True tales from inside the great pandemic puppy boom

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Smuggling, price-gouging, dognapping: True tales from inside the great pandemic puppy boom

The pandemic puppy boom is now a COVID-19 era trope around the world, with demand surging from Canada to Sweden to Spain, Brazil, Australia, and Israel. In the U.S., the intense demand initially cleared out animal shelters from Los Angeles to New York, and created a thriving cottage industry of people who will drive or fly puppies across the country on request.

Prices for puppies in the U.S. rose by 36% after the pandemic began compared with the previous year, and are still at roughly those levels, according to PuppySpot, an online listing site for breeders. Scams, too, have abounded: In November 2020, the last month for which data is available, the Better Business Bureau recorded 337 complaints of fraud involving pets, up more than 400% from the same month the previous year; they estimated that the losses from such scams in the U.S. and Canada likely topped $3 million in 2020.

The demand—and the scams—are a product of the same phenomenon. Since the start of the pandemic, much of the world’s relatively privileged, urban populations seemed to have stockpiled the things they thought they needed most: beans, gaming systems, toilet paper—and dogs.

A passion for dogs frequently and collectively tipped into something closer to a society-wide obsession—and created bizarre and sometimes disturbing distortions of supply and demand along the way. Unlike toilet paper, moreover, this wasn’t a passing phase.