Oh, the ignorance of some breeders.

SunnyDaysDontLie · December 2010

You know that arrogance some breeders have? You know, the "I breed 500 dollar dogs, and they're all perfect and nothing could go wrong with them" arrogance? Well, here is where something goes wrong, and I'd like to smack the lady, too. My friend's mom recently bought a pure breed Yorkie puppy. $450. She got the papers and everything. He was the typical Yorkie colors, the dark brown with the light brown points, and he was adorable. He was a registered dog, so if she ever wanted to show him, she could. Eight weeks old. He wouldn't stop throwing up, and had severe diarrhea. So they took him to the vet, and the poor thing has parvo. "Symptoms usually begin with a high fever, lethargy..." When I was holding this dog, he was not moving around much. He would grunt, and crawl up, and he was tiny enough to curl up on my collarbone. He did not squirm like Molly did when I brought her home, and when I held some Malti-poo puppies, they were only a week old and they squirmed around. He made no noises other than the grunt. No whimpers. No whines. Nothing. This breeder -refuses- to believe that anything is wrong with this dog. And so they're returning the dog to get money back. I'm sitting here thinking, "Dogs have some moderate size litters, five or six puppies, etc. Parvo is severe. If she doesn't own the stud dog, this is going to cost her a ton of money." It just surprises me that she would jeopardize a litter of puppies like that. It costs a lot to breed a dog if you don't own the stud. And she refuses to believe it.

RoyalRaccoon · December 2010

A fact of the world is that there will always be people out there that think they know everything. Unfortunately, it's quite sad to see arrogance when lives are involved, but what can you do? If you suspect the woman of not looking after the pups, or getting them the treatment they need, then you can report her for animal abuse. Parvo is pretty dang serious. It could be that the breeder is just arrogantly embarrassed, and refuses to admit anything to others, which is ridiculous, but at least those ones still take care of the problem in private. Hopefully that's the case, and she does realize the danger her dogs are in before she possibly looses them.

DiamondPuppy0809 · December 2010

Someone was selling German Shepherd pups for around $500 here about two or three years ago, and my mom's friend got one for only $100 (who knows why they gave him to her cheaper). A couple months later the puppy started getting flakey skin and itched A LOT. She took him to the vet and they said he was allergic to his dog food--the meat in it. So now they have a GSD that takes medication (expensive) and needs dog food (again, expensive) that has no meat in it. Also, the vet said that the whole litter of puppies probably had the same allergy because the parents probably passed it on and hadn't been tested before being bred. Some breeders are just irresponsible and don't admit to their mistakes.

tarnish · December 2010

I had my own experience with something like this. My old border collie was from a breeder and all the papers seemed to check out and such but about a month after we had her she started getting sick. She would go to the bathroom all over the place and we took her in to the vet. She had whip worm and for whip worm, it takes awhile for the eggs to mature so they had been sitting there in her the first weeks we had her. My vet is convinced it was from the breeder. My mom ended up taking her back because we couldn't afford the medications or to clean up the messes she made. I wanted to keep her but my mom wouldn't let me. She demanded that the breeder return the money. The breeder did but we watched her website, and she put the dog back up for sale right away. What ticked me off even more was that she used our photos of Addison (my dog) without permission! We had sent the pictures to the breeder as a follow-up on how Addison was doing when we first got her. So the breeder fully well knew she was selling a -sick- dog. She was diagnosed and everything and the breeder knew it! Some person actually bought her too. We would have told them she was sick (have no clue if the breeder told them the dog was sick but it wasn't in the website description) but we didn't know their information. I personally still wouldn't mind getting a dog from a breeder because our shepherd we had for about 12yrs was perfect and one of the best dogs we ever had. It's just wrong though when they don't own up to what they did and put more dogs at risk. *Whip worm eggs can survive in soil for -years-. She was risking all her other dogs by taking Addison back first off and all her other dogs were probably infected as well. Btw, we thoroughly cleaned our area outside where our dogs use the bathroom with bleach, fresh gravel, etc and my new border collie never caught it. Last note! xD For collie breeds, the vaccine for whip worm can cause major side effects to the point where its life threatening. For her to get better it would take months and months of a medication taken orally.

RoyalRaccoon · December 2010

tarnish wrote:

 *Whip worm eggs can survive in soil for -years-. She was risking all her other dogs by taking Addison back first off and all her other dogs were probably infected as well.

This is what bothers me most about the irresponsible ones that don't get their pups tested or treated before selling them; it puts other animals at risk. I talked to someone who got an older puppy from a breeder, and it turned out the dog had distemper. The dog had to be euthanized, and they were unable to get a new one for months, since distemper hangs around. I never heard a follow up, but the last thing they said was that they were definitely planning to take the breeder to court, since she/he refused to take responsibility for selling a dog like that. The really sad thing is that all of that happened after they had just lost a long time family dog to old age,(they got the pup to help their distraught children get over it). Could you imagine going through that, after already loosing a beloved pet? I'd be so depressed and angry.

SunnyDaysDontLie · December 2010

It's just. Depressing. My friend April owns a bunch of small breed dogs, like Chihuahuas and Pomeranians, and some of them are mixed with Jack Russel, etc. Little dogs. Half of them got Parvo, many died. She's heartbroken. I feel really bad for her. As soon as I found out that Yorkie had parvo, I scrubbed my jeans and my hoodie. Cats can get it too, I heard. Like Sushi said,

It could be that the breeder is just arrogantly embarrassed, and refuses to admit anything to others

, but I doubt it. I don't have her information, so I can't report her to the ASPCA, but. It just irks me. This dog, with proper treatment, may live. Then again, he's only eight weeks, so he'll probably die. You'd think she'd be more concerned with saving the rest of the litter than letting her pride get in the way. Tarn, Molly is part border collie xD They're pretty dogs. It's sad, though, what people will do for profit. The same kind of goes for the stable near my house. They seem to be more concerned about the money they make for lessons and leases and such, and not the horses. That was the impression I got from them, and for that reason I don't look into that particular stable when I'm pricing riding lessons. They're more expensive there, anyways. You get people that are passionate for animals. They love them. Jane Goodall loved chimps. We had a vet up in Columbus that loved dogs. You get breeders who love the animal, and don't care about the worth, just that it's going to a good home. Then you get breeders who don't care about the adopter. They only care that they're getting their five hundred dollars for an ill dog or cat. You can't help genetics, Garfield. Sure, the dogs should have been tested, and the puppies also, so that they could warn you that the dog was allergic to meat. [Which is weird. Dogs are carnivorous, but can be allergic to meat. Ironic.] Or, so that you could look elsewhere for a dog.

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Oh, the ignorance of some breeders.

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