Asking to see some identification before allowing someone to have one of your pups, is it wise to ask ....?

What like a driving lience, passport? What if they don't have them, my friend has neither or anything else with her photo on it to prove its her. Seems a bit much to me.
I Google people's names, numbers and adresses though.

Googling names and addresses is great provided they give the correct ones. If I was an evil puppy farmer or a convicted animal abuser I'd give fake details or ask/pay a friend with a clean history.

Some folk on here don't like advertising on social media, I love it. I can find out a lot and how long they have been a member of my breed group. One lady who contacted me had even advertised to sell a dog two years before due to downsizing.

Well I don't have puppies but in this day and age of puppy theft, particularly after puppies have been view and the 'joint cased', I would not let anyone even view my puppies if I did not personally know them, and would insist upon ID as they arrived. Genuine people would not at all mind.

It would be rare to arrive on foot and drivers should have a driving license with them anyway.

Pups aside. Anyone coming to my door on any pretense of selling, wrong address etc. I always take the make, model, colour of car and reg. But there again, living on my own I am perhaps over cautious. So perhaps even just taking down their car details is a starting point.

With all the crossbreeding going on today with some (possibly many) bitches being mated up on every season maybe some of these breeders give a false name & address when buying a pedigree puppy/dog, especially if a pup has breeding restrictions placed on them, contract etc. Years ago it was different as back in the old days crossbreeds were usually free but today some of these crossbreeds are more expensive than the pedigree dogs that they have been bred from especially if both breeds are coming from well bred (Heath tested dogs). How times have changed since back then.

I asked for them to bring along a bill in their name with their address on. This was on top of Google and other searches

As for ID?   Really?   What has society come to.   It's been a long time since we bred our last litter, but at that time, I'd not remotely have considered asking for ID.  Obviously I'm too trusting for this world now but fact is after the initial contact, by phone I'd have a viewing, sometime between 5 weeks and when the puppy was ready to go hom at 10 weeks so I started to get to know my prospective owners.   In fact one lovely couple came to see our adult hounds before we'd even mated our bitch.   We ended up good friends with them - and the clincher was when they'd gone back to Holland (from Canada) for 3 weeks and we boarded their then 2 hounds.  Just as they were arriving back in Canada, literally the flight was just landing, a tornado hit their town and demolished their home.   We had their hounds for 5 months in the end, with them visiting very often.

I suppose times change and if asking for ID is needed, so be it.

ps  I was aware about letting strangers in to see my puppies = theft, but our hounds lived in and I was home pretty much all the time when we had a litter in progress.

I ask for two proofs of id, two proofs of address, Google earth them and Facebook stalk. This is on top of a questionnaire and a phonecall.

If they rent, I also ask for landlords approval letter. I don't keep any of these, just look at them. I do tell them I've done this once they've been approved and they are all OK with it.

They tell me that it makes them feel as though I am being very thorough when vetting potential new homes  and more confident in their choice of breeder.

I did google peoples' addresses to check that it looked suitable using google earth and stuff. And once I'd friended them on fb I had a scroll through to see if they seemed like nice dog minded people. Luckily with both my recent litters, a couple went to friends and one I kept, so it was only three total strangers I needed to worry about. And I made sure my husband was home when they visited, as I've heard horror stories of people running off with puppies when the breeder was making tea!

Facebook Replies:

Michelle Bella Richman says:  Thats a great idea, everyone has some form of ID on them in their purse / wallet n asking on the spot is good too.

Gordon Magson says: Yes definitely especially this day and age.

I agree with everything MamaBas says. I too must be too old and too trusting for the world we are in to-day.
Because the facility is there, I do google earth them but some of that is because I am nosy too.
I believe that before a puppy leaves me, I have developed a long term trusting relationship with a buyer and if it
does not feel right they don't have a puppy at all.
Can't recall a situation ever where someone has come once and gone away with a pup which surely is more likely to be
the case with these people?

Facebook reply:

Libby Montague-Brown says: Genuine buyers wouldn't mind