How you advertise a litter does not only find you buyers — it selects them, because the pictures you post and the words you choose tell people what kind of transaction this is, and the wrong ones will fill your inbox with exactly the applicants you least want.
The most important first
- An advert is a description, not a sales pitch: age, sex, breed, registration status, what has been health tested and what has not, and what is still uncertain.
- Where advertising is regulated, comply visibly. In England, an advertisement for the sale of a dog by a licensed seller must state the license number, the local authority that issued it, a recognizable photograph of the dog and the dog’s age.
- The voluntary minimum standards of the Pet Advertising Advisory Group also ask for the animal’s country of residence and origin, whether a dog is or will be microchipped, and a photograph of young animals with their mother.
- Social media is the weakest channel available to you: in a 2024 review by that group’s members, 94% of pet adverts on social media would not have met the standards, and almost one in five reported adverts were believed to be scams.
- Promise nothing about health or temperament you cannot evidence — commitments belong in sales contracts and consumer law, not in an advert.
What an honest advert contains
Start from what a careful buyer needs in order to decide whether to contact you at all: the breed, the date of birth, how many are available and of which sex, whether they are registered and with whom, which health screening the parents have had and what the results were, and when the puppies will be ready to leave. Then add what adverts usually omit — that the sire is not your dog, that one puppy has an umbilical hernia the vet is monitoring, that this is your first litter.
Disclosure is not a weakness in the advert; it is its main function. The Puppy Contract, published free by the Animal Welfare Foundation, exists largely because so much of what goes wrong between breeder and buyer was never written down or said out loud. Be equally careful what you imply: “both parents fully health tested” means nothing unless you name the schemes and the results, and where a result is pending, say so — see health screening and health schemes.
Buyers are being taught to look for warning signs. US consumer advice from the Federal Trade Commission tells them to be wary of cut-price purebred puppies, pressure to decide fast, and requests for payment up front. An honest advert answers those worries before they are raised: your real name and general location, the litter’s registration, the parents’ health results, an offer of a video call or visit, and how and when you take payment. Kennel clubs in other countries say the same in their own rules — Dogs Australia’s code, for example, forbids misleading claims about a dog’s conformation, characteristics or performance.
Photographs, and what they cost the litter
A good litter photograph is recent, well lit, shows the puppy roughly as it looks in daylight, and shows the whole dog rather than a cropped face at a flattering angle. Where a rule or a scheme asks for an image of the puppies with their dam, that photograph also tells the buyer something true: the mother exists, is present and is in reasonable condition.
The part that gets forgotten is the cost to the puppies. A three-week-old litter woken from sleep, carried to a lit corner, posed and returned cold is having a worse day for your benefit. Keep sessions to a few minutes, work in the puppies’ own space when they are naturally awake, keep them warm, and avoid props and costumes that require a puppy to be restrained. The reasoning behind handling and body-handling exercises applies here too: short, warm, ended while the puppy is still relaxed. A photographer is also a visitor, which brings in infection control and biosecurity for the litter.
What you cannot promise
Three claims cause most of the trouble. The first is the health guarantee. You can state what was tested, what the results were, what the vet found at the pre-sale check and what you will do if a defined problem appears — but a dog is not a guaranteed product, and “guaranteed healthy” is a promise you will be held to. Put the actual commitment in the contract, where it can be specific and bounded.
The second is temperament. You have real information about each puppy from observing and documenting individual puppies and can describe it honestly: this one settles quickly, this one recovers slowly from a fright. What you cannot say is that a puppy will be good with children, safe with cats or suitable for a particular sport — genetics, adolescence and the new owner’s handling all intervene, and the limits of prediction are the subject of what puppy tests can and can’t predict.
The third is rarity. Advertising a color or pattern as “rare” or “exclusive” turns a cosmetic variant into the product, attracts buyers who want a novelty rather than a dog, and rewards breeding decisions made for appearance alone. If a color falls outside the breed standard, cannot be registered, or is associated with health risk, say so plainly rather than pricing it as a feature. The Pet Advertising Advisory Group takes a related line, asking advertising sites to exclude any advert where there is a reasonable concern for the health and welfare of the animal involved.
In practice
A breeder with one puppy left at nine weeks rewrites the advert: better photographs, a lower price, and the phrase “very rare color for the breed”. Inquiries triple, and almost all of them ask only about the color and when they can collect. The breeder removes the wording, restores the price, and adds two sentences about what the puppy is actually like and what it will need. Three inquiries arrive over the next two weeks, and one of them is the home the puppy goes to.
(Illustrative, composite scenario.)
Where you advertise, and what that signals
The channel is part of the message. Advertising through your breed club, a national kennel club’s puppy listing service or your own website signals that you expect to be found, questioned and held to account; such services are typically searchable by breed, location and health screening status, which is itself a form of disclosure.
General classified sites vary, and a handful have committed to the minimum standards of the Pet Advertising Advisory Group — a body drawn from animal welfare organizations, trade associations, trading standards bodies and veterinary bodies, whose standards are voluntary but government-endorsed. Social media is the weakest option: that group’s position statement describes few safeguards, moderation that depends on users reporting problems, and encrypted messaging and private groups that obstruct transparency. A post in a breed group is not wrong in itself, but the platform gives you no protection and lends you no credibility.
The Pet Advertising Advisory Group’s minimum standards also say an animal should not be advertised before it is weaned and independent of its mother. Advertising the litter as “coming soon” on your own site is different from listing individual puppies for sale.
How you sell filters who applies
An advert built on price, availability and cuteness produces inquiries about price, availability and collection dates. One built on health results, what the puppies have and have not experienced, and a plain statement that you interview buyers and will take a dog back produces fewer inquiries, most of them from people who have read it. That is not a smaller pool but a pre-sorted one, and it is what makes inquiries and managing a waiting list and interviewing and selecting buyers manageable rather than exhausting.
Work on it
A few minutes here will teach you more than re-reading the article.
Ask yourself
- Does my advert contain a single claim I could not evidence if a buyer challenged it in two years’ time?
- What would someone reading only my advert expect of me, and is that what I intend to deliver?
- When I last photographed a litter, how long were the puppies out of their nest, and were they warm when they went back?
Find out & check
- Check what your jurisdiction and your kennel club require an advert to contain — a license number, seller identity, the puppy’s age — and whether yours contains it.
Do one thing
- Read your own advert as a stranger and delete every word that is a superlative rather than a fact.
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Sources & further reading
- Pet Advertising Advisory Group — Advertising Standards. paag.org.uk
- Pet Advertising Advisory Group — Position statement: Pet adverts on social media. paag.org.uk
- The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018, Schedule 6 — Specific conditions: breeding dogs. legislation.gov.uk
- Animal Welfare Foundation and RSPCA — Puppy Contract. animalwelfarefoundation.org.uk
- The Royal Kennel Club — Rare and unusual colours. royalkennelclub.com
- Dogs Australia (ANKC) — National Code of Practice of Responsible Dog Ownership (July 2023). dogsaustralia.org.au
- Federal Trade Commission — Getting a pet? Avoid scams. consumer.ftc.gov
Where evidence is limited, recommendations rest on established practice and expert judgment, and may be updated as knowledge develops. This is general information, not legal or financial advice: requirements differ between countries and change over time — have your own documents reviewed by a qualified professional in your jurisdiction.
Next steps
- Read next: Inquiries and managing a waiting list.
- Related: Health screening and health schemes.
- Return to the area hub: From first inquiry to settled puppy.