At Stop Online Puppy Mills, we constantly preach that buying puppies online is flat out dangerous. Before you buy a puppy, there are many reasons why it is in your best interest to meet both the mother dog and the puppy. It’s the only way you can assess their living conditions and health. After all, this pup will be a part of your family for many, many years. It is also very important to see the conditions in which the dogs live, you don’t want to support animal cruelty.
Stop Online Puppy Mills is contacted frequently by consumers asking for advice regarding the legitimacy of websites and breeders selling puppies online. People want to know if these sites are puppy mills. One the of most frequently asked questions is about the website: PuppySpot.
PuppySpot.com is a Puppy Broker
PuppySpot is what we call a puppy broker website. In fact, they are registered with the USDA as a broker. Puppy broker websites are platforms for breeders to sell their puppies. A puppy broker website may sell thousands of puppies from hundreds of breeders. In our opinion, PuppySpot does absolutely that! To note, PuppySpot used to be called Purebred Breeders. That alone is worth a Google search.
Stop Online Puppy Mills does not endorse PuppySpot or the many other puppy broker websites listing puppies for sale over the internet.
PuppySpot appeals to consumers with a slick and colorful website. To the uneducated consumer, the website looks professional, as they boast about selling thousands of puppies to thousands of happy families. They have personal shoppers called “puppy concierges” that assist you with the buying process. They even have a “no puppy mill promise” that makes consumers feel as if they can trust the site and the breeders. PuppySpot makes it very convenient to buy a puppy and have it shipped to you, just like you were buying a new pair of shoes.
Lastly, they are in some sort of collaboration with the animal protection organization American Humane, which is a partnership we question. We have reached out to American Humane numerous times with questions in an attempt to understand this partnership with no reply.
These are just some of the reasons we would advise anyone looking for a puppy to stay far away from the PuppySpot website.
PuppySpot Sales Tactics
PuppySpot.com lures you in with thousands of cute puppy photos. Once you are interested in a listed puppy, you can read a puppy’s very short bio. If you want to get more information about that puppy, you have to call a PuppySpot “puppy concierge.”
Stop Online Puppy Mills called and found they would only tell us a limited amount of information about the puppies we were interested in. They require a deposit to learn more about the breeder, puppy or puppies we were interested in. To us, these sales concierges seemed to be reading from a script created for each puppy.
We also found the sales concierges to be very pushy. They pressured us to put down a deposit or buy the puppy. For instance, we were told other people were interested in the puppy and the puppy could be gone if we waited too long. One “concierge” called us back several times pressuring us, asking if we were going to buy the puppy or not. When we asked the concierge if he made commission from the sale of the dog, he said yes.
From our expierence, PuppySpot “puppy concierges” seem to be nothing more than commissioned salespeople who most likely have monthly sales quotas to fill. And to note, Puppy Spot posts job listings on Indeed looking for “Sales Specialist (Puppy Concierge)”.
And then there is the PuppySpot “no puppy mill promise.”
Is PuppySpot a Puppy Mill?
For the most part, USDA-licensed commercial dog breeders are high volume puppy producers. Holding a USDA license allows these breeders to wholesale puppies to pet stores, sell puppies to puppy brokers or ship puppies sight unseen to consumers. PuppySpot itself is registered as a dog broker with the USDA and because their breeders mostly ship puppies sight unseen, many of their dog breeders are USDA licensed as stated on their website.
Sadly, the USDA has been very lax in enforcement and inspections of their dog breeders for many years. Some years, close to 50% of the dog breeders listed on the Humane Society Horrible Hundred lists are USDA licensed. In our opinion, you absolutely don’t want your puppy to come from a high volume USDA commercial dog breeder.
Responsible breeders have nothing to hide. They are proud of the way they breed and raise their puppies. Responsible breeders want to meet the families who will be giving their puppy a new home. We urge anyone who is buying a puppy to meet the mother dog and puppy before they pay.
PuppySpot.com shifts the attention from you meeting the mother dog, seeing her condition and the conditions the puppy was born in, to them conveniently shipping the puppy to you without ever meeting the puppy or it’s mother. PuppySpot does not disclose breeder information until the new puppy has been delivered to you under the guise of “breeder privacy.”
We feel the “convenience” of them shipping the puppy to you, clouds the consumer’s desire to meet the mother dog and puppy beforehand. Shipping puppies at young ages can be dangerous for the puppies. In our conversations with the Puppy Concierage, PuppySpot seems to present shipping puppies as if this is a normal way to buy an animal. It is not.
Certification Claims by American Humane
Lastly, PuppySpot advertises (over the internet and on their website) that they are in a collaboration with American Humane. American Humane is essentially endorsing PuppySpot by allowing American Humane to be listed on and collect donations from the PuppySpot website. Since American Humane is a certification organization, we thought we should reach out to them and ask why they are associated with a company that mass sells puppies online.
Using their own words from American Humane’s Puppy Mill Position Statement, we want to know how American Humane can guarantee that every one of the thousands of dogs and puppies in the PuppySpot breeder network are receiving basic care such as clean water, food and veterinary care.
Can they guarantee that that every one of the thousands of dogs and puppies in the breeder network all have clean safe kennels, and regular exercise?
Can they guarantee that not one of the thousands of dogs or puppies in those kennels is not suffering emotionally from lack of socialization or isolation and that none of the thousands of puppies’ sold experience trauma from being commercially transported at early ages?
We tried many times to reach both the Executive Director and the National Director of Companion Animals at American Humane as well as officers of the organization with no response. Instead, we received a letter of warning from PuppySpot’s General Counsel. We in turn, have asked Puppy Spot to clarify the same questions we asked American Humane and are waiting for a response.
If you or anyone you know have purchased a puppy from PuppySpot and want to make a complaint, please contact us.
Don’t Support PuppySpot.com
In summary, we do not recommend buying a puppy from PuppySpot.com. If you want more information, please see the many reviews available online. Do not trust the self posted reviews on the PuppySpot website. We recommend looking up the reviews listed on outside review agencies such as the Better Business Bureau, Trustpilot, Glassdoor, and Sidehusl, These reviews are from previous puppy buyers and ex-employees with inside information.
The bottom line: Buying a puppy online only perpetuates the cruel cycle of puppy mills. It hides the reality and cruelty from buyers and it paints a false picture of who these mass breeders really are. Before you buy, verify. See for yourself that the puppy you are buying is coming from a breeder that properly cares for and has the best interest of the parents and the puppies at heart.
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