Sorry, long post.
Sometimes, one can be fooled all the way up to the point of driving hours out to pick up their puppy.
Personal experience here.
1) Breeder found on AKC site and has the AKC Breeder of Merit label
2) Breeder has listed on AKC site a litter that was born, price for puppy, as well as checking off that there is health guarantees, dogs are tatooed, and or microchipped. Breeder belongs to several clubs and is very active in them. (I had checked that out, and it was true)
3) Breeder shows dogs and has several champions
4) 4 generation pedigree that has only 5 dogs who are not champions.
Breeder was great sending emails with pics, talking on the phone, the love for the GS breed, etc. How much was spent with time on the puppies in this litter by this breeder and they are well socialized, etc.
Day has come. Driving 4 hours to get my puppy. I get there and breeder has me come into the home and immediately signals for me to sit me down to pay for puppy. My response was "Well, can I see her first please?" (flag goes up a tad)
Then I was brought out to the kennels that looked pretty clean/kept up. Mother was on premises but I wasn't allowed to walk up to the pen to see her as she wasn't "feeling well"
Litter of 6 but only 2 were in dog run. No one had picked theirs up yet so I was a bit confused on where the other pups were. Then I started looking around and the area didn't look like what had been in the pics I had seen of the puppies. Oh well, I shrugged it off figuring the other pups were probably spoken for and no need to have them all in the same run.
Fell in love with the puppy. (of course)
Back in the house now. Had me pay the 1500.00. and once money was all counted and put away, I was told I had to choose from names the breeder had picked out to put on the AKC registration form.
This wasn't just the kennel name, I had to pick what this breeder wanted for the entire registered name. I had never heard of this before. I started feeling a bit uncomfortable as I hated everything that was written down on the "pick list".. I mean, really dumb names!
Then I was told NOT to spay my female because she came from nice lines and SHOULD be bred at least once.
Mind you, she doesn't know me from Adam..
She then showed me a folder with the guarantees, as well as crate training stuff, etc. and basically said "keep in touch, good bye!" She was expecting another person to pull up to get their puppy and there wasn't much parking room.
Just went through the folder this morning. There was NO guarantees for hips, elbows, naddah, though on AKC site it was stated how this breeder did. I called the breeder to ask if there had been an error where the guarantee papers had missed the folder. The response about hip guarantee? "Yeah, I don't do that" When I asked why it stated this on the AKC site that there was guarantees, as well as what had been said to me, the reply was "I said HEALTH guarantee. Make sure she is checked within 48 hours and if she is sick I will take her back, but after 2 days if she gets sick, it is all on you. Dysplasia can be caused by all different factors that are not genetic." When I started to ask more questions I heard "I have people here now and I have to go" click.
I looked at the emails I had been sent from this breeder and realized in the lower body that the pics were sent to this breeder by someone who was raising the litter. The litter was never at this breeder's kennel. That is why there was only 2 pups there. That is why the landscaping that I saw in the pics were WAY different from where this breeder lived. Also, the puppies were NOT microchipped, or tattoed as stated. My guess is, this breeder co-owned or had some deal made with a family to get 1 male and 1 female from the litter. Hence the no guarantees, microchips, etc.
So...I messed up. I will get her microchipped, and be extra careful to make sure I don't do anything that may harm the hip/elbow development.
Everything had seemed right and I feel a bit foolish now. Oh well.
