[kkft]

hi everyone, my friend had purchased a male boxer puppy about two weeks ago from a breeder, with no contract. The puppy started losing its hair, brought it to the vet and found out it has demodectic mange. My friend talked to the breeder and the breeder said that his parents have not had any outbreaks. He did not know about this but is now bringing his dogs to the vet to get them checked. Should my friend contact the AkC, and if he does what will happen to the breeders. Do you think that they knew or was it an honest mistake? Do you think he should file a complaint against the breeder?

 

[Little_Boxer]

huh...I know your problem all too well.  The breeder doesn't have to do a thing, unless it was specifically written in a contract (which you said there was none).  If they have a broad health guarantee they might at least pay half or something, but with no health guarantee you don't have much luck.  Not to mention a lot of the time the health guarantee just allows you to return your dog in exchange for a new one.  Demodex just jumps up to bite you without any previous reason.  Autumn has this too, and when it becomes generalized (more than 4 spots) it gets pricey and hard to treat.  Autumn is still not getting any better after 2 months of treatment.

My breeder said that his dogs have never had a problem, and it's very likely.  It's an immune system problem, so unless he sold the dog to you when the dog was too young (which could effect the immune system) he hasn't done anything wrong.  It just happens.

I wanted to call up the breeder and yell too when I found out that I would have hundreds of dollars in vet bills related to this, but I stayed calm and called him to just let him know anyway.  The best he could do for me was exchange her for a new puppy, but Autumn was 8 months, and had just had a big move...I didn't think that would be fair to her to move again, not to mention she's great.  I didn't want a baby puppy.  I think we will get at the very least a discount on another puppy if we want to get one from him again, which I probably would because this is just a fluke problem and no puppies have had this problem before.

Aren't we the lucky ones?

 

[samsonsmom]

The main reason to let the breeder know is so they can get in contact with the other people that bought pups to give them a heads up..My understanding is that a dog should not be bred again if this has been discovered, but could be wrong on this

 

[Little_Boxer]

If it was a very small case of localized that was easily treated then the dog could be bred, however if it was a hard to treat case or it became generalized they shouldn't be bred (so long breeding contract!).