Advertising

Advertising on Kijiji.. Again my opinion!!

I have been breeding CKC (Canadian Kennel Club) registered Basset Hounds and Golden Retrievers for over 17 years. I am not a member of the Basset Hound club of Canada but anyone who has actually come by to meet myself, my dogs and my facility know I am not a puppy mill and I am a reputable breeder. I care deeply about my dogs and every puppy that leaves my premises. Being a good honest reputable breeder is a lifestyle not a job and predicts everything you do in a day! The Basset Hound Club of Canada has made reference to an article that was in the London metro newspaper, in their current issues of their All Ears magazine. I have attached both articles at the bottom of the page. I cannot believe that a national club would stoop to this level! By making a suggestive statement that by advertising on a free classified site such as kijiji would make you a non-reputable breeder.  This just floors me!!! I know many many very reputable breeders (including myself) that have used this free classified website and many others just like it. Breeders that have been in the business for over 30 and 40 years! They have produced many and I mean many  Champions here in Canada and abroad. This article suggests because a breeder that needs to advertise on a very popular classified website where most of the general public that knows how to work a computer goes to look for breeders or puppies… this make them a puppy mill. This is just ridiculous, and again it floors me!! Let me get you to think about this!! What about all the breeders that have a website… puppy mills can have a great looking websites, and so do reputable breeders! What about all the breeders that are on google, bing, yahoo or any other search engine… puppies mills and reputable breeders are using that as a form of advertisement! What about google and bing, they have a pay per click advertising. Puppy mills and reputable Breeders can use this form of advertising, and when you use this form of advertising is shows up on kijiji.  So I guess reputable breeders should not advertise at all!! We should not be out there letting people know that we have puppies for sale. We should just let puppy mills take over the internet. Maybe we should just shut down the World Wide Web as it is one big classified add!! We can all go back to advertising in newspapers. I believe that there are not as many puppy mills out there today as there was before the age of the internet. (I don’t have the statistics on this but there is a lot more informative information on the internet to help people find what they are looking for) I can’t believe that Breed clubs are actually spending their time to go at breeders and where they advertise. Shouldn’t Breed clubs be spending more of their time and money informing the general public on what to look for in a reputable breeder!! Should they be telling people that in the world it is a buyer beware!!! Shouldn’t they be informing the public that yes there are still puppy mills out there and not to support a breeder that won’t let you see the parents of the pups, and see the conditions that the pups are raised in? My final thoughts on this is .. It doesn’t matter where a breeder of any breed chooses to let the public know that they have puppies that are still looking for caring homes. It is more important to make sure people are informed about what kind of conditions the puppies parents are in, and the living conditions the puppy came from, and temperament of the breed that the people are looking for.. etc!! Bottom line we will never shut down all the puppy mills in the world. If I thought there would be a way I would be first in line to stop them. But having Breed Clubs that are supposed to educate and support the breeders of their breeds comes out with stuff like this in their monthly magazine it starts to make you think … who is running these breed clubs, and who are they not actually are they supporting…. Really!!!! From the London Metro …the whole article not the one published in the BHCC All Ears.

 

Kijiji pressed to end sale of household pets By Benjamin Shingler The Canadian PressAP/Walter Michot A full-grown Yorkie rescued from a Tennessee puppy mill is shown in Dania Beach, Fla., June 30, 2008. Related: MONTREAL – Canada’s largest classified website is under pressure to ban the sale of household pets as part of a Montreal woman’s quest to put an end to puppy mills. Barbara Lapointe, a mother of two who operates a dog walking business, wants Kijiji to instead promote adoption from registered animal rescue groups and individual families. Lapointe’s online petition, posted on the website Change.org, had collected nearly 48,000 signatures by midday Sunday. “We want them to set the example and be the ethical leader on this,” Lapointe said in an interview. Lapointe is also trying to get her local municipality, the Town of Mount Royal, to ban the sale of animals in pet stores. She’s hoping it will follow the lead of other Canadian cities such as Richmond, B.C., which banned the sale of puppies in pet stores in 2011. Lapointe said cracking down on pet stores would eliminate a major marketplace for puppy mills but even then illegal breeders would “still be able to resort to online sales.” Kijiji Canada has no plans to change its policy. Shawn McIntyre, the site’s community manager, said it has set up a system to catch suspicious posts and prevent mills from using the site. “We’re choosing to work with the industry and do our best to keep it clean and safe,” McIntyre said, explaining that staff moderates posts and has partnered with animal protection groups. “We want to make sure that we’re filtering out any bad users and not driving them underground.” The site, however, has had trouble blocking some sellers in recent years. A Nova Scotia woman, Gail Benoit, was banned by the site after Kijiji said it received hundreds of complaints about her. But she continued to try to find ways around the ban by using fake names, different computers, and getting others to post ads on her behalf. Some of Kijiji’s competitors have taken steps to cut out pet sales altogether. In August, the British Columbia-based site BuySellTrade.ca removed private pet ads altogether. It now only posts pets for adoption via the local SPCA. Craigslist also no longer allows the sale of household pets. The site allows individuals to find new homes for their pets, sometimes at a small adoption fee. Puppy mills continue to be a major problem in Canada, despite stronger legislation in several provinces. Lapointe’s home province of Quebec has a particularly poor reputation. This year Quebec again placed at the bottom of annual rankings conducted by the US-based Animal Legal Defense Fund. Last week, 90 dogs were seized from a large-scale breeding operation on Montreal’s South Shore. SPCA officials said the animals had been kept in unacceptable conditions. Canada’s Humane Society International says it has been working to get provincial governments to introduce and enforce stronger laws against puppy mills. “They exist for the sole purpose of breeding, again and again, to produce puppies to be sold in pet stores or online, profiting the breeder,” says a statement on the organization’s website. From the Basset Hound Club of Canada All Ears Magazine