Who Do You Trust - Page 5

I would trust Nanu (Nancy-Westwood Kennels) on this board for a breeder, I don't know her personally, but always love her posts.
She also has beautiful dogs!  Agar is gorgeous. :)

I agree with you Blitzen about pet quality pups, but the problem I see, is these breeders sell the SAME pup as pet quality or breeding quality.  They just charge more for full registration, it's a sham.

Good points, Workingdogz (that's a really long screen name).

I've had purebred dogs for 40 years, neutered the pet females before their first season to prevent breast cancer. It worked, never had that. Never any skeletal issues either and none of the people I knew ever had dogs that suffered healthwise from early neutering. Physically, most got a little taller and rangier than they probably would have if they had not been neutered young. I considered that a small price to pay to prevent breast cancer. My very first dog, a mutt, died from pyo when she was 10 years old. After that I spayed every single bitch after she had her last litter. Pyo is not a fun disease and is very major surgery that some bitches don't survive. For me, I'll err on the side of caution, continue with what has worked for me, and opt for early neutering of pets and neutering mature bitches to prevent pyo.

RS,  I would include those breeders in my "never buy from list". People I have known and dealt with sell their pets at greatly reduced prices.  Some even refund x number of dollars when presented with proof of neutering. Not GSD breeders though. Many GSD breeders seem to march to their own drummer just because they can.

I don't mean to be argumentative, but I'd like to give a little different perspective to this topic. Although my pups are priced across the board for twelve hundred whether new owner intends to breed or spay, and everyone gets full registration, I can understand a person selling pups categorized as pet or breeding with price differences. They essentially would be doing the same thing as refunding for spay, just doing it at time of purchase. If someone says they intend to spay, and breeder deducts cost of spay from purchase price and for insurance the breeder would give limited reg to prevent any "mistakes", providing the breeder with a bit of assurance that spay will be done. As far as same pups, different price goes, if you have a very even litter, each pup is as good as the next then obviously to give pet price break, quality would not be an issue. Giving price break for spay is not unheard of in gsd's. I know some gsd breeders locally who do this and I have done it in the past.

What's wrong with selling a dog with a visible fault such as a severe overbite on a neutering contract? Or asking that a dog be neutered prior to the seller's making restitution? 

Blitzen, I completely agree that if a dog turns out to have a genetic problem (severe overbite, HD, missing testicles etc), then requiring the buyer to neuter, does make sense.  And I would expect ANY responsible buyer to do that, regardless of what is on a contract.

However, quite a few breeding contracts require a spay/neuter, regardless of whether the pups are "pet quality" or "show quality" or whatever.   I am not talking about GSD in particular but other breeds like Doberman etc.   If one is just buying a dog to hang around the house as a neutered specimen, then might as well source such a dog from a shelter right ?  Why go with a breeder and pay top dollar for the pup/dog ?

but the problem I see, is these breeders sell the SAME pup as pet quality or breeding quality.  They just charge more for full registration, it's a sham.

Fully agree !

joanro, I think we agree more than disagree. The breed I bred had breed standard DQ's and serious faults that would preclude dogs from being shown or from ever doing well in the ring - the wrong eye color, long coats,  mismarks, splash and mantel coats, piebalds. Dogs with those faults were dogs that should not have been bred IMO. These were faults that could be determined at birth or shortly thereafter so no breeding contracts and neutering agreements were in order. AKC had not yet allowed the limited registration option, ergo we did the non-breeding, neutering thing depending on the honor of the buyer to do as promised. Most did, some didn't, so dogs were still bred that shouldn't have been. I had to grade my litters and felt it was fair to ask more for a dog with a stock coat than one with a long, soft coat for example. However I did have a few friends who thought, for many valid reasons, that grading  litters wasn't a great idea, they sold all their puppies for the same price. 



 

Although my pups are priced across the board for twelve hundred whether new owner intends to breed or spay, and everyone gets full registration,

My kind of breeder !  No strings attached, and relying on the buyer to exercise personal responsibility for what he/she is buying. 

LOL. Reading these posts, it's pretty obvious how people get ripped off. Oy vey.  The mentality is a bit.......interesting. 

Not picking on you, RS, but you state that you would trust someone you "don't know personally", whose dogs you have never even seen (except pictures of them) because you "like their posts" and because their "dog is beautiful"...a dog who was born in 1989, FYI. Now, had you said every dog you know bought from Nancy is wonderful, then that gives more merit when you say you would trust her (or anyone else; this is totally not about Nancy at all!) If I'm wrong, and you have experience with her dogs, then I apologize. 

Now, Nancy knows I have absolutely zero issues with her and like her just fine!   I even have some experience with a few of her dogs, and I like them, too! Unfortunately, this place is teeming with idiots so I have to emphasize that  Nancy has nothing to do with this. If RS had said Kermit the Frog, I would say the same thing.  My point is that your selection criteria of what deems a person/breeder "trustworthy" is imho, faulty. You state elsewhere about what constitutes good and bad breeders or who is trustworthy or not  and it seems to not apply to your own personal decisions on who you would trust, if you will tout the merits of someone without really having anything concrete to base it on. You criticize others for doing the same and you bash breeders (pretty badly) who could easily pass the "good posts" and "beautiful dogs" test/criteria.  When someone asks who they can trust, I would expect they are asking for people with PERSONAL knowledge or experience with that breeder/broker or their dogs, at the very least. Or at least if I were asking, I'd expect that the person had some faint idea what they were talking about. I can look at pretty pictures all by myself. 

Jenni, a persons post says a lot about them.  She is obviously very knowledgeable and breeds beautiful dogs that I'm pretty sure she works  herself.

 I've never ever seen someone come on  here and say anything negative about her, that says a lot too in my books.

Of course I do not know her personally which is why I said as much.  I know I would buy from her.