Is this a responsible breeder? Out of options. - Page 5

And I STILL maintain that if you want a dog that is 'guaranteed' not to have any health, temperament or other issues, you need to buy a Dakin dog.

If you want to improve your odds that you'll be getting a dog that has no health issues and which will be suitable for your intentions, you need to be buying AN ADULT DOG that has already passed all of the health testing and evaluations. 

If you opt to go with a pup, you have to accept that there's definite limitations to what a breeder can control, in spite of them having done every known health test and evaluation on their breeding stock...and if your luck just happens to be bad, as it appears it has been for the OP and the dog, it's nobody's fault but Nature's.

And Nature doesn't give refunds or replacements.

I've never known a breeder that will guarantee a dog will not have health problems, temperament issues, allergies, and the like.

The best I've seen are breeders that offer full SATISFACTION guarantees; but that is NOT the same as saying the dog will forever be free of undesirable conditions. You can't guarantee against everything, even if you screened your stock for everything. Thing is, some conditions are genetic once they occur, but the initial issue can crop up idiopathically from a long line of dogs without problems. It has to start somewhere. It's easy to blame the breeders for pairing two dogs together, but that's kind of like blaming two parents for having a kid with Downs Syndrome; telling them "you should've known better!"

Puppy buying IS a crapshoot. That's not BS. Hell, even a breeder deals with this when they hold the pick puppy back and find out several months later that little Fido turns out to have bad hips, severe allergies, incomplete adult dentation, or whatnot.

Blaming the breeder for producing a pup with issues only holds water if the Sire and Dam are known to have said issues themselves.

I've gotten a lot of puppies over the years. I might go to a breeder I've gotten dogs from before, and one time I wind up with a puppy that falls shot. Sh*t happens. Clearly, it's not the breeder's fault. Especially if they offer to make it right within the scope of our purchase agreement!




Regarding the OP's dog, I don't see a lot of people waving hands and offering to take her; yet it seems easy to say the breeder's bad because they were honest about the very real possibility they'd euthanize her. With so many great dogs out there that don't have special needs (or a loving home!), I do not think euthanasia is an unreasonable thing for a dog that has a severe problem that would chronically reduce the quality of it's life.

I have very bad food allergies that went undetected by convential drs and testing for years and i suffered dearly. ironically, some of my worst allergens are grains. wheat, corn, soy, the three top gsd allergens, which are often used as fillers in dry dogfood. i find that if i stay away from grains, that i can better tolerate other allergens such as pollens, molds, dustmites etc. in other words, the immune system can better tolerate the air allergens if i keep the allergens out of digestive system. i do very well eatting salmon and many vegies and fruits that we grow on our small org farm in the summer, and in winter eatting chicken and vegies that we freeze and save... the chickens having been fed grains has no bearing on being allergic to the chickens meat. tho i do certainly prefer humanely raised and fed chix, when we can find and afford. we feed our gsds the raw diet, including raw chicken, every morning, as well as other meats, when available, and strongly believe in the raw diet for gsds. i believe there are many comments on this pdb about the raw diet. we also feed our gsds grainless kibble in the pm. our dogs all look great, shiney coats, high energy, and btw, all live in the house with us and run and work tog on our small 10 acres! i hope you try this before giving up on your gsd, and before looking to place blame. when i went thru the process in my 20s to figure out why i was so very sick, i went to a natural dr, and he did alternate form of allergy testing, and i did NOT want to give up breads, pizzas, cookies, etc... what i did i give up wheat and grains 1 week, and allowed my system to clear out, and i felt 99% better. then, of course, i went back and ate grains, after couple days, learnt my lesson... and changed my diet permantly. keep in mind that much of this is not widely recognized by traditional western medicine, and if i had not found David Horle, my natural dr, who educated me on this and much more, than i wouldve been dead a very long time ago. hope this info helps you and your gsd, best of luck, S

Sometimes a really cute pup comes along, and wow.....so sweet and good natured......
makes you think that the world we live in is so perfect ya know, all rainbows and such.... that we don't have a care in the world....then the pup grows up.....starts having problems maybe around the two year mark......like allergies.....gee...can that really happen to the most perfect pup in the world.....you bet your ass it can!

Is it all because you bred two certain dogs together.....NO......it's because you bred two purebred German Shepherd Dogs together!!!!

Hello!,
the German Shepherd Dog is prone to:

Hip dysplasia
Elbow dysplasia
Eye problems
Thyroid problems
Heart problems
Degenerative myelopathy
Von Wildebrant's bleeding disorder
Bad temperament
pancreatic enzyme deficiency 


Bloat
Diabeties
Epilepsy
Cancer
Cow hocked
Addison's disease
Dwarfism
Lumbosacral spondylosis
Splay feet
Roach back
Ankleosis
Weak ears
Missing teeth
Cryptorchidism
Monorchid
Pancreatic enzyme deficiency



And last but not least> The wrong color!!!!

