Visit the Breeder?

I'm sure everyone has read all the articles recommending that before you buy a puppy, you take yourself from one breeder to another to see the parents, meet the breeder, and inspect the facilities.  I would like to say something TO the people who write this kind of irresponsible drivel, but chances are I won't get the opportunity.…..In my opinion, the people who wrote these articles have obviously never been on the receiving end of those endless visits… or more importantly, they have never faced the ravages of PARVO.  Well we have.  Never again.

I understand that you may want to meet the breeder & see the facilities.  This expectation appears to be a very logical request, but be prepared to have breeders who are serious about the health of their dogs be reluctant to have you visit their facilities. 

We used to regularly invite people to come visit us, and play with the puppies.  In fact every Sunday we usually entertained prospective buyers.  People who had put deposits on puppies would come every weekend and play with their babies until they were old enough to go home.  But things were getting out of hand.  People would just show up and start playing with puppies, even if we were not home.  Finally, we had to change our open-door policy, after one lovely family let their children play with the puppies for the better part of an afternoon.  We were horrified when one of the children remarked, “these are much nicer puppies than we played with this morning.”  When asked where they had been earlier that day they informed us that they'd been at the home of another breeder.  They had taken absolutely no precautions before coming to our home.  That other breeder we knew was under investigation for SPCA violations due to sanitation & disease problems, and has since gone out of business.  

We immediately went into lockdown and put all our dogs into quarantine.  Yes, we had vaccinated our dogs, but Parvo doesn't always respect vaccinations.  And what about the unvaccinated puppies that they had looked at?  Within 2 weeks of that nice family's visit to our home, we lost 9 of 11 three week old puppies to Parvo.  To be fair, we can't actually prove it was them that brought Parvo into our home, but if it was, do you think for a minute that “nice family” would take any sort of responsibility for their actions?  Furthermore, even if they did bring it here, they most certainly didn't know any better, but we SHOULD have.  We will not make that mistake in the future.

Not only is it very dangerous for the dogs (and upsetting to a Mom with babies) to have visitors, but it has become simply exhausting for us.  We have had to draw the line somewhere.  We get approx 8 - 12 calls & e-mail inquiries a day.  At LEAST half of those, if not more, want to visit and spend a few hours with us, play with the puppies, but many are saying “we might want a puppy in the future and are interviewing breeders now”, or “we think we want a bulldog but have never actually met one”, so they want to come visit our dogs to decide if they really like bulldogs. We can understand why someone would want to do this, but we simply can't accommodate everyone who wants to put a field trip into their research.  

Can you imagine how many people would be walking through our home if it were open house everyday?  I woke up to 4 e-mails & I've had one phone call so far this morning and it's not quite 9 a.m.   When we have puppies we go to bed at midnight, have another feeding at 4 am, then are up for the next feeding at 8 am.   People call during meals and want to talk for hours, we answer e-mails at 4 am..... we have had to draw the line in order to simply have a life. Our evenings and weekends would be full of people wanting to visit our dogs.  Even if we are not supposed to have a life of our own, when are we supposed to have time for all the people who just want to view the facilities?  THIS IS OUR HOME .  We've had people treat us as if we are a petting zoo.  Some even ask if they can ride the horses.

Now only SERIOUS buyers come here.  We are prepared to assist in any way we can on-line or over the phone.  We send photos, we give advice, we answer questions.  If someone wants assurance that we actually exist, that the dogs are in fact purebred, that we take the best possible care of them, our vets are more than happy to give recommendations.  Simply ask us for their phone numbers.  You can also check us out with the Canadian Kennel Club.  We can give references if required.

We are not expecting to meet people somewhere in a parking lot like we were doing some sort of drug deal, although I do know some breeders do that now.  But we have to make a compromise.  If someone wants to come with their cash in hand to buy a puppy, we are happy to accommodate them.  Not a couple of visits to make up their mind, or “I'll come back later with the cash”, but fully prepared to go home with their puppy. If they decide upon coming here that they don't want the puppy, then that's fine too, but quite frankly that almost never happens.  Prepared people know what they want.

What we try to either enlighten or avoid are those people, usually young girls, who have this fantasy of sitting on the lawn surrounded by beautiful, bouncing puppies, and have that special one come over, put their little feet on their chest & look them in the eye, so they can say “This is the one”.  I expect accompanied by violins, slow motion & fields of daisies.  We can either educate these people into caring about the health of the puppy, or we can't.  Some people don't let facts & common sense get in the way of the fantasy.  They feel that if they are going to spend the money on a puppy, they want the fantasy with it.  No matter what the very real problems they could be causing.  Restrict the other guy maybe, but they and their fantasy are somehow different and the restrictions should not apply to them..

Some people are honestly worried about being scammed.  These people are much more reasonable, and we can answer any questions they have to set their minds at rest.  There are some real doozies of questions…. But we can answer them.

We don't misrepresent what we have, and if someone wants a sweet, healthy, purebred, English Bulldog puppy, then we can make them happy.  If someone has unrealistic expectations, and doesn't like the lack of access we are prepared to give them, then we are relieved to have avoided an unpleasant relationship with them for the life of their dog.  Because in our experience, demanding and unreasonable people are just that.  We do like to avoid them where at all possible.

So, when people ask if they can visit our place to see the dogs, this is what we reply:

Due to virulent strains of disease in the Central Alberta area, our Veterinarians have advised us to limit visitors to our home while we have unvaccinated babies in the house.  Because we can't determine where a visitor may have been, now we only allow visitors to our home to actually purchase & pick up their puppies. We must limit access.



As for those breeders who do allow visitors, by all means do business with them if you like.  Just think, if they allow you to visit, who else has been there, and where have THEY been?  Sometimes that fantasy can turn into a nightmare! 

As for those people who continue to write articles advising that people “ Visit a number of breeders and compare the dogs, the facilities and the breeders.” Your advice is at best naive, at worst dangerous and irresponsible.

Shauna Crane

Couleebank Bulldogs

Alberta, Canada