Greg's Corner

Sick dogs continue to be sold on craigslist

When someone is in the market for a new puppy, they often look for one with their heart and not necessarily their heads. Scammers of all shapes and sizes love to take advantage of the emotional response people tend to have after seeing a puppy for the first time. Not surprisingly, craigslist is often the venue scammers use to pass off as many puppies as they can.

A couple in Rancho San Diego, California, found this out recently when they adopted a miniature dachshund off of craigslist. The couple even admits they ignored some red flags once they saw the puppy. Those red flags were that the puppy was being sold at a too good to be true price and that the seller wanted to meet at a parking lot and not where the dogs were allegedly being bred. Days after adopting the puppy the dachshund became sick and a vet diagnosed the puppy with distemper. Sadly, this is an all too common occurrence on the unmoderated craigslist.

While purchasing a dog off of craigslist may give you that instant satisfaction of getting a puppy that day, in the long run, it’s worth taking your time to research the seller. You could be buying a dog from either a puppy mill or backyard breeder who is more intent on just making money than ethically breeding these dogs. Often these dogs have parvovirus which is contagious and can affect other pets in your household. For these reasons, Geebo does not accept ads for pets as we do not want to contribute to what is essentially animal cruelty. As always, we recommend only adopting pets from shelters or licensed breeders.