How to Safely Invite Puppy Buyers Into Your Home

The puppy buying process is all about communication between the breeder and the puppy buyer, and this is especially important for one stage in the process - the home visit. Oftentimes, breeders invite prospective puppy buyers to come visit the new puppies and further assess if the buyer is the right fit. However, most breeders operate their breeding programs from their homes. Inviting strangers into your home can leave you in a vulnerable position. Not only can buyers unintentionally bring in germs that are dangerous to puppies, but there have also been many unfortunate stories where someone posed as a buyer only to steal a breeder’s valuables or physically harm the breeder. 

Below are some precautions breeders should take to ensure that home visits are safe and comfortable for all parties involved, including the breeder, their family members, the puppies, and the buyers.

Protecting Your Puppies

The first major concern is protecting your puppies from possible contamination or diseases that can be brought in from outside. Young puppies are susceptible to falling ill from exposure to outside contaminants such as parvovirus, so it is crucial to keep their health in mind. Good Dog breeders and Advisors have a few best practices for inviting buyers inside to interact with puppies:

• Most breeders will not allow visits until the puppies are older and less fragile than newborns, but be aware that older puppies are just as, if not more, susceptible to parvo as newborns are to the disease.
• When it is time for a home visit, ask all visitors to leave their shoes at the door and thoroughly wash their hands before greeting any of the dogs. 
• Remind prospective puppy buyers that they should not combine their visit with visits to other places that can contribute to unintentional cross contamination, such as grocery stores or dog parks, or visits to other breeders. 
• Lay out clear rules to all visitors on how to handle and interact with the puppies.

Protecting Mom & Other Adult Dogs

It is equally important to protect the mom and other adult dogs. While disease is not as much of a concern, it is possible that the dogs, especially the mom, will be anxious at having strangers in the house. Other times, well meaning buyers may accidentally harm them when handling them. Ensure the wellbeing of your dogs by confining anxious dogs to a separate part of the house or behind a baby gate. Never let anyone interact with any of your dogs unsupervised. Although rare, there have been cases where adult dogs were targeted for theft. 

Protecting Yourself

It is also important that you protect yourself. Never give the impression that you are alone or the only adult in the house. Always have other family members or close friends present. In addition, you should not publish your address or phone number online. Only give buyers this information after you have sufficiently communicated with them and feel comfortable sharing these details. You should obtain and verify their personal information as well by having all prospective buyers fill out an application for the litter.

Protecting Your Home

Finally, it is best practice for you to limit a buyer’s access within your home. Unfortunately, there have been situations where people have posed as puppy buyers in order to steal from a breeder’s home and/or to harm the breeder. If possible, ask the buyer to sit outside in the yard, rather than inside the home or near the whelping box. 

You should also bring the puppies to the buyer one at a time. Not only does this allow the buyer to focus on getting to know each puppy individually, but it will deter anyone with ulterior motives from stealing the puppies or casing the house. You should avoid leaving a buyer alone with any dogs or puppies, even if you’re just going into the next room. While you should be transparent and encourage buyers to visit your puppies and kennel set up, never let anyone take photos or videos of your dogs or living space. Instead, offer to share with the buyer photos of the puppy with which they had a special connection. This way, you only need to share what you are comfortable with.

There are many ways for breeders to keep yourselves safe during the home visit. While there have certainly been many stories about deceitful buyers, these situations are out of the norm. You should enjoy the home visit and establish a personal connection with buyers. If you are not comfortable with inviting visitors into your house at all, offer the option to video call with the buyer so they can see the puppies. No matter how you choose to interact with buyers, remember to always remain alert!