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. 2023 Jul 3;13(13):2186.
doi: 10.3390/ani13132186.

Is UK Puppy Purchasing Suffering a Long COVID Effect? Ongoing Negative Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic upon Puppy Purchase Motivations and Behaviours in 2021

Rowena M A Packer  1 , Claire L Brand  1 , Zoe Belshaw  2 , Camilla L Pegram  3 , Fiona Dale  3 , Kim B Stevens  3 , Dan G O'Neill  3
Affiliations

Is UK Puppy Purchasing Suffering a Long COVID Effect? Ongoing Negative Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic upon Puppy Purchase Motivations and Behaviours in 2021

Rowena M A Packer et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in acquisitions of puppies in the UK, dubbed the "Pandemic Puppy" phenomenon. In addition to an increased demand for puppies, widespread changes to both why and how puppies were purchased during this period compared to pre-pandemic 2019 purchases were documented, many of which threatened canine welfare (e.g., puppies being collected away from their place of birth, without seeing their mother). This study aimed to explore which changes to the pre-purchase and purchase motivations and behaviours of UK owners who purchased a puppy aged <16 weeks in the 2020 phase of the COVID-19 pandemic had persisted into 2021 or had returned to pre-pandemic 2019 levels. An online survey was conducted during February to April 2022 from which 2080 valid responses were analysed ("2021 puppies") and compared with previously collected data from comparable cohorts in 2019 (n = 1148, "2019 puppies") and 2020 (n = 4369, "Pandemic Puppies"). While the majority of the peak pandemic changes documented in 2020 had returned to their 2019 pre-pandemic baseline, others persisted into 2021. Multinomial logistic regression models revealed that the shifts during 2020 towards owners viewing their puppy pre-purchase over video calls or via video recordings/photos rather than in-person and towards collecting their puppy from outside of their breeders' property rather than inside had persisted into 2021 and had not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Year-on-year significant rises in the number of puppies sold with a passport were documented between 2019 and 2021, with over 1 in 10 2021 puppies having been sold with a passport, the figure more than doubling since 2019. An increasing number of these puppies sold with a passport were under the minimum legal age for import at sale. Going forward, these concerning changes require further monitoring and human behaviour change interventions to tackle, including increased buyer awareness but also legislative approaches to prevent the greatest harm.

Keywords: COVID-19; dog breeding; dog ownership; dogs; human–animal interaction; lockdown; pandemic puppies; puppy; welfare.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. Z.B. works for EviVet Evidence-Based Veterinary Consultancy and declares no conflicts of interest with this research. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Timeline of COVID-19 restrictions in the UK from autumn 2020 to July 2021, when most legal limits to social contact were removed in England. The events shown here are not exhaustive but serve to demonstrate the main periods of social restrictions upon residents of the UK from September 2020, the earliest that puppies studied in the present study could have been born to be purchased from 16 weeks of age in 2021.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Choropleth maps of the UK describing the distribution of respondents who gave postcode data. (a) Respondents per 100,000 of UK population 2021 (n = 946); (b) percentage change of response rates between 2019 and 2021; (c) percentage change of response rates between 2020 and 2021.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Engagement in pre-purchase research by 2019 puppy owners (n = 1148), 2020 Pandemic Puppy owners (n = 4355) and 2021 puppy owners (n = 1971) in the UK.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Interval from deciding to look for a puppy to acquisition (bringing puppy home) (n = 5401) with comparison between 2019 owners (n = 1124), Pandemic Puppy owners (n = 4277) and 2021 owners (n = 2080) in the UK.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Deposit practices to secure puppies prior to purchase, with comparison between 2019 owners (n = 921), Pandemic Puppy owners (n = 3452) and 2021 owners (n = 2080) in the UK.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Percentage of puppies visited in person pre-purchase from March to December 2019–2021, depicted by year and month (2019 = 1081, 2020 = 4136, 2021 = 1845).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Percentage of puppies collected from inside their breeders’ property from March to December 2019–2021, depicted by year and month (2019 = 1099, 2020 = 4180, 2021 = 1860).
Figure 8
Figure 8
Percentage of puppies sold with a passport from March to December 2019–2021, depicted by year and month (2019 = 1150, 2020 = 4398, 2021 = 2080).
Figure 9
Figure 9
Purchase price of puppies, excluding any associated purchases such as food, collar, bowls, etc., with comparison between 2019 owners (n = 1022), Pandemic Puppy owners (n = 3835) and 2021 puppies (n = 2080) in the UK.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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