The study found that owners were more likely to purchase a dog to improve their mental wellbeing.

RVC study explores what motivated people to buy a puppy during the pandemic. 

People who bought puppies during the pandemic were less likely to have sought credible breeders, according to new research.

The study by the RVC - the largest ever conducted into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic - also found that new owners were less likely to have viewed their puppy in person before collecting it.

The findings reveal how high demand over the past 16 months increased risk to puppy health and welfare, with many illegally imported, sourced from poor welfare environments, or bred and raised on puppy farms.

In the study, researchers collected the views of more than 5,000 UK owners to gain insight into what motivated them to buy a puppy during the pandemic.

The team focused on puppies bought  between 23 March - 31 December 2020 and compared these to responses from owners of puppies purchased during the same time frame in 2019. 

Other key findings were:

• owners were less likely to seek out a breeder that performed health testing on their breeding dog(s) or was a member of the Kennel Club ‘Assured Breeders Scheme’
  
• owners were more likely to be motivated to purchase a dog to improve their own/their family’s mental wellbeing
  
• owners were more likely to pay a deposit without seeing the puppy, and pay more than £2,000 - an increase from average prices of £955 in 2019 to £1,550 in 2020.
  

Around 10 per cent of respondents had not considered purchasing a puppy before the pandemic, and 86 per cent felt their decision to buy a puppy had been influenced by the pandemic - most commonly by having more time to care for a dog.

Dr Rowena Packer, lecturer in Companion Animal Behaviour and Welfare Science at the RVC and lead author of the study, said: “The unprecedented demand for puppies combined with social distancing restrictions during the pandemic has led to the perfect environment for unscrupulous breeders and puppy dealers. This also includes desperate buyers willing to pay above the odds for puppies, and an easy excuse to conceal poor conditions puppies were raised in.

“From our results, we are concerned that many well-meaning owners who were looking to add a puppy to their family to improve their mental health during the pandemic may have fallen into this trap, and inadvertently encouraged this deplorable industry.”

Dr Dan O’Neill, senior lecturer in Companion Animal Epidemiology at the RVC and co-author of the paper, said: “This study reveals the debt we owe to dogs for getting so many of us as humans through the pandemic. But it also suggests that a terrible price is being paid by many dogs from our choices on which breed to buy, our long-term commitment to the dog and even whether we can afford to look after a dog. It reminds us to ‘stop and think’ about life from the dog’s perspective too.”

The study, funded by the Animal Welfare Foundation, will be followed by a second later this summer documenting the characteristics and early life experiences of ‘pandemic puppies’.