Every time I try to bid on a pet in the auctions, it ends up being a buyout. I've checked multiple times to make sure I'm clicking the right thing, but it still automatically sells me the pets.

Could you provide a link to such finished auction, or provide the purchased pet ID and approximate time when this has happened? It's possible for an auction to have the buyout match the minimum bid to make it work like a direct sale.

This is one of the pets;

https://beastkeeper.com/pet/1065055

I didn't check the exact time since this happened a while ago, but it was around 23:00. And yes, the buyout and minnimum bid were the same on all the auctions that this happened to.

This feature works as expected. What's the point for making the trade partners wait if the requested price was paid already? You get the lot when you bid the amount equal or larger than the buyout. If the minimum bid is the same with the buyout, you don't have any other options, so any bid ends up as a buyout.