Advice please! One furious lady here

[Nika C]

My thoughts exactly Maty! Very suspicious.
I wouldn't have placed a deposit without seeing the pup anyway. I've never bought a dog myself before, but been with family a couple of times so I'm not 100% clueless lol.

[zeta1454]

It is always difficult when looking for your first dog and, there is no offence intended by myself or any of the others who have offered advice, but some of the criteria you had mentioned for choosing the breeder seemed to ring alarm bells i.e it sounded as though you did not know anything about the breeder until you spoke to him on the phone and were then judging him to be OK by his manner which seemed honest; the lineage of the pups is of less significance than their health status - did the breeder have the eye test certificates for parents and pups?; 'reasonable cost' - does this mean they were cheaper than the going rate? - the best quality pups will all be within quite a small price range partly dependent on location.

I think why some of us on the Forum get so worried about how new puppy buyers are sourcing their pups is the fact that , as has been highlighted recently, as many as 1 in 3 puppies bought in the UK are thought to have come from puppy farms or disreputable breeders who do not follow the required welfare standards of dog breeding. As many as 1 in 5 bought online or from a pet shop will die before they are 6 months or require long term veterinary treatment. I have personally seen the grief of a couple who had purchased a Westie puppy who was going to die at 10 weeks of age from a congenital disease he had when they bought him from an apparently well-known (and therefore trusted by them) Westie breeder in the locality, the vet was so upset to have to tell them that they could do nothing but throw their money away on treatment that would fail. No insurance would cover what they had already paid as it was a pre-existing condition when they purchased it - without a Contract of Sale of course.

As I previously said always look for the best breeder you can before looking for pups and, although I am sure you probably do already know this, make sure you get a detailed Contract of Sale when you purchase the puppy along with the KC registration papers and health test certificates. Anyway I do hope all goes well with the new breeder you have found and they are far more responsible than the breeder in Wales

[dogsbody74]

100% agree.

[Nika C]

zeta1454
I do understand everything you've said there and it's all things I have read/been informed of before. He said he did have eye test certs. for Mum and Dad, but obviously as we didn't go up there I haven't seen them myself, and I was told the pups would have been sent home having been tested themselves, first injection, microchip, insurance etc etc....
I'll hold my hands up, I didn't know anything about him before I spoke to him, no, but how much CAN you know about someone before you've spoken to them? And the intention was to visit and see him and the pups, along with Mum and Dad, the conditions they were kept in etc. And the plan was to go up there with a "veto" list, i.e. a list of things that if any of them happened while there (or weren't present dependent on what the problem was!) then we would walk away, no money down, and at the very least think twice if not abandon this option altogether.
As far as reasonable cost, I only refer to the fact that I have been informed of some pups at nearly £1k, which is not an option for us.

But anyhow, pups are due on Sunday, I'm very excited, and hoping that there's a little boy for us I'm going to drive everyone INSANE!! Haha