National Dog Day: How to choose a dog breeder and what red flags to avoid

The Kennel Club has found three in ten spend less than a day researching breeders before deciding which they say can lead to complications later on.

Transcript

00:00Well, we've been doing research for a number of years. Unfortunately, the situation seems

00:04to be getting worse. The mistake people make are they are buying things in too much of

00:08a hurry. They're buying a puppy in perhaps the same way they might choose a pair of shoes

00:12or a washing machine. They don't think enough about it. And of course, it's very, very different.

00:16When you're buying a puppy, you're buying something that's going to come into your home,

00:19be part of your family. And I often say that buying a puppy should be much more like adopting

00:24a child than buying a piece of hardware, for example.

00:27What are the most common mistakes people make when choosing a breeder? And how can

00:31those mistakes contribute to the current puppy welfare crisis?

00:34The first thing is that you really need to see the puppy, where it's born, where it's

00:39raised with its mother. And that's vitally important because you get much more idea of

00:43the background of the puppy. The last thing you should want to do is meet someone at third

00:48party location. More important than the breed itself is the breeder. And if you find the

00:52right breeder, they will actually interview you. They will ask you lots of questions because

00:57a good breeder really cares about where their puppy goes. They care about how it's going

01:03to, what sort of life it's going to lead. They want to make sure it fits into your lifestyle.

01:06So I think that people should be prepared when they find a good breeder to be prepared

01:10to answer lots of questions.

01:11What are the implications of purchasing a poorly vetted, from a poorly vetted breeder

01:16that can have on a puppy's health and behavior? And obviously then, of course, has an emotional

01:20and financial toll on the owner as well.

01:23In the worst case scenario, we do have a number of puppies that die in their first

01:27year. And these can often be from diseases that are actually picked up at the breeder.

01:32So there's a disease called parvovirus, which is very common. And it's often an indication

01:38of bad management. You can take the puppy, it looks perfectly okay. And in two or three

01:43days, suddenly it gets very sick. And there's a huge emotional toll on that. You invested

01:48in a new puppy and it gets very sick. There's also the financial implications of that. Vets

01:54fees can be very expensive. Again, it's being very sensible, being very picky where you

01:58actually buy your puppy from.