Why does Good Dog have a Community Concerns Policy?

Good Dog has this policy in place because we are on a mission to support and protect you and your fellow Good Breeders and to keep our community safe for our Good Dog family. Our community was founded upon trust and transparency and this policy helps us ensure we are delivering on our commitments to you and our puppy buyers.

Our commitment to protect breeders: We know breeders may be targeted by unfair accusations and we often find that by investigating claims against breeders, we're able to help protect breeders, disprove unfounded rumors, correct the record, and help safeguard breeders’ hard-earned reputations.

We know how much time, effort, investment, and love you and your fellow Good Breeders put into your breeding programs and your dogs - you’ve spent years (often decades!) building your reputations as incredible breeders and we owe a duty to each and every one of you to ensure that our community remains full of breeders just as committed to their dogs, buyers, and owners as you are!

Our commitment to transparency. One of the founding pillars of our community is transparency. Inspired by the example you and your fellow Good Breeders set with your commitment to transparency that you make to your buyers and owners. So it’s also important for us to make sure we are being transparent with buyers and owners on Good Dog.

Our commitment to trust & safety. One of our core values and commitments to our Good Dog family of both Good Breeders and puppy buyers is trust. We take compliance with our Community Standards, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and other policies incredibly seriously because we owe it to you and the rest of our community. Once approved, all programs on Good Dog are subject to regular reviews to ensure that our Community Standards, Good Breeder Code of Ethics, and Policies are upheld and consistently and fairly enforced among all members of our community.

In the extremely rare instances where we are alerted that a breeder is no longer in compliance with our Community Standards, Terms of Service, or policies, we believe it is in our Good Dog family’s best interest to have a process in place to investigate any such claims to help us ensure we keep Good Dog a trusted and safe community.

What is Good Dog’s Community Concerns Policy?

We have a confidential concerns policy in place where anyone with concerns about a Good Breeder can email us at communityconcerns@gooddog.com. The identity of the person making the complaint and any information that is shared with us is kept strictly confidential and will be used solely for the purposes of our internal fact-finding investigation. The sole exception of this is if it’s necessary to reveal a specific puppy that a concern applies to, which would then reveal the identity of the person making the complaint. In those cases we will always ask permission first.

This allows us to work with our community - together - to help maintain the standards in our community.

When we receive a complaint, our Legal & Compliance Department, led by lawyers and animal welfare experts, conducts an independent investigation, which entails an examination of all evidence submitted, independent investigation, review of any publicly available materials, discussions with any relevant third parties (including vets, co-breeders, past buyers, etc.), and, most importantly, a discussion with the accused breeder.

We contact the accused breeder as soon as we receive a complaint and keep the breeder informed as much as possible throughout the investigation so we can do our very best to ensure a fair result based on the facts.

More often than not, we are able to find verifiable information to disprove a complaint and the breeder who has been wrongfully accused and worked with us during the course of our investigation is so grateful to us for getting to the truth. However, sometimes breeding programs may be found to be in violation of our Community Standards and/or our Terms of Service, and/or our policies. We always communicate the findings and outcome of our investigation directly to the breeder.

We know how hard you work and how much you put into your programs. We are committed to doing right by you and supporting you.

What should I do if Good Dog receives a complaint about me or my breeding program?

Don’t worry! We are here to make sure that your reputation is protected. We’re committed to being transparent with you, so we’ll reach out to you directly to let you know and give you the opportunity right away to share your side of the story.

From there, we complete a full fact-finding investigation of all complaints we receive in order to ensure that our standards are enforced consistently and based on verifiable information. We encourage all our breeders to work with us throughout the course of the investigation so we can be sure we are gathering as much evidence as possible and that your interests are fairly represented.

What happens if I’m wrongfully accused?

We know that breeders are all too often wrongfully accused. If you believe you have been wrongfully accused (whether on Good Dog or elsewhere), we urge you to stay calm (we know it’s not always easy to relax in a difficult situation like this!) and contact us immediately - we’re always here for you.

We know there are always two sides to any story - that is why we always contact the accused breeder as soon as we receive a complaint. Similar to a judicial process, we seek to find corroborating evidence to ensure that our breeders are not being wrongfully accused and are not unfairly penalized because of unsubstantiated rumors. Our Legal & Compliance Committee always does their best to come to a resolution that is based on the facts of the case.

