legit breeder, puppy mill or scam?

[Leo]

hi all, 

Im new and naive to the puppy world and am in need of some advice. my wife recently researched puppies for our family, we have a few children who are getting older and are ready for the responsibility of having a pet. 

she also has allergies to pet dander and has been hesitant to adopt a dog. her research led her to the "doodle" family and she focused on a specific breeder who breeds exclusively american labadoodles. the website claims that the dogs are "purebred, multi generational Labradoodles that
have perfect, fleecy, HYPO-ALLERGENIC,NON-SHEDDING Coats, square lines and great   conformation!  Premium lineage, Premium breed!"

my wife called the number and spent an hour on the phone with the breeder. everything seemed great. The breeder even arraigned for us to visit someone local who had adopted a labradoodle from her three years ago. the owner had nothing but complementary things to say about the breeder, and my wife reacted well to the dog. The breeder was warm and friendly, she answered all our questions and was readily available by phone and email. my wife decided to go with this breeder and made two payments three weeks apart. 

since then she has been very difficult to get in touch with her. for the past two and a half weeks she hasn't answered the phone once and has only responded to a few emails when the tone has turned somewhat aggressive. every time we call the business phone number it rings twice and gets forwarded to a cell phone which says the voicemail is full. she did email that there was a death of a young child in the family and she has been extremely busy. she sent a picture of the puppy my wife had chosen and said there would be more pictures coming. that was a week and a half ago and we havent gotten another picture. the only contact we had since then was this past Friday when she tried calling and left a message that she tried to call but wouldn't be available for a few hours. I've tried to call and surprise surprise, it went to a full voicemail box. my wife has emailed her on friday and yesterday and hasent gotten a response. 

at this point im very concerned about the whole transaction. I am very untrusting and think that we are being scamed.  I also dont want to over react and panic about something which is taking the normal course. How much contact should i be having with the breeder before the dog is delivered?

the puppy is now 6 weeks old and the breeder says she doesnt release them before 10 weeks.

thanks for listening 

any advice would be greatly appreciated

[Adina P]

There are lots of unknowns.

1) Maybe she is really busy

2) Maybe she sucks at customer service

The above wouldn't mean her breeding is bad on its own.  Have you gotten references for this breeder? You can search our site for the name of the breeder/company. Have you been able to visit or will you be able to visit when you pick up puppy? Do you have a deposit down that you can get back or are you locked in?

[Adina P]

Send me a private message with the breeder's website.

[Leo]

ive spoken with someone who got a puppy from this breeder and is very happy with the experience. there were some red flags raised when i did my research. i am actively trying to contact people from the testimonials page of the breeders website. research online led me to some complaints which were easily explainable without having to speak with the breeder, (not like i can even ask if i wanted to, she hasnt answered the phone).  my wife paid by credit card so i have up to 120 days to dispute the charges.

we live in NY and the breeder is in indiana. when we spoke with her initially she welcomed us to visit  

[Star and Goldie]

I live in Indiana. If you can private message me the name of the Breeder I can do a little digging for you.

I will tell you that if there was truly the death of child in her family then I'd say she is doing a remarkable job keeping in contact with you. The fact that she even still sent a picture in the midst of that is big deal to me.

[Star and Goldie]

I found the website. Wow it is a hot mess! Maybe some people just aren't good with designing websites... I know my breeder's didn't have a lot of bells and whistles either but you could tell by just spending 5 minutes on her website that she was legit. I haven't figured this breeder out just yet... maybe because all of that flash started making my eyes hurt so I stopped reading!

[a.k.a. Rodney]

As I was reading your post...I Wondered if this breeder was from Indiana.
You can private message me her name. however, I did speak to one on the phone and she was quite aggressive actually and phoned me a month later to see if I was still interested. I had a friend who got her dog from this particular breeder. The dog is a great dog. She's smart, quite pretty, But my breeder who trains her also says she is not interested in doing anything.kind of a lame dog. This fact alone for sure does not condemn the breeder.
My Trainer feels for sure she came from a puppy mill.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Can you stop payment on your checks?????  I think you were scammed.  Doodles cannot be guaranteed as  hypoallergenic.  First of all No dogs are truly hypoallergenic, but non-shedding dogs are less likely to cause an allergic reaction.  Allergic reactions can really be on a dog by dog basis. If your wife is very allergic I would not get a doodle puppy.  If you want a doodle, you need to get one who has already gone through the coat change (from pup to adult coat) because the coats are often so different she might not have been allergic to the puppy but might be to the adult.

Non/low shedding breed link:

http://www.justdogbreeds.com/low-shedding-dog-breeds.html

[Adina P]

The hypoallergenic claim is a scam, but that doesn't mean this person isn't selling puppies--it just means they are selling myths about doodles.  So I'm curious what kind of scam the poster is worried about...that he won't get any puppy or that the puppy will be a puppy mill pup or that the breeder makes wild claims about what doodles are?

[Leo]

at this point im not sure that a puppy will be coming and if one does that it will be from a puppy mill and that the person selling the dog is pulling a scam. she seemed to say all the right things and once she was paid the communication basically went to a standstill. she might deliver a dog to satisfy the credit card company of i complain but im concerned that i wont be getting the multigenerational puppy advertised

[Ginny Nightingale]

That seems odd and must be very upsetting--I am hoping that when you say "  made two payments" you do not mean that the pup is paid for in full. That would be very unusual--the deposit is usually all that is required before pick-up day.

I have to start though with the first section and the dishonesty that the breeder demonstrated when she said ""purebred, multi generational Labradoodles that have perfect, fleecy, HYPO-ALLERGENIC,NON-SHEDDING Coats, square lines and great   conformation!  Premium lineage, Premium breed!"

I am sure others will attack her for this as well. It is so dishonest, I don't even know where to begin!

1. Doodles are not purebred, they are cross bred (two different breeds crossed together.)

2. How can she know that they have perfect fleecy coats when they are so little?? Doodles can really vary since they are, as I said in #1, crossbred!!

3. There is no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog and many doodles do shed!

Generally the curlier the doodle, the less likely they are to shed and many people get an F1b for that reason (doodle crossed to a poodle to increase the percent poodle) OR they get a poodle! You really have to live with the dog to determine whether or not you will react to it though.

4.As in #2, there is no way to know if the puppies will have square lines and great confirmation until they are way past their tiny puppy days. And littermates vary a great deal--no one can guarantee that all their pups have great confirmation.

5. Last but not least, Doodles are not a breed.

So, I feel very suspicious based on that description--and feel that she is not being an open honest doodle breeder--I hope this can be resolved for you--it must be heartbreaking--there are scams out there that use the same picture of a puppy over and over--the pup is then shipped to the new owner via airplane and it is not the same dog--it is really better to go with someone you can visit and check out their facility and their dogs.

[Cathy, Fozzie & Shaggy]

This is exactly what I was thinking and going to say!!!

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

I probably wouldn't be feeling very easy by now either, but I do have to add that if there was a death of a young child in my family, and I had a litter of dogs at home, I'd be more than "pretty busy". In the big picture, you may have just been pushed to a back seat due to other pressing life matters at the moment. Having said that, I would continue to try to contact her and since I am pretty certain your money is not refundable anyway, just wait and see what transpires in the next few weeks. I personally love that she keeps her pups for 10 weeks. I don't know who your talking about though so. Can it be a scam? Could be....just not too sure what else you can do at this point as checks have cleared by now. Do you have her home address?