Contratto
Boxer Buddy
I am so confused over choosing a breeder right now. We're finally decided to get another boxer pup and are really trying to do our homework and ask the questions that we need to in order to get a healthy, happy pup but we just keep running into things that make so little sense to us.
We found one breeder that was a member of the UK assured breeder scheme. We were interested in her litter but the dam suddenly died three weeks after the pups were born. We didn't want to automatically say no to the pups just because they were orphaned and so we felt the situation required more questions and time. We wanted to see pictures of the dam as we could no longer see her and were told that they didn't really have any. We thought this was odd as they showed. We wanted to actually SEE the health test scores and they never materialized either. We went to see the pups - we had one that we were interested in but still wanted to check out a few things - talk to our vet about orphaned pups and what we needed to be concerned about, when the breeder emailed us and said that all the pups were now sold. We were rather shocked. We were the first ones there to actually see the pups, we were in email contact ... was this really how the process is meant to go? I also found it strange that while we were asking all the questions we were supposed to ask, this 'assured' breeder didn't ask us any at all.
We then contacted one of the most well-known and top show breeders in the UK. I liked their lines and they seemed to be producing beautiful, long-lived, healthy and well-temperamented dogs. They weren't going to be having any litters until the end of 2013 but they were able to give me the name of someone that had used their top stud dog and just recently had a litter. So I went through the usual introduction process, we asked a lot of questions via email and what they did answer sounded good. (25 years experience of breeding). They never answered the questions on email about the health testing via email and we thought it was just something they had missed in the list. So we asked again and were told that they don't have any health tests for the mother. I'm totally flummoxed at this. While I could believe that there are small breeders out there that aren't using health tests to screen their matings, what am I now supposed to think about the large, well-known breeders that provided the stud dog? Don't stud owners have any responsibility as to who they chose to use their stud dogs? Why didn't they require some health tests for the mother?
Maybe it's just harder to find a really good breeder than I thought and the correlation between breeders that are consistently producing champion show dogs and those that are doing what they should for the breed is much smaller than I thought. But isn't there something very very wrong with the show world if they aren't the vanguard of the movement to keep the breed as healthy and sound as possible?
Any comments and suggestions are very welcome.
We found one breeder that was a member of the UK assured breeder scheme. We were interested in her litter but the dam suddenly died three weeks after the pups were born. We didn't want to automatically say no to the pups just because they were orphaned and so we felt the situation required more questions and time. We wanted to see pictures of the dam as we could no longer see her and were told that they didn't really have any. We thought this was odd as they showed. We wanted to actually SEE the health test scores and they never materialized either. We went to see the pups - we had one that we were interested in but still wanted to check out a few things - talk to our vet about orphaned pups and what we needed to be concerned about, when the breeder emailed us and said that all the pups were now sold. We were rather shocked. We were the first ones there to actually see the pups, we were in email contact ... was this really how the process is meant to go? I also found it strange that while we were asking all the questions we were supposed to ask, this 'assured' breeder didn't ask us any at all.
We then contacted one of the most well-known and top show breeders in the UK. I liked their lines and they seemed to be producing beautiful, long-lived, healthy and well-temperamented dogs. They weren't going to be having any litters until the end of 2013 but they were able to give me the name of someone that had used their top stud dog and just recently had a litter. So I went through the usual introduction process, we asked a lot of questions via email and what they did answer sounded good. (25 years experience of breeding). They never answered the questions on email about the health testing via email and we thought it was just something they had missed in the list. So we asked again and were told that they don't have any health tests for the mother. I'm totally flummoxed at this. While I could believe that there are small breeders out there that aren't using health tests to screen their matings, what am I now supposed to think about the large, well-known breeders that provided the stud dog? Don't stud owners have any responsibility as to who they chose to use their stud dogs? Why didn't they require some health tests for the mother?
Maybe it's just harder to find a really good breeder than I thought and the correlation between breeders that are consistently producing champion show dogs and those that are doing what they should for the breed is much smaller than I thought. But isn't there something very very wrong with the show world if they aren't the vanguard of the movement to keep the breed as healthy and sound as possible?
Any comments and suggestions are very welcome.