Don’t get fooled

With the advent of the internet, YouTube, and social media, plus several movies, corgis, particularly Pembroke Welsh Corgis, have become a trendy breed. They were in 24th place in 2013 according to the American Kennel Club; 20th in 2015, 15th in 2017, and 13th place in 2018. In 2019 and 2020, corgis rose to be the 11th most popular breed.

With that increase in popularity, the interest in acquiring a corgi puppy has dramatically rocketed. At the end, what you would want is to receive as part of your family a healthy, active, behaviorally correct corgi puppy free of genetic disorders and sound to the characteristics of the breed.  Overall, a puppy that represents all of those characteristics that have enamored you with the corgi breed. 

De San Juan Serena and PR Ch Foxfire’s Tachán de Tamaríz (proud sire), before Serena’s departure to a new home in Spain in 2003.

Responsible breeders work hard to set these health, behavior, and breed characteristics in the puppies they produce as part of their cynology hobby or sport. But sadly, unscrupulous breeders want to take advantage of the corgi breed popularity to make easy money. They don’t really care if that puppy is genetically healthy or meets the essential characteristics you are looking for in a new family companion corgi. At times the fraudulent scheme goes as far as taking your money and not providing a corgi puppy at all.

Don’t get fooled; don’t get scammed.
I have heard too many stories, locally and nationally, of folks looking for a corgi puppy and being led through the internet to scams in which they end up stealing your money, overcharging for the dog, or selling you a puppy not responsibly bred. We have heard stories of brokers that buy puppies from puppy-mills and resell them to you for a profit, with no knowledge of parents, health, genetic disorders, and no intention of guiding you in introducing your new corgi puppy to your home and family. There are thousands of fraudulent puppy websites; if you are looking for a puppy, you should learn to identify these to avoid being defrauded.

Here are some tips on how to identify fraudulent sellers and avoid puppy scams. Scammers usually:

  • Announce puppies in classified ads or set up a fake webpage.  
  • Use photographs of the puppies or parents stolen from legitimate breeder webpages or stock photos from the internet. 
The photo provided by the Clasificados Online seller is a common photo used in dozens of internet pages and not of the puppy’s sire. This was easily discovered using Google Reverse Image Search.
The photo provided of the supposedly puppy’s mom was also taken from the internet from a page (animalso.com), also easily discovered by using Google Reverse Image Search.
  • When contacted, answer in scripted messages or voice messages that erase themselves in a few minutes. A video chat will ease this and serve as a test that you are talking to a real person and not a scammer. 
  • Promise healthy and kennel-registered puppies and documentation of these after the sale of the puppy is completed. They usually don’t provide the puppy’s parent pedigree.
  • Immediately ask for a deposit because their premise is that the puppy is available unless someone else pays the deposit first. The deposit is usually non-refundable.
  • Discourage visiting the puppy and puppy’s parents because of infinite reasons and excuses. You must see the puppy and his parents and observe their behaviors with other dogs and how well-kept they are raised. 
  • Using distance or the current pandemic as an excuse, they encourage shipping the puppy through a shipping company, usually a second fraudulent webpage. They may offer as a consideration to you shipping it directly to you at a discount rate, but this is part of the scam. Responsible breeders of corgis primarily do not ship their puppies and ask prospective new owners to stop by to pick up their puppy.
  • Keep asking for unforeseen expenses or additional fees for vaccines, cargo crates, health certificates, microchip, etc.
  • Ask for unusual payment methods where your bank can’t reverse the charges. Alternatives methods used include gift cards or wire money transfers that can’t be reversed. 
  • Price the puppy at a cost either too good to be true or overly expensive. Some offer a free puppy just to get you involved in their shipping scam. You need to do due diligence to determine the typical cost for a puppy of in your local area and nationally. For example, most responsible breeders of corgis sell their pet puppies between US$1,500 and US$3,000. Open-registry or show-quality puppies may be offered at a higher price and with other conditions, such as co-ownership or reproductive rights. 

Overall, if the puppy deal sounds too good to be true, it isn’t. Don’t get fooled!