RightPaw Reviews Policy

Last updated: June 30, 2026

Authentic and Trustworthy Reviews

Reviews on RightPaw give you a window into verified puppy buyers' experiences — how the breeder communicated, how transparent they were, and how supported buyers felt after bringing their puppy home. They're also valuable feedback for breeders, which is why reviews must be honest, relevant, and based on a genuine first-hand experience.

Reviews are a signal, not the full picture. We encourage buyers to weigh them alongside a breeder's health testing, socialisation practices, and breeding standards on RightPaw — these fundamentals matter just as much, if not more, than any individual review.

Not every breeder has reviews, and some will have more than others — many breeders offer puppy buyers a choice in how to pay, so not all payments happen on RightPaw. This isn't a reflection of breeding quality. A great purchase experience and excellent breeding practices aren't the same thing, so we recommend looking closely at health testing and socialisation alongside any reviews you read.

What We Don't Allow

Reviews that are irrelevant

Reviews should reflect the reviewer's own experience with the breeder they are rating. A review is irrelevant if:

  1. it is not based on a genuine experience, paid to the breeder via RightPaw payments;
  2. it discusses a different breeder, listing, or unrelated service;
  3. it is left by someone who did not directly participate in the adoption/purchase process.

Reviews that are fake

Reviews must be submitted by someone who had a real, verifiable payment with the breeder. Reviews cannot be submitted for unverified puppy buyers.

  1. Breeders and buyers may not coordinate, pressure, or incentivise either party to leave (or withhold) a particular review.
  2. Reviews may not be exchanged for compensation, discounts, refunds, or reciprocal positive reviews.
  3. A breeder may not threaten a buyer to suppress a negative review, and a buyer may not threaten a negative review to extract concessions from a breeder.

Reviews that contain harmful content

Reviews may not contain profanity, hate speech, discriminatory language, threats, or content that is otherwise harmful or illegal. All reviews are automatically screened for this kind of content prior to publishing.

Reviews used to harm competition

We recognise that breeders may genuinely purchase dogs from other breeders — reviews from breeder accounts are permitted, but may be subject to additional review where a conflict of interest is identified.

How RightPaw Reviews Work

Unlike a simple star rating, RightPaw reviews are built on four dimensions — communication, professionalism, transparency, and health & post-handover support — alongside an overall rating, a public story, and private feedback shared only with the breeder and RightPaw.

Recommendation Scoring

  1. An overall rating of 4–5 stars counts toward a breeder's recommendation percentage.
  2. An overall rating of 1–3 stars does not count as a recommendation.
  3. This percentage reflects all reviews currently in published status, and is updated periodically.

Review Moderation

Most reviews are published within 24 hours. Some reviews — including all reviews with a low overall rating — are checked by our team before publishing, alongside our automated content screening. This means a review is never blocked from publishing because it's critical — moderation exists to check for harmful or inappropriate language, not to filter out low ratings.

What Doesn't Qualify for Review Removal

Consistent with consumer protection norms around online reviews, RightPaw will not remove a review simply because:

  1. A breeder disagrees with the rating. A review that reads positively but carries a 3-star rating, or vice versa, will not be removed solely on that basis.
  2. The review mentions something outside the breeder's control (e.g. a delay caused by a third-party vet, or a courier issue during handover) — this may still be useful information for future buyers.
  3. The review reflects a subjective opinion, such as a buyer's view that communication was slower than they expected, even if the breeder disputes that characterisation.

Disputing a Review

If a breeder believes a published review is factually inaccurate, they may dispute it — either directly from their dashboard, or via the link in their publish notification email.

  1. Disputing a review temporarily unpublishes it while our team investigates.
  2. Each review may only be disputed once; our moderation team reviews the dispute and may reinstate, permanently remove, or otherwise action the review.
  3. We assess disputes based on the evidence available; reviews are not automatically removed simply because a breeder disputes them — see What Doesn't Qualify for Review Removal, above.

We generally do not mediate disputes over review accuracy beyond this process. Breeders are encouraged to use the reply feature, below, to share their perspective publicly.

Responding to Reviews

Breeders may publicly reply to any published review. Replies are subject to the same content screening as reviews, and are visible to all users viewing the listing. We encourage breeders to use replies to add context or address concerns constructively, rather than disputing the legitimacy of a review outright.

Internal Review Actions

RightPaw team members may unpublish or permanently remove a review where it violates this policy, contains severe or harmful content, or where a dispute investigation concludes the review should not remain public. Removed or unpublished reviews are excluded from a breeder's recommendation percentage and dimension averages.