Look out, gundog thieves about

While some people have spent the past year of lockdown perfecting their knitting skills or learning to use Zoom, thousands of others have been busy house-training puppies. Demand for dogs went through the roof in 2020. In May, the Kennel Club reported a 237% rise in searches for puppies on its website.

With dogs in such high demand, it is no surprise that the price of puppies exploded. A quick scan reveals golden retriever pups for £4,000 each, so-called silver labradors for £4,500 and even cockerpoos for £3,750 per pup.

With the pandemic restricting travel, many people have turned to the internet to find puppies, however, the worry with many of these sites is that unlike sourcing a pup from a registered breeder or a friend, you don’t know how honest the seller is.

In its own way, lockdown has played into the hands of dodgy dealers: with buyers often unable to travel to visit a litter of puppies, it is increasingly common for people only to see photos or videos of a dog before they put down a deposit or pick it up. There are also numerous stories of ‘puppy scammers’, who take deposits for puppies and then simply disappear.

All this makes it easier for people to sell stolen dogs reported a 170% increase in the number of missing dogs since the start of the pandemic. The Stolen and Missing Pets Alliance estimates that as many as 10 dogs a day are being snatched – and thieves are coming up with all manner of methods to take them. There have been reports in Wales of people turning up at people’s homes claiming to be from the RSPCA and, for the first time, even guide dogs have been targeted.