I
was having a look at the pages on Social Media and came across these
1,
His testicles haven’t descended?
2,
The dogs have corridia (worms) and so do the rest of the litter does that make
for a bad breeder?
3,
One from a vet they have an eye problem at 8 weeks?
4,
They are being aggressive with my other dogs?
The
answers they got from others on social media to these concerned owners veered
from decent to wildly inaccurate and harmful. The one thing they all shared is
this Not a single one advised the puppy buyer to call the breeder. In fact somewhere
outright anti breeder, with the undescended testicle being the worst as in the
breeder didn’t check before you left with the puppy. Or one saying get the dog
neutered straight away. Or it’ll end up with cancer as at eight weeks it’ll
never come down.
In
each case by at least one answered the owner was given the impression that the
issue was in some way all the breeders fault small or large it fell on the
breeder.
I
get very nervous reading these responses and I think most breeder do too. Those
are questions to which there are no right or wrong answers to and they are
issues that breeders have much more experience in than anyone else, including
vets at times.
Why
don’t people call their breeder? I think it’s a few things
They
feel stupid that they have had this issue?
They
don’t want to bother the breeder?
They’re
mad at the breeder?
Someone
has made them think that the breeder is not trustworthy?
They
think that Social Media will help all?
Sometimes
they have a point as its no fun calling your breeder. If you call me with an
issue something has gone wrong. It’s either my fault or your fault or the dogs
fault but most of the time its not the dogs fault. So you’re either calling me
to say that I have done something and I have to make it right or you’re calling
me and I am going to tell you’re doing something wrong and then your going to
get defensive and angry or have to spend money fixing it. Do remember I am on
the side of the dog not necessarily yours. Its not that I don’t like you or
that I don’t want to be friends, my closest friends are people that have sold
dogs to or bought from or are in my circle of friends that I hold dear. I hope
we can have a working relationship that means updates and phone calls. But when the tough gets going I’m bending
over backwards for that dog. Its not all sweetness and light then and there’s
nothing you could of done. It’s going to be “You need to change
this and change this fast.” Or, if the problem is my fault, I’m going to get
off the phone and yell a lot and most likely punch something. It probably won’t
be a lot of fun for either of us.
However, that doesn’t matter. You
HAVE TO CALL YOUR BREEDER. You have to call whoever is the most experienced
with that breed and that pedigree and who is going to get you the best answer
for the good of the dog, even if that answer puts someone in a tight spot.
Here’s why:
1, Many problems are breed-specific
and the solutions are breed-specific too. That puppy with the undescended
testicle? Turns out he’s only ten weeks old and he’s a toy breed. Small breeds
often don’t have their testicles descend, or they can yo-yo around, until the
dog is four or five months old. You can help them stay down by very gently
manipulating them into place and you can also give supplements to help. Very
obviously, the person whom so glibly gave that information had no real idea
what she was talking about but figured the faster the nuts could get cut off
the better. I don’t know what ended up happening to that poor puppy, but my
guess is that he didn’t get the intervention he actually needed.
I once had a vet tell one of my
owners that their puppy was severely dysplastic, based on palpation at eight
weeks. Thankfully they called me right away, which allowed me to say that in
Danes there is often a positive Ortolani sign in young puppies and it means
nothing. I know this because of conversations with other breeders who remember
when puppy hip palpation was all the rage a good few decades ago, and entire
litters were being put down based on that “click” in the hip joint. It wasn’t
until a few survivors (who the breeder could not bear to put down and kept with
the idea of having it as a pet for its whole life) turned out to have perfectly
good hips that the horrible mistake was realised. That’s a very specific, very
narrow piece of information of the sort that floats around in the consciousness
of the breed fancy for a long time but isn’t taught in vet schools and most
people would never know.
2, Remember that almost all vets are
no more experienced at dog ownership than you are, and they are clueless about
breeding. Most vets are dog owners the same way you are – one or two dogs at a
time, whether adopted or purchased, virtually always spayed/neutered, probably
not particularly well trained. There are many breeds that they see no more
often than you do; chances are a vet is going to see a Scottish Deerhound twice
in her life There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – vets are under no
obligation to be breeders – but it means that you need to let them be experts
in what they are trained in, and not consider them as some kind of dog gods
that know all. Question everything they do and let it sink in.
Vets do not generally raise litters
of puppies. They care for individual puppies but they do not raise litters.
