I am not a ‘purist’ about breeds and breed standards. I am not a particular fan of the Kennel Club either. But one thing they do try to do (more or less effectively depending on your viewpoint) is to regulate breeding practices, educate breeders and standardise breed standards. I have been an open show judge (3 different breeds) and when I judged I judged to those breed standards.  If I were to breed a “pure breed” I’d breed to them as well. I’d do the health checks the KC demand. Why? Because puppy buyers should know they are buying a pup with the very best chance of predicting how it might turn out. Not just in what it looks like, but its temperament and its health. That it goes wrong sometimes is not entirely the Kennel Club’s fault as some would have us believe. Dog breeding is not an exact science.

The trouble is so many puppy buyers believe the KC is about some kind of elite clique, producing overpriced, unhealthy pups, only breeding them so they can win at Crufts. So who wants to bother with KC breeds for a family pet dog?

Well, here is why.

When you go online to find a puppy to buy you will see HUNDREDS of adverts with piccies of cute puppies. That they are highly unlikely to be the actual puppy the seller is selling is the first untruth you’ll meet. It’ll be the first of many. The description. Puppy farmers know what they have to say to sell puppies. So they make things up. Some ‘breeds’ sell better and attract higher prices. So long as it looks roughly like it and the parents might even be those breeds is all that matters. “Reared in the home”, bred from “much loved family pets” are 2 winning lies they will include in their adverts. If you haven’t SEEN that for yourself, on more than one occasion, and met the breeder in their own home (some ripoff merchants go as far as to borrow and rent ‘homes’ to fool buyers) then don’t believe it. That lovely person you have spoken to on the phone, or exchanged emails with, cuddling puppies when you come to collect yours, does not care ONE JOT about the welfare of those puppies, or who buys them. They just want the money.

But what does it really matter if they lie or not? It’s a puppy. You’ll love and care for it so why does it matter? Indeed, you might feel you have rescued it from a terrible start in life.

Here’s more reasons to care. Apart from just being ripped off, paying a lot of money for something other than what you believe you have bought, and putting money onto the pockets of people who abuse animals, it is more likely to be physically ill. The poor puppy’s welfare aside, it could cost you a lot of money within days. It could have serious (and dangerous and/or expensive) behaviour problems as it matures if the dam has been under stress and the litter has been reared in a shed isolated from people.

Here’s where the KC bit might help. If a puppy is sold as specific breed and it does not look like one according to the KC breed standard, or is a colour the KC doesn’t recognise, there’s a good chance the breeder or seller is lying to you. Yes, lying. These unscrupulous puppy sellers lie. A lot. If they are lying about that, then what else are they lying about? All the above perhaps.   The KC also plays other roles but the real giveaway that you may well be dealing with a puppy dealer, back yard breeder or puppy farmer is that they call their puppy a certain breed when it clearly isn’t one to anyone in the know.

Of course the seller might be genuine, and lovely, and just not care overmuch about breed standards and happy to simply breed healthy happy family pets that just aren’t very typical specimens. Those breeders exist and they will welcome caring puppy buyers. Sometimes they breed crossbreeds. There are excellent breeders who breed crossbreeds. Hurrah for all of them. We need them. But unless you get to KNOW that person in advance of the litter even being born perhaps, and know they are honest and caring and do love the pups they bring into the world, then walk away. Go to a rescue shelter, or find a breeder who cares, doesn’t abuse dogs,  and doesn’t lie about what they are selling.