Canine Identity Threat
You think only human identites can be pilfered? Think again. Check out this report of canine identity theft by a puppy miller.
Thanks to the K9 Magazine Blog for this post.
Canine Identity Theft – It Really Can Happen
A champion Poodle has become a rather unlikely victim of identity theft. The dog, named Blue has had his vital pedigree information pilfered from a website by a fraudster who is now using the impressive stats and figures to hike up the price of his own dogs.
The con man was only caught on when he tried to claim that the pedigree Poodle, who’s pedigree name is Afonwen Welch Fusilier, had had a litter of puppies. The only problem being that the dog is male.The genuine puppies can be valued up to £1,000, but the ones being passed off by the fraudster were not guaranteed to be from good healthy stock. The con man, who had also stolen the address of a Glasgow graveyard to avoid detection, was only caught out when a vigilant dog buyer sensed something was wrong.
Follow this link to read the rest of the post.
That is scary stuff! I have never seen anything about identity theft in dogs. Nothing of my dog is safe not his identity not even his dog bed.
Hi Joy. I read about this story too. I wonder, did he really not know the dog was a male? Or did he think noone would notice? Its kind of hard to miss.
Unfortunately, this happens more often than people think. We had a case here where a “volume breeder” was selling puppies with champion AKC paperwork. However, when the puppies became adults, they didn’t look purebred. With the cooperation of several of the owners, information was sent to AKC with photos of the dogs. When AKC investigated, it was discovered that the purebred puppies were actually two separate breeds — similar, but separate. And it was discovered that this breeder was making this a common practice.
So I guess buying an AKC puppy doesn’t always guarantee you are getting the breed you are paying for. Unless you know the breeder or can check their references.
Yes, I have heard about this awhile ago and understood this happens very often.
Dogster as an identity space.