Today one of my dog show friends shared something very upsetting for any responsible breeder to see. She found an ad on Craigslist of a puppy buyer selling their 4 month old Samoyed puppy because “dog ownership turned out not to be for them”. See the screenshot of the ad below:
Why is this so upsetting to see?
This puppy looks to be well bred so I can say with almost certainty that the breeder who bred this dog carefully screened every person they entrusted one of their sweet puppies to. I can also say with certainty that every responsible breeder has it in their contract, a contract every buyer has to sign, that if for whatever reason the buyer cannot or no longer wishes to care for the dog, the dog has to be returned to the breeder – NOT sent to a shelter or sold on Craigslist to God knows whom.
As a breeder it would absolutely break my heart if this was one of my puppies, a puppy I bred, out of my dogs whom I love dearly. For a responsible breeder, every puppy we produce is precious. We ask potential buyers a lot of questions, we make sure they understand the breed temperament, grooming and care needs, their energy levels. We do our best to match the right puppy to the right family. We want to stay in touch with every family we sell a puppy to for the life duration of that puppy, to help them with any problems, to answer questions.
However we can only go off the information someone gives us, we cannot read minds or see into the future which is why we have contracts in place which cover various situations that every buyer agrees to sign before we allow them to have one of our puppies. Therefore when a buyer breaks the contract it is a huge blow to any caring breeder.
Firstly if someone knowingly breaks the contract like that and the breeder finds this out you can be sure that this person will get blacklisted with all reputable breeders because we all know each other, directly or indirectly. Secondly this makes a lot of reputable breeders wonder “Should I even bother to continue to breed if this is how people are going to treat my puppies?”, “Where did this puppy end up? How are they being treated? I have no way to contact the new owner.”
Think before you get a dog, consider if this dog would be the right fit for your family, spend time with this breed at your local dog show to make sure it’s a good fit for you and if even after all of that, you get a puppy and it’s just not working out follow the contract you signed with your breeder as that will be the best thing for the dog. It is not the dog’s fault they didn’t fit into your family the way you had imagined, do not punish them for it.