Okay, I had to vent somewhere, and figured resurrecting this thread was a place to do it...
One of my clients brought in an absolutely adorable puppy the other day. Because I have the information, I looked up the breeder on the internet (no, I'm not going to share, despite how ridiculous I think the site is). Basically, this puppy is a bulldog/boston cross, sold as a "mini bull." The website says that it's guaranteed free of congenital defects (going through things like hip dysplasia, kidney, liver, heart problems, but not mentioning respiratory defects) and that if the dog dies of it in the first year, they'll replace the puppy. But only if the owner spends lots of money to get second opinions, any and all diagnostics and treatments, and the necropsy. The breeder also writes that they take the utmost care in making sure the puppy has been dewormed and vaccinated ... the paper I got says they started him with deworming at 2 weeks old, every week, until 9 weeks (when he was shipped off to his new owner) and started vaccines, every week, starting at 4 weeks until 9 weeks. Just in case you didn't know, vaccines take around 2-3 weeks for the immune system to process, so vaccinating more frequently actually *decreases* efficacy of the vaccines in question... and usually we start at 6-8 weeks of age because the immune system isn't mature enough to understand what to do with the vaccines before then. Deworming at 2 weeks is fine... generally goes at an every other week schedule (mostly due to the way the roundworm life cycle goes, but hey, every week won't hurt), but the dewormer listed is one we usually give for 3-6 days in a row, not single doses at week intervals... *sigh*
And the only pictures on the breeder's website is of the adorable puppies and their daughter with her horses (to prove that they only breed because they love animals, it says so). Does not show a photograph of a single one of the breeding dogs. One can only hope that these are available on request (but not sure my clients thought to ask...). And there's a little disclaimer that they don't guarantee show quality for their dogs... excuse me? Since not a single one of the "breeds" listed on the website are purebred, wouldn't that basically guarantee that *all* their puppies are not show quality? Oh, wait, maybe they'll have an accidental litter where both parents are actually the same breed XD (most are english bulldog crosses, it looks like... I guess that's what the male is).
Oh, and judging by the prices on the remaining mini bulls, my clients spent over $1200 for this lovely dog... *sigh* again. Owell. Hopefully they don't then tell me they don't have money to do anything if something goes wrong... they seem like a very nice and earnest young couple who want to do everything right in their first foray into dog ownership (I don't have the heart to tell these kind of people that maybe buying a puppy on the internet from across the country is not the best way to start dog ownership...). I guess as long as they listen to us about preventative care and take him to puppy school and all that, he at least has potential to be a wonderful pet
okay. I'm done beating my head against the wall about breeders. Wait, no I'm not. But I'm done venting here for the moment
