When 85% of the nations populace is located only 1 –2 hours from an ocean and close to 75% of the purebred dogs are raised in the five Midwest states ( KS, OK, AR, MO, IA) the puppy buyer has an avenue/means of broadening their choices and selection. If puppy buyers on the east and west coast were limited to only what was available from their local hobby breeder or newspaper, many of you would not even get a puppy, let alone the quality that your looking for, unless they decided to buy from a local pet store, which is not always a good idea. Purchasing your future puppy through the means of the Internet could lead to you finding that perfect puppy match which would otherwise be impossible through any other venue. Common sense, little bit of patience and developing a trust relationship with the breeder/seller will go a long way toward helping you find your perfect puppy match. Good Luck !!!

The other day I received a phone call from our local chapter of the Better Business Bureau. They asked permission to use some of the information offered on this site to use in an interview with a local chapter of an animal rescue. The interview was about the increase in puppy scammers that are rising up on the web. This phone call alerted us to the importance of posting this information. I hope that you will carefully read ALL of it and then use wisdom and your inner voice to give you guidance to your Internet puppy purchase. The information provide in this article combines common sense principles with information derived from my own knowledge after talking with so many people that have been scammed.

1. Dont get suckered into low cost/cheap puppy prices. When you see a price of $400 – $600 US dollars for a AKC registered teacup yorkie female — and sometimes price includes shipping — you’d better run! Ladies, I hate to admit it, but we are often the “world’s worst” for a bargain. Well, “blue light specials” simply do not exist with Yorkies, and it is usually our emotions that get the best of us. The price of a yorkie puppy can vary depending on size, quality, sex, where you live or from where you are buying your puppy. If we take the East and West coast prices and average them with the mid-west prices, the cost of a yorkie puppy would generally range from $1,250 – $2,500. (Prices in national pet stores you would likely add $500 to $1,000 US).

2. Don’t adopt the next member of your family from a breeder/seller that does not have a website. Now I know a few will disagree, but many more will agree: How many of you, when you go to purchase from the web a product or item such as tools, clothing, etc. would buy from a company or person that does not have a website? A website should give a potential puppy buyer important information about the seller/breeder. This should be a way by which all puppy buyers to get to know the folks from whom they are buying their puppy. At the very least, the site should have an e-mail address, a home phone (not just a cell number) and a physical address. A reputable breeder website should not only have info about what puppies they have for sale but good educational information, information that will help you, as puppy parents, in the adoption process and for the care of your new puppy.

3. Don’t allow the breeder/seller use e-mail alone as the only form of communication. I speak with each and every puppy parent that is in the final steps of making a decision. I ask several important questions of them and they are free to ask questions of me. Through this means, we both are able to discern if the particular puppy that they are interested in is the perfect puppy match for them, and they in turn can get a better sense of whether they want to adopt one of our puppies.

4. Don’t buy from any foreign country such as Nigeria, Africa and Germany. I have personally seen the hard evidence of puppy scamming. Many Internet puppy classified ads such as puppyfind will warn you about sending money to these places.

5. Beware of buying your puppy from a individual, puppy placement service or puppy clearing house that does not have the puppy on their property and in the seller’s personal care. As you surf the web you will see what I call “ puppy clearing house” sites. These sites have all the “bells and whistles” like that of a commercial business which appeal to the emotions of the consumer. They have a very skilled sales personnel ready to “close the deal” for each puppy sale. They offer multiple breeds for sale and creative financing to pay for your puppy. These people/services that run these sites generally do not have any physical contact with either the breeder or the puppy offered on the site. They solicit breeders all throughout the US to place pictures on their site. They will charge a fee/commission to breeder when/if the puppy sells. Breeder, (generally in a different state) will ship said puppy and the seller has never physically seen or handled the puppy or personally knew the environment in which this puppy was raised. If you decide to buy from one of these sites, at least make sure that they are members of their local Better Business Bureau (BBB). This gives you a means of seeing what type of customer satisfaction record they may have.