So, it has been two years in the making but finally the day is here when I welcome Chilli, a 12 week old Maltese into my life.

It has been a long road. I have been directly involved with 2 scams- one on EF. A multitude of emailing to various people advertising on Tier Inserat type websites, only to discover the dog was being shipped from somewhere… to finally going about this in the "Swiss way" and actually forming a relationship with the breeder, getting to know the puppies, letting the pup choose me and then finally being able to welcome him into our home and life. And most importantly, his red passport.

So, piddle pads are strategically dotted, water bottles and rag reminders of mum placed in his bed and a happy, healthy, white ball of fluff manages to bring some life back into this quiet home!

Anyone out there seeking a dog, I really do advise you that there are many people with no compassion, who will use your emotions to get at your money. Please do be very careful…

Best,
Gal and Chilli xx

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Chilli looks gorgeous. Well done.

He is gorgeous! Congratulations, I hope you have many many happy years together.

awesome, she looks great, wish you both many years of good times.

What a delightful pup Chili is! Here's to many happy years together, and many fun adventures.


(And thank you for highlighting the 'dark side' of the puppy trade.)

The sad fact is- there REALLY IS a dark side. This is why I wanted to post. I have really struggled to walk away and seriously twice put my hand on my wallet but forced myself to not do it and support this vile and really despicable trade.

So I eventually figured out- getting a dog here is all and I mean ALL about the relationship. The breeder wants to know you, for the life of that pup. So thats how I ended up doing it- I searched for breeders and wrote and told them about me, I was then invited to be on the list for the next litter. But the end result is just what I was searching for. A well socialized little dog, who has no hang ups and has had the best start in life.

It is now my job to ensure the rest of it is as good for him!

Thanks for the responses!
Gal x

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He is so adorable. Wishing you lots of fun and not too many puddles.

Cute pup. Am sure chili is happy to have you as well.
Wishing you lots of fun.

True there are many dark sides, far darker than you can imagine, there is a real live dog-mafia mainly out of countries like Roumania, Hungary, Poland, but also from Spain and Greece.
The main one is, for example, a pure breed for under half of the normal price, please send your e-mail, there is no dog but they have your email. or you send a deposit and wait and wait and wait for your dog, or at best you get one sick mutt. Then there are the legit or semi- legit dog-breeders and the well meaning do-gooders flogging rescue dogs, Switzerland would be knee-deep in dogs if they had their way. In fact some dog breeders will raise dogs under horrendous ciurcumstances, the kind of cirucumstances that make the KZ´s look like a health spa, some will be mutilated for want of a good sob-story, then the buggers will sell them to the do-gooders for a few Euro to be sold on to the richer parts of €urope.
If you can´t pick up your dog from the seller, don´t buy

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Back in Bavaria, god´s own belly button.

What a sad story with such a happy ending!! Your dog is gorgeous and seems very happy and healthy! Please enjoy, your life we'll be filled with adventures from now on

Sorry Slammer, why should always be Roumania, Hungary or Poland? Do you have any data on dog-mafia to back your insinuations up? Is there no dog-mafia in the UK, France or Germany? Oh, glad you added Greece and Spain, so it doesn't sound as malicious as it is.
It's easy to spread around prejudices, isn't it?

I'm going to have my little dog from Czech Republic, via some friends...not an internet site. Should I be worried?

I would second that. Plenty of puppy farms in the UK. We were extremely lucky that the crossbreed puppy from next door turned out to be a fantastic family dog. If not for her, we would be going around the breeders trying to sort out the normal ones from the crazy ones from the scammers.

What, scammers in the UK? Nooooo......

Swiss way, eh.
It always was like this, not only here. You get in touch with a dog breeder, or you have a friend that has a friend that knows well a dog breeder.

If you are looking for a little friend for your doggy,



k-9 angels (run by a polish lady and a romanian lady and an english lady who rescue dogs from the dog pounds in romania and try and find homes for them, have a cutie patootie that is looking for a home. they are a registered do gooder charity,

this journalist liz jones rescued one of their rescues who is now living the good life in the uk

Of course there are scammers in the UK- the difference is it is not worth them shipping over to the continent as this will bite into their profits. However, if it is a car ride then it is more feasible to make the most profit from people prepared to pay a premium which is the case here in Switzerland.

