golden rules is being able to see the pups with their mum, and see how they're living from birth- they should be socialised, see the vet, have hearing tests etc, hip scoring.
I'd be straight with her and ask directly what the problem is?
It sounds very unsound to me, she should know all this

Walk away. That woman is NOT a responsible breeder. Given her stance on home visits I would report that to the RSPCA/SSPCA, the Kennel Club and to Crufts (if she is claiming to have taken part of that event). Tbh-she might be massively over inflating her Crufts presence-she could simply be attending as a member of the public. Either way-unscrupulous puppy breeders are the scum of the earth-do NOT buy from her.

We regularly get puppies, we have 4 dogs at the moment. Only once have we made a mistake. The puppy in question was in a loving home, it was with its litter plus its mother, grandmother and about 6 other dogs.

It was loud and loving but we were so awed by the puppy we didn’t take his surroundings in to account and had him. Since that day he hasn’t stopped barking or getting over excited. We continue to try but he is yappy, and needy. It’s just part of his gene pool, we love him very much and wouldn’t change it but we do now look at what’s happening around the new ones.

All of our other dogs are from farms, they have calm ways and are easy to train.

It’s important that you see where the dog is coming from and the traights it might have.

This

If all the information she's given is online, it's likely a scam. Fake breeders are very good at producing false documents, even renting 'show homes' to show farmed puppies to prospective owners. She's probably got puppies on order from a puppy farmer. She's clearly a parasitic worm - I'd report her to RSPCA and her local council. She may not have a licence.

You should meet the 'mum' + 'dad'. I visited the breeder of my current dog 3 times, twice for her to decide which of the puppies would suit us and our life style. This was after a long video call to ensure that I was type of person breeder would be happy to 'give' pup to. (We'd wanted the largest puppy but she said that she thought another pup was best and she was bang on as he is the prefect dog for us!) We met both parents on each visit. They were gorgeous, friendly dogs which was really reassuring.
We also visited our previous dog twice before taking him home, first to choose him and then to visit and familiarise him with us. On this occasion we only met mum but the breeder said that she could give us address of dad, if we wanted to meet him. Again, mother was very friendly.
I would never get a dog without seeing at least mum, to ensure she's healthy, friendly and its not a puppy farm.

I wanted people to visit me as litter was growing. It meant that I could watch them with pups to make sure they were good with them. I turned two people away upon visits..they had seemed good on paper. One was because I didn’t like the way their child interacted with the pup,and child wasn’t redirected by parents. The other because the wife was obviously not really wanting a dog.
The vistors could see my set up, get to know the pups,and build a relationship with pup and me before they had one.
By not being allowed to visit you cannot ascertain the condition and temperaments of mother and pups.
Walk away and look elsewhere. There are plenty of good breeders .

Nope, not good.

I would report her! Why not allow home visits? You need to see the Livingston conditions of the dogs this sounds all very dodgy. Video call in a barn? So those poor dogs don't even get to live a happy life just stuck in kennels. I personally know of people staying for over 1 hour and half in a home visit. Why isn't this breeder allowing it. Walk away and report!

Haven’t read all the comments yet but thought I’d pitch in with a breeders point of view :) There are some really legitimate concerns about home visits that myself and some of my breeder friends have

I’m a TICA registered cat breeder (obviously not the same thing but reasons are similar) and honestly I really don’t like people coming to visit my home, and absolutely not before a deposit.

This is not because I have anything to hide, (if someone was really concerned I’d be happy to do a FaceTime walking tour of my entire house and garden if it put someone’s mind at ease) but more for my safety as giving out my address to anyone and everyone who says they’re interested in a kitten is a huge security risk, especially when theft of cats is at an all time high in the UK.

I am happy to have visitors when my kittens are A. Old enough that they’ve had their first set of vaccines (I keep kittens until about 14 weeks old when they’ve had both vaccines, I don’t allow visitors before they’ve had any vaccines as at this age they are very vulnerable to infection and increased visitors could be a risk, for the same reason I don’t even let friends and family meet them without a lot of sanitisation) B. have had a deposit put down on them, I’m disabled and allowing strangers into my home and giving random people on the internet who know I have multiple high value kittens my address is incredibly dangerous for the safety of me and my kittens, if someone it interested enough to do multiple video calls, sign my kitten contract and put down a deposit it helps weed out potential security threats and at that stage I offer a visit whilst they wait for the kitten to be old enough to bring home. I’m still TTC but once we have a baby this would be an additional reason to be uncomfortable with large volumes of visitors. There’s even cases of people being MURDERED by someone who has come to their house to see a puppy, the risk might seem minimal but there is definitely a risk.

However, I ALWAYS offer a video chat (sometimes multiple) with people who are interested so I can show them my kittens, my home, and where the kittens are raised and answer any and all questions, which helps to make buyers more confident (and shows that I’m a real person and the kitten is real and with me and I’m not a scammer who has stolen photos or made them with ai) before accepting any deposit. I also have a comprehensive kitten contract which legally protects both myself and the buyer that I ask to be signed before taking any deposit.

Many of my breeder friends also don’t accept visitors for similar reasons (disease risk, and for their own protection).

So to summarise (so you can see it from a breeders point of view), if a breeder doesn’t accept visitors this isn’t necessarily a red flag on its own, but the context is important. If they don’t accept visitors AND refuse to do video calls to show you their home, puppies/kittens, where they’re raised, etc ahead of you putting down a deposit, that’s when you should run :)

Puppies available in autumn also is not a red flag UNLESS they’re asking you for money right now, they shouldn’t ask for a deposit or anything financially until there is a puppy born and they’ve gone through the first few weeks (for kittens, they can pass from fading kitten syndrome unexpectedly in the first few weeks, so really should never be promising them to someone until they’re a few weeks old and past the more vulnerable stage to avoid heartache) but ready in autumn means they’ll be old enough to take home in autumn (I have a cat who is pregnant at the moment and based on pregnancy length and how long they stay with me, they will be ready to go home in autumn, however I would never ask for a deposit until the kittens are a few weeks old.

There are breeders out there who seem great but ask for a deposit to be added to their waiting list (rather than a deposit on a specific puppy/kitten). Avoid this at all costs. There was a notorious breeder in the UK who was exposed for horrible breeding conditions and she shut down because of it, but kept the TWO YEARS worth of advance ‘waiting list deposits’ she had and vanished without a trace, even moving house, lots of people never got their money back (she was also charging over 100 to be added to this list so not a small fee).

However in this case, I have to say that them offering to bring the puppies to you for a visit seems weird to me.

I'm a firm believer that the puppy chooses the family rather than the other way round! If you go see them in their home the puppy will come to you. She isn't allowing that to happen

I've always met the Mum and Dad (if in the same household) I visited when my pup was 5 weeks old to meet and greet with my older dog. Sounds like a scam.

I agree. Puppy farm or unethical (dodgy) breeders was my first thought upon reading the post.

run don’t walk away from this!

sounds like a puppy farm so if you care about dogs at all please don’t support them financially! The mum may be in a cage most of her life if they keep getting interest and orders and have no chance to get re homed with someone who would love them and bring them into the home 😥

Please do this

I’ve been involved with breeding and showing dogs for 35 years and have never heard of a situation like this. Agree that you should walk away and also report to the KC assured breeder programme.