We have an eBay dog.

We bought an eBay dog, was it a good idea?

The decision to get a dog was a very spontaneous one for us. I had known for a long time that I wanted a dog, but not that we were going to buy one at the time. When we made the decision, we simply looked for Aussie puppies on eBay. My boyfriend found an ad relatively quickly and made an appointment. I'll tell you how it all turned out in this article.

How we got to know Falko.

We made an appointment with the seller on a Thursday and drove over 2 hours to see the little puppies. When we arrived, we immediately fell in love. 9 puppies in the living room, all so small and cute. We sat down on the floor and got to know the puppies, who were still free. Falko was definitely my favorite - he chose me. He was 3 weeks old and walked for the first time at our meeting.

We were with Falko for about 2 hours and when we wanted to leave, the saleswoman asked us if we needed papers, if yes then it would cost 400€ extra and she would request it for us. I decided against the papers as I wasn't planning to breed with Falko anyway. I then asked about the parents. When I got the answer, we should have decided against the puppies.

According to the seller, they were accidental puppies. Her bitch had run away and been mated by another Aussie - at the age of 9 months. She was still a puppy herself! The dad was known, was the neighbor's dog. As we found out much later, it was a huge lie. I still wanted to see the mom at our meeting. When she came into the living room, she was practically on a chain and couldn't be touched by us because she supposedly didn't like it when people touched her puppies. On the way home we talked about everything again and definitely decided on Falko. I made a deposit while we were still driving.

The wait has begun.

We waited 5 weeks for our little Falko. At first I received regular pictures and videos. But there were fewer and fewer and we realized that the puppies were always in the same room... unfortunately not at home with their mom but in the cellar. A room divided in half with a board and covered with litter. It was clear to me - Falko had to come to us as soon as possible. Unfortunately, time passed extremely slowly. The last pictures I received were from the trip to the vet. The puppies were neither secured nor in a box during the journey - they were simply in a laundry basket! This is how they were transported to the vet and back. As I found out later, it was the only time the puppies were outside.

November 21, 2020 - we pick up Falko.

The day has finally arrived. We got in the car at 6 a.m. and drove to Falko. I was so happy and excited to see how he had developed. We arrived and walked into the house - into the cellar, of course. It was so incredibly smelly there... I had tears in my eyes because I was so happy to finally take the little one home with me. We spoke briefly with the sales clerk and left. We didn't get the usual food as described in the ad, no proper bedding and no blanket that smelled like mom. The puppy folder ended up confusing us more than it helped us. We went out with Falko and into the car.

The car journey and the first few days with us.

The car ride was a disaster, Falko was extremely scared, peed in the car several times and was afraid of the sound of the car alone. Sitting on my lap was the only way to get him home. When he arrived home, he did really well. He was very tired, but somehow happy, even though he was in a new environment. We spent a few hours together and went to introduce Falko to our parents. In the evening, we looked at each other and both said at the same moment: "He needs a shower". Falko had a very strong smell of feces. Other puppies we picked up were quite dirty and not well-groomed. So we put the little darling in the bathtub. Needless to say, he didn't like it at all. He slept through the first night and it was as if he had always been there.

We already noticed in the first few days how scared Falko was. All noises frightened him. It was almost impossible to turn on the oven, kettle or shower head. He ran away immediately. I don't even want to talk about loud objects like a vacuum cleaner. Sacks, boxes or crates also scared him a lot. I still wonder today whether he had a bad experience with them. Falko was totally sweet, loved playing with us and was eager to learn. Only his biting was very pronounced. It was all a result of too little contact with his mother in the first few weeks of his life. I don't think his mother was in the cellar all day either.

We didn't want to see only the negative, so we were happy that Falko was a healthy dog... or so we thought, unfortunately it wasn't - more on that later.

Does he have something wrong with his bladder or are we unable to housebreak him?

Falko spent ages in the apartment. He wasn't house-trained until he was about 9/10 months old. We tried everything possible, sometimes taking him out every hour. Nothing worked and he continued to pee in the apartment, on the couch or even in his bed. Through our WhatsApp group with Falko's siblings, however, I realized that it wasn't just our problem. We tried to understand him somehow and even had it checked out medically because we thought he had something wrong with his bladder. Everything was normal at the vet. I started to think about it and after a few days I knew why Falko didn't mind wetting his bed, for example. In his first 8 weeks of life he more or less lived in the dirt... he had no fixed sleeping place, eating place or a place where he could have done his business. We all know how important and formative the first weeks of life are. It took us a really long time to break him of this bad habit.

We had to work on his fears for a long time, I often sat in the kitchen with him and just turned on the oven or the kettle. Over time, things got better and Falko was able to trust us and knew that nothing would happen to him in our home.

My dog is having an operation.

One day I got a message from Falko's brother. He could hardly walk, was in pain and needed an operation. The diagnosis: patellar luxation on both sides. The vet said it was genetic. I called our vet and explained the situation. Our appointment wasn't for another 3 weeks as it wasn't an emergency and Falko hadn't had any symptoms up to that point. But he wasn't symptom-free for long. He was in pain when he walked, his leg was always stiff and he didn't like running any more. Unfortunately, the diagnosis was also confirmed for us. It wasn't too bad at the first appointment, but at the second the doctor wanted to operate on Falko. We went to another clinic for a second opinion and have spent the last year working on improving Falko's health. We achieved this through the Proper nutritionHe has also been successful with physiotherapy and exercise and does not need surgery.

Not only 2 dogs in Falko's litter are sick. There were also other diseases such as HD, epilepsy and LCP. According to the seller, both parents were healthy. We started to study the documents from the puppy folder, but unfortunately it didn't help much. We also quickly realized that many of us had different information about the puppies' father.

The search for daddy.

I could still remember the eBay ad and knew that the dad was a Black Trip with blue eyes. Other owners didn't know this picture and were shown other pictures during viewings. Myself and 3 other owners started researching. It took us over a year to find the daddy... It wasn't the one in the ad and he didn't have blue eyes. I called the owner of Falko's dad as he was being offered for stud. I was honest with her and said that unfortunately we didn't know the dad of our puppies. When I mentioned the name of our saleswoman, she knew immediately who was meant. She also had a bad experience. She had been promised a puppy... Unfortunately, she was told that all the puppies had died after birth!

What happens now?

We have now come to terms with the situation quite well and have learned a lot. No matter how much we love Falko, an eBay dog will never be an option again. You won't find good, reputable breeders on eBay. I would never buy a dog from a breeder again. In my opinion, this should not be supported. Of course, we are also partly to blame for the whole situation, as we made a conscious decision to buy an eBay dog. We didn't expect to fall for such a lie and buy a dog from such poor conditions. According to our vets, the illnesses that our puppies have are also due to the poor conditions. We are glad that Falko has become such a great dog and is now healthy again. Hopefully no further illnesses will appear in his litter. According to the seller, Falko's mom was sterilized, but unfortunately I can't check whether this is the case. I just hope that the little mouse is doing well.

Why did I want to share our story with you?

I see new ads on eBay every day and I know how many people buy dogs from such ads. I just want to warn you and make you aware that there are people out there who want to get rich from puppy trading and unfortunately they do. Please, buy your puppies from a reputable breeder, take a close look at the parent animals, find out about the breeding or adopt a dog from an animal welfare organization. Breeders do not deserve any support!

I hope you enjoyed the blog post and that I was able to help you with your puppy search. I would be delighted if you could share your stories with me in the comments or on Instagram. See you soon, Wiola and Falko.