Yes but as we are on a Swiss forum, why would I wish to talk about anywhere else?

Actually yes it is mainly from Roumania, Hungary Poland, Spain and Greece, and pretty much in that order, I should know because I scan ads for a online auctions house day in day out and even nights, in just 24 hours, every day, a high, five digit number gets placed in the DACH region alone, I have been trained to spot red flags that hint at fraudsters and one of those many flags is the ".ro" suffax, others, from cleverer people, get routed through a US site but if you follow up you get to the domains that I mention, another flag is bad German, some don´t even bother to run it through a google translate and are totally unreadable, they get killed immediatly, others are random stock photos from the internet and IP abnomalies, or (and here the Roumanians are really good) "tankx for you inquest, plis contakt over e-mahl" there are criteria to be fullfilled before I can kill an ad so the research is pretty intensive, I am afraid I can´t give you numbers because it would be more than my job is worth so you are just gonna have to take my word for it.
We also have regular customers who try it on with the same M.O. time after time after time and time after time after time they get killed off.
Dog scams pay a lot of money, a few oodles and oodles of ads sent out in the space of a few minutes will swamp the system and a few oodles will get through, we manage to kill a oodle or three but some go live.
"Awww Sweet, a puppy, and sooooo cheap, only 50 or 100 or 199 Euros deposit"
The "puppy" gets sold to a few oodles of people and the fraudster buys a new ferrari.
Note you are not getting any details, just oodles.
Never seen any dog scams from the UK, they fraud mainly in furniture and antiques and strangly in powertools and cars.
Oh and if you want a tip, never buy a LV bag over the internet.

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Back in Bavaria, god´s own belly button.

Come on, please stop making a twit out of yourself...

No-one is saying this 'only' happens in those countries... but they ARE the chief culprits. Why? Poor living standards and low incomes vs Western Europe. Its's not rocket science, do the research https://www.google.ch/search?q=dog+m..._sm=0&ie=UTF-8

Swiss animal groups fight ”dog mafia“ http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_ne...ml?cid=9177526
Maybe when you stop flapping your arms around like a... then you will see a glimmer of common sense.

Greenmount, there are battery farms and scams in every country. The numbers - let alone the sights - will make you ill, then make you cry, then make you very, very angry. No country is immune, no country can sit firmly on it's high horse.

Wealthy Switzerland is a target for foreign puppy mill operators. There are ready buyers with money in their pockets. Illegal imports are a continual problem, and yes, some of those battery farmers do come from eastern Europe. And they also come from southern Europe. And western Europe. And the UK. In fact, the only reason that you don't see many illegal puppy farm imports from the rest of the world ending up here is that the cost of shipping eats too far into the profit.

It should be noted, though, that Swiss hands are far from clean. Show me a foreign battery farmer, and I'll show you a Swiss counterpart brokering the sale and taking a chunk of the profit.

BTW, the only reason you don't see more puppy mills in Switzerland is that the cost of land is so high. You see plenty of BYBs and irresponsible breeding, though.

As above, no country can sit for very long it's high horse.

(An eye opener, for instance: google Amish + puppy mill.)

We've seen it here on EF. How many threads have there been with posters trying to circumvent importation regs? Were all those naive do-gooders, or perhaps some battery farmers in disguise?

Slammer brings up a very good point about battery farmers disguising themselves as rescues. As the public becomes more educated about responsible purchasing, scammers and battery farmers get more and more creative - and what better way than to tug at a dog lover's heartstrings with a hard luck story.

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It should be said that just as no country is free of the dark side, excellent breeders and rescuers can also be found in all countries.

Whether one is a breeder or rescuer, buyer or adopter, or simply a dog lover - we all have to join together to fight the 'dark side'.
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Sorry to fly off on a tangent, Galatea. I'm so very happy for you and Chili. She was certainly worth the wait.

Wishing you both all the best.