the Peril of Puppies online

“Buying a puppy online is probably the worst thing you can do when looking for a new pet,” said Kelli Ohrtman, Best Friends’ Puppies Aren’t Products Campaign Specialist.

“While I completely understand how adorable puppies’ photos are on the Internet, we caution people never to go this route. Breeders selling online are often not regulated by anyone depending on what state they’re in, and it’s a way for breeders to cater to customers who will never see the conditions they keep their dogs in.”

Best Friends was involved in a puppy mill case last year where a West Virginia breeder with 973 dogs was shut down. She sold puppies almost exclusively on the Internet. To read about the case, click here.

Many thousands of puppies are sold over the Internet each year. Approximately 20 percent of the sick puppy complaints that the Humane Society of the United States received last year involved Internet transactions. In these cases, people either ordered their puppy over the Internet or dealt with a seller whose ad they found on the Internet. Of all the sick puppy complaints received (Internet, pet store and otherwise), about 20 percent involved pups who died.



“Puppy sales on the Internet are not regulated,” said Ohrtman. “Customers don’t have the same protections with online sales as they do even buying from a pet store, and we know that those protections, lemon laws and such, aren’t enough to ensure the best for puppies or customers.”

A Win-Win Alternative
An important fact to remember for people who want only a purebred dog is that approximately 25% of dogs in shelters are purebreds. If you look for a purebred Chihuahua on Petfinder.com, for example, you'll find thousands of Chihuahuas looking for homes, like Agape, a female Chihuahua available for adoption.


In fact, there are hundreds of thousands of wonderful dogs in shelters, waiting for homes. Before you buy a dog, please consider opening your heart and home to a shelter dog. Besides finding a friend for life, you will know that your dog adoption will help decrease demand for puppy mill dogs and help to end the terrible suffering of dogs kept in puppy mills.