What happens if a Good Breeder does not comply with Good Dog’s Terms, Standards or Policies?

If it is found that any breeder is not in compliance with our Community Standards, Terms of Service or policies, we always communicate our findings to the breeder directly.

In the extremely rare instances of an egregious violation (for example, if a breeder accepts money from a buyer but then becomes unresponsive to both the buyer and Good Dog), our Legal & Compliance Department may determine the appropriate actions to take. In their discretion and following an investigation, they may decide that a breeder be suspended from Good Dog for a period of time or be removed from the Good Dog platform.

We always communicate the decision directly to the breeder and work with them to ensure they understand the outcome. We also encourage breeders to reach back out to us in the future if anything changes with their program and, as a result, they would like to apply to rejoin our community. We always wish our breeders the very best with their program, whether or not they remain a part of the Good Dog community.

Does Good Dog contact puppy buyers if a Good Breeder is removed due to non-compliance with Good Dog’s Terms, Standards or Policies?

We only contact a breeder’s buyers in extremely rare circumstances. We know how hard breeders work and we are committed to respecting breeders’ privacy and reputations.

If a breeder is removed from the Good Dog platform, the breeder’s recent and active puppy applicants will no longer be able to communicate with them through our site, so we reach out to the breeder’s recent and active applicants to let them know they should contact the breeder in the future outside of the Good Dog platform so there is no interruption in communication. We do not reveal any material details regarding the removal as part of our commitment to respect breeders’ privacy.

We reach out to buyers in these rare circumstances to ensure (1) the lines of communication between the breeder and applicant remain open and prevent any confusion on the applicant’s end about why they are no longer able to reach the breeder through the Good Dog platform, and (2) that we are remaining true to our commitment of transparency to our Good Dog community.

We always attempt to contact breeders by phone and/or email to let them know in advance that we’ll be contacting their recent puppy applicants. We encourage breeders to speak with their recent Good Dog applicants directly before we reach out to them so they can let their recent applicants know in advance that we’ll be notifying them that the breeder is no longer currently certified as a Good Breeder as part of our commitment of transparency to puppy buyers. Attached below as Exhibit A you will find the email a breeder’s recent puppy applicants would receive in the rare circumstances described above.

The sole exception to this is if we find that a breeder knowingly produced puppies with a life-altering condition (1) that could have been prevented through pre-breeding health testing (e.g. autosomal recessive genetic disorders where commercial test kits are available), and 2) that was not revealed to their puppy buyers prior to purchase. Where attempts to encourage the breeder to directly disclose and communicate with their buyers are unsuccessful, Good Dog may reach out directly to puppy owners. These situations are exceptionally rare, but it is important that this information is communicated to an owner to ensure the puppy will receive the necessary medical treatment. In these instances, the only information communicated to a puppy owner is the health-related issues that directly affect their puppy.

Our Commitment to Dog Breeders Everywhere

We are committed to putting an end to “breeder bashing.” We do not disparage breeding programs that are removed from our community, nor do we speak of them negatively.

Thank You!

We are so thankful for our community of Good Breeders for helping us keep our community a trusted, transparent, and safe place for all the members of our Good Dog family.

This Community Concerns Policy is effective as of the date noted below. If we update this policy, we will revise the Last Updated date.

Last updated: May 8, 2024

Exhibit A

Email to be sent only in extremely rare and egregious circumstances as outlined above in Good Dog’s Community Concerns Policy:

Dear [RECENT PUPPY APPLICANT],

Thank you so much for being a part of the Good Dog community!

We are writing to let you know that [BREEDER], a breeder you connected with recently on our site, is no longer a member of our online community of certified Good Breeders. This means that from now on, you won’t be able to communicate with them through our platform anymore, but can communicate with them directly. Our general policy is not to disclose the specific reasons that a breeder is no longer a recognized breeder on our platform, but we wanted to bring this situation to your attention in the event that you are still communicating with [BREEDER] through the Good Dog website. We encourage you to reach out to [BREEDER] directly if you have any questions.

If you have any questions or concerns at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out anytime - we are always available here to help!

Warmly,
Good Dog