Why "Free to a good home" is never a good idea....

If you have ever looked for a pet on selling sites such as GumTree or in groups aimed at selling on Facebook or other social media, you will have come across this term before. Sure, it's quicker to rehome your pet if it's free because the buyer won't have any initial costs but have you thought about what type of people this could attract?

Most of the time you will come across a genuinely nice person who wants to rehome your pet out of the kindness of their own hearts but there are other more devious people out there you need to look out for :-

1) Dog Fighters.

Dog fighters are people who have dogs that they train to fight other dogs for money. They prey on sites that advertise pets free to a good home not only for their next fighting dog, but they even collect weaker dogs, cats/ kittens and other animals for their fighting dogs to train with and kill so they get the taste for killing things. I read an article a while back where a convicted dog fighter had admitted that even a small charge of say £25 would be enough to put him off because it cut into his profits if he could go somewhere else and get something for free. He would even get his girlfriend to dress up in a smart suit to collect the pet so she looked like a business professional and a trustworthy person,so people felt at ease giving their pets to her! I can't find the article to link you to at the moment but will update you if I find it.

2) Pet Peddlers

These are people who again get pets for free but then they sell them on for a profit so you could find your pet listed straight away on another selling site or worse, they could be sold to a pharmaceutical company for animal testing. They wait until they have a good stock of pets and drive them miles in poor conditions to these companies just because it's easy money for them.

A different type of pet peddler will always go for puppies or kittens and keep them for a year as a pet before they dump them on a rescue centre and then get another puppy or kitten. These are normally well know by the rescue centres but someone selling privately won't know about them.

3) Animal abusers

An example of this has been in the news recently called "The Craigslist Killer". This man was a serial dog killer who got puppies advertised as "Free to a good home" from Craigslist before he brutally mutilated and killed the puppy, racking up 29 kills before he was stopped. Here's a link to the full story if you want to read more http://our-compass.org/2012/04/11/free-to-a-good-home-craigslist-dog-killer-sentenced-in-west-virginia/.

What do I do to prevent this happening to my pets?

Homechecks! Every rescue centre will always do a homecheck before they let somebody adopt one of their animals. This is basically a visit to the persons home and seeing where the pet will be living. They will see if the living environment is suitable for the pet, and you get a better idea of what someone is like when you see how they live. They will also ask them a few questions so they get a picture of whether they know how to care for the pet and if they can financially afford it. If in doubt, go with your gut instinct! If you are unsure, you could ask one of your local rescue centres for advice.

There's no guarnatee and even after doing all these checks, something could still go wrong but you will be far safer knowing that if you have done all the right checks your pet is more likely to be going to it's forever loving home.