New apps aim to connect dog breeders and buyers

Breeder Sheri Morris holds 14-day-old puppy, Beanie, in her home in Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove. (CTV News)

Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove, N.L. — Beanie and her littermates still spend most of their time with their eyes closed. At just two weeks old, the puppies are still grasping the basics — eating, crawling and a whole lot of sleeping.

Still, in just a few weeks, the dogs — which breeder Sheri Morris has spent the past 14 days rearing — will be settling away in new homes, with new families.

All of them, hopefully, perfect matches.

“What we hope is that we have a family, that when you come and talk and you spend a half-an-hour or an hour seeing the puppies and talking to me, that you have that feel-good feeling,” Morris said. “Beyond that, it’s a hope really. And we hope that it works out.”

After so much love and care spent raising an animal, many breeders do their absolute best to find matches that will suit their animal’s needs, whether that be an active family with other pets or a more relaxed lifestyle for a dog who would rather be on their own.

But the matchmaking process is always a little nerve-wracking, for buyers and breeders alike.

“Really, as a breeder, I can’t go to people’s homes and you take what they’re telling you at face value most of the time,” Morris adds. “It really is hard.”

To try to find that perfect match, Morris is advertising her litters on a pair of new websites — including one developed in Newfoundland and Labrador — aiming to connect buyers and sellers, and pass verified or reviewed information between the two parties

Though it’s early, Morris says there are promising signs. Especially, she said, in the financial side of the equation.

Vifta, one of those new web platforms being developed by James Greey in St. John’s, allows a payment processor to hold deposits and payments in a sort of trust, so sellers know the money is there, but the actual exchange doesn’t take place until both parties are satisfied.

“Those are important things, because it is kind of a Wild West out there,” Morris said. “And unfortunately, there are lots of people that have had trouble.”

It’s one feature Greey believes might cut down on some of the misconduct that can be found in the breeding industry — misconduct the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre measured at $701,526 throughout 2021.

A recent dog owner himself, Greey said he was inspired to create an app that could cut down on some of the uncertainty around purchasing an animal from a breeder you’ve never dealt with before. His website has “soft-launched,” he said, testing the interface and the service with Morris and her puppies.

His app, Vifta, will also soon allow breeders and pet owners to leave reviews and rate each other, Greey said.

It will also contain fields for breeders to upload information verifying the genetic lineage of their animals, along with vaccination records and other health information.

He’s also investigating whether he can incorporate some artificial intelligence or machine learning skills to catch so-called puppy mills and ban them from using his platform, if it starts to grow.

“There are certain patterns you can look for,” he said. “The most obvious one is like, this person sold 100 dogs last year.”

Greey is receiving support for the project from the Genesis tech incubation program, located in St. John’s.

Paction, a similar type of online platform, launched about a year ago out of Toronto. In addition to allowing breeders to post listings for their animals, it’s also filled with tools to help prospective buyers understand how active a certain breed might be, how time consuming having a dog would be and how much they can realistically expect to spend on the animal.

That type of accountability and disclosure can only help the purchasing process, said Morris, especially if it pushes buyers towards more responsible breeders.

“I’ve seen it before, where somebody buys a puppy from somebody at a Walmart parking lot and they already have problems,” she said.

“Either genetic problems or truly structural problems … it’s crushing to have a young dog that you bring into the family, you’ve got a bunch of kids and all of a sudden this is not a healthy pup.”