This is also true of many other dog professionals, trainers included. Most of
them are not also breeders. So they are not necessarily going to know that, for
example, all puppies have coccidia (the question is whether they get it badly
enough to show symptoms, which is usually because of the stress of travel or a
new home or new food) and the best thing to do is go find some Baycox (pig) and
knock it out. The trainer is going to tell you that it’s associated with dirty
breeders and the vet is going to put the puppy on Drontal for weeks on end.
3, This can be breed specific and no
vet should write of a pup with an eye problem at this age unless they are a
specialist and no specialist will see a pup, but wait till 6 months and then
wait till the dog is fully grown to take a decision on the dog and not before
then. If really bad they may do early but most do wait and not jump in and say
this is wrong with the dog right away when it can be as easily be a teething
issue or another dog playing roughly. Plus some eye problems are caused by the
way the skull grows and sorts itself out as they reach adulthood.
Yes there are vets out there that
operate early do not allow them to do this as a Danes head is still growing and
they will make the eyes look as if the dog is startled all the time. Make them
wait till maturity.
4, People who cannot see your dog in
the situation you are describing are always going to think the worst. The
description of the puppy biting other puppies could be a real warning sign – or
it could be a puppy playing in a completely normal way with other dogs, and the
problem is that the owner doesn’t know what normal puppy behaviour is. Maybe
it’s a terrier, and it makes horrible noises and shakes the other dog by the
neck while it’s doing it, and the owner has never seen that kind of
interaction. The responses they got, which ranged from the puppy needing major training
because a puppy being aggressive that early is a sign of true mental illness
all the way to send the puppy back now and if it were mine I’d euthanise it,
would (of course) terrify them and make them convinced that the dog was abnormal
and a huge risk.
A call to the breeder in a situation
like that is (hopefully) going to get you a response that is based on years of
experience with normal behavior for that breed and that litter in particular.
It’s very likely that she’d say “Oh, yeah, the two that I still have at home
are doing that exact thing” or “Yes, all Terriers play like that” or “That’s a
warning that you need to get more serious about your control of the food –
sounds like you’re letting things get out of hand and Malamutes are not a breed
that can tolerate an open bag of food in the kitchen and a bunch of dogs
underneath it.” They are not going to be saying pts for it.
One more thing: Call your breeder,
AND CALL EARLY. What seems to happen most often is that the owner has a concern
– let’s say the puppy hates having his nails cut. The owner will mention it to
his sister-in-law, who will come over and see the dog flailing around biting at
the nail grinder. She’ll say “Wow, that’s pretty bad.” The owner then mentions
it to a friend of a friend who knows a groomer. That person will tell the owner
to put the dog up on the grooming table and put the noose up really high so the
puppy can’t get his head down to bite. Puppy then hangs himself and blacks out.
Owner goes to the vet, who offers to sedate the puppy for grooming. Owner pays
for this three times, then gets fed up and calls the breeder, and says that he
has to have the dog knocked out every four weeks and strapped down to a table
and muzzled to get his nails done, and he thinks that this is an improper
temperament for the breed.
This entire situation – which is NOT
far-fetched – could have been cut off months before if the owner had just
called the breeder. If you call me about nails, or about nipping, or about
pulling on the leash, or about separation anxiety, or about ninety other things
that are very common in puppies, yes, I will probably say that you’re doing it
wrong. And I know you won’t want to hear it. But trust me that I’m not magic.
I’m just sadder but wiser. You name an issue and I promise I did it wrong for
years, and finally figured out (or was told, or was beaten over the head which
is most likely) how to do it right, and I’m honestly just trying to save you
and the dog from some hideous stress.
If you buy a puppy from a good
breeder, and I have had this pleasure several times now, you can’t get away
from them without an hour-long lecture. Christ, I get the lecture even now, and
I’ve had show dogs for a good few years. Good breeders sit you down, either individually
or over the phone, and they go through a whole bunch of information from
vaccines to worming to behaviour to feeding. That’s our job. But we do not
expect you to memorise it, and we do not think we could have possibly covered
every conceivable situation, and we KNOW that there will be concerns later. So
please, do not drive away with your puppy and call us only as a measure of last
resort after reading things on social media and listening to other dog owners
that know the same or even less than you. We would all much rather have the
owner who calls three times a week asking about trivial things like hiccups
than the owner who leaves and never calls again.
You’re paying for a good breeder, so
please use what you paid for.
