This image contains content which some may find confronting
Can you spot a puppy factory ad when you see one?
The ads above are two of thousands of listings for puppies on Australia’s largest online classifieds website — the Trading Post. Both ads show animals in a grassy backyard, in the sunshine — seemingly happy and healthy, and from good homes. Can you tell which one is actually an advertisement for a cruel puppy factory?
Both of the ads listed above were made by a Victorian puppy farmer, publicly exposed for confining dogs and puppies in concrete pens with no bedding, no stimulation, and no quality of life. The breeding dogs in this facility will live their entire lives confined to these pens with little to no human interaction — no walks at the park, no pats on the head, and no treats under the table. All of these dogs have been bred to be companions — and yet they are denied human companionship, all in the name of profit.
This breeder relied heavily on selling puppies through online avenues such as the Trading Post, where misleading ads of ‘happy’ dogs and pups are designed to dupe prospective buyers into thinking they are purchasing animals from a loving and healthy environment.
This image contains content which some may find confronting
This image contains content which some may find confronting
The lack of scrutiny on online sellers has made the Trading Post and other online trading sites, like Gumtree, major hubs for puppy factory sales. Sellers may offer to ‘ship’ animals interstate, deliver them to your address, or meet at a pre-determined destination — all in attempts to avoid a prospective buyer becoming aware of the real conditions the puppies were born into. Ads may offer misleading information in the descriptions — making use of buzzwords like ‘happy’, ‘healthy’ and ‘well-socialised’ to describe the puppies and their parents, knowing that if caring people really knew the truth about their practices, they would not support the trade in dog and puppy misery.
Online trading sites wield the power to either underpin or undermine the online puppy factory trade. Help us encourage them to enact a policy to only allow ads from legitimate animal shelters:
If you want to see an end to puppy factories, please NEVER buy animals online. The best way to combat cruel puppy and kitten factories is to always adopt your next best friend from a shelter or rescue group. Check out more great reasons to adopt (not shop!)
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