Don't Get Fooled With Puppy Advertisements

Don’t Get Fooled!
Jaymie Pierce


On our ever-ending search for that perfect addition to our family, I answered a few advertisements with our newspaper Atlanta Journal Constitution online. This paper is highly regarded and I enjoy reading it quite often.
One out of ten replies that I received back were touching, heart warming stories from these poor souls in Cameroon trying to find homes for their Yorkshire terrier puppies. My heart ached for them as I read through the long drawn out replies I received. No, I’m sorry I’m not so gullible to think that all Yorkshire terriers come from Cameroon. These emails they send out are hilarious and you know with the first sentence this is a scam. How can they truly think that someone would send them loads of cash in order to get their precious pups shipped to them from another country? Do they expect that I will stand at the airport excited and ready to take the darling home and find that the crate never comes off the airplane? I have to laugh to myself at their gumption. I have to feel sad for those that obviously fall prey to this trickery. There must be people that do believe these stories and send in their money, or they would not be so persistent and have so many advertisements for puppies on the classifieds. As I write this I’ve scanned many, many websites on the Internet warning people of the puppy scams. How can one not do a little research about foreign puppies before handing over their money? I know that when we want a new darling for our family we become frenzied in our search for that special puppy. I don’t think that I will ever get to a point where all my common sense will fly out the window and I will start sending out cash all over the globe and wait patiently at the airport for any puppy. It saddens me that people fall for these scams and they get hurt and lose their money. But, if there are those out there that will send them money, they will never stop!

In my frustration with the advertisements, I’ve decided to stop wasting my time. It seems that most of them on the Internet in the classifieds are some sort of scam and a waste of time to research. I will continue our search with local breeders and try to go with word of mouth through other breeders in our area. I’m sure that I will find that perfect addition to our family soon, hopefully before my daughters birthday, but then again a nicely wrapped collar and leash might just have to suffice as a promise for a puppy to put it on if we are still searching by mid-July.

As I continue on this journey I will keep good notes and I hope that when I am all finished with our search and we have our baby in hand, my adventure will be good use to others out there ready to find that new addition to their family.

Remember, stay local in your search, don’t get excited with advertisements in your local newspaper or on the Internet that are way below market price for the animal or seem to good to be true. Know your breed you are shopping for and what the going rate is and when you see a price that stands out to you that seems like a deal, run the other direction. Even if the dog is local this could be a puppy mill animal or an unhealthy animal. You always want to go where you can see the parents on premises at least the mother of the puppies and you want to see the puppies interact with the litter and the mother as well as with you and your family. Even when getting a gift for a child or family member, it’s not a good idea for this to be a surprise gift because the puppy needs to interact with everyone. Take the entire family with you when you go to visit your new puppy to be and if you don’t feel it’s the one then walk away and continue the search. As hard as it sounds when you are ready to take that puppy home, it’s always better to wait and get the perfect pet for your family then taking one out of impulse at the moment.