Oops! Have I left anything out!.......

Sorry to be so hard on you, I know that it is just a dog...BUT...if it were your kid, what would you do... I only say that cause I am a mother of eight children, and there is always a way to find comfort.

Stop listening to the vets that are sucking money out of you, and listen to breeders of German Shepherds.

LOL and much APPLAUSE to you Mirasmom ! She now has one excellent AFFORDABLE option to try, raw diet - no grains. Which is what we highly recommend to our buyers and was recommended to us , precisely fot these reasons(allergies-etc)

You are lucky the breeder is offering you a puppy to make it right with you, I purchased a pup with very bad allergies and I got told I CAUSED the allergies by having fleas!  Among other excuses they give to avoid taking responsibility for the fact I got a dog from them whos health I was very unhappy with.

mirasmom wrote:

Sorry to be so hard on you, I know that it is just a dog...

Are you KIDDING me?  You actually dare say "it is just a dog"?  Well, hell, since you've got 8 kids, I guess it wouldn't matter too much if you lost one of them, since 'it is just a kid', you've got 7 more of them, and you can make another one, right?  Of course not.  I expect people who have never known what it's like to have a real partnership with a dog to say 'it is just a dog', but not someone who presents themselves to be a dog person and a breeder.

As for your list of things German Shepherds are "prone to", you need to qualify that by noting that these ailments, conditions and faults are not limited to the GSD--virtually every breed of dog can be affected by the majority of that list, and mixed breed dogs are not any less likely to be affected either, if both parents are carrying the genetics for the problem.

And for accuracy's sake, since it's hard to research something if you don't have the name right: the terms are von Willebrand's disease, and ankylosis.

Stop listening to the vets that are sucking money out of you, and listen to breeders of German Shepherds.

?? Isn't that sort of what started this whole discussion to begin with--the OP spoke with the breeders of her dog, and didn't like what they had to say?  'Cause what the OP seems to want to hear from someone is "Oh yes, send your poor allergic dog to me and I will care for her forever...", and that's not likely to happen here. 

Unless, of course, mirasmom's home is open to the dog?

Yes hexe,

 If it were my dog I would take it back in a heart beat and care for him, not put him to sleep.

I only take back my responsibility not others, I'm not responsible for bringing that pup/dog into this world.

I may have worded that differently.....I understand there are people that take offense to the "It's just a dog" expression that are trading there adult dogs left & right, treating them as livestock, which I find disheartening.......actions do speak louder than words,
and this is just a dog forum...

 thanks for the heads up on the spelling...



Maybe you should take him, as I seem to not care about him cause he's just a dog.....

mirasmom writes:

"I may have worded that differently.....I understand there are people that take offense to the "It's just a dog" expression that are trading there adult dogs left & right, treating them as livestock, which I find disheartening.......actions do speak louder than words,
and this is just a dog forum..."

So because SOME people who would claim offense to the 'just a dog' comment make a habit of "trading there adult dogs left & right, treating them as livestock, which I find disheartening", you don't think there's anything wrong with making that comment?  'Cause I find it just as offensive, and I'm sure not trading dogs or treating them as livestock (even though my livestock live better than most people's pets).  I would suggest that you eliminate the phrase from your vocabulary, unless you fall into the same category of dog trading and puppy-farming as those whose practices you 'find disheartening'.

thanks for the heads up on the spelling...

You're welcome.  Working in the field of veterinary medicine, I do find that owners very often don't have the correct name for a particular condition or disease, and this hinders their efforts to learn about the issue if they try researching it.  It's especially problematic when there are two conditions that are close in name--one example is scrapie, which is a transmissable brain disease of sheep & goats; even people whose families have owned flocks for generations all too often refer to the disease as 'scabies', yet that's a parasitic infestation that we've managed to eradicate in the US ('eradicate' being a term used to describe the situation where we've been able to suppress a disease or parasite to a level where it is virtually unknown in the species it affects).  Looking up 'scabies' isn't going to be helpful if your sheep are diagnosed with scrapie and you want more info...

"If it were my dog I would take it back in a heart beat and care for him, not put him to sleep.

I only take back my responsibility not others, I'm not responsible for bringing that pup/dog into this world."

"Maybe you should take him, as I seem to not care about him cause he's just a dog....."

Well, since I don't breed dogs, I don't have to limit myself to only taking in those whose existence I caused to occur--that's precisely WHY I don't breed dogs.  There's simply too many out there already who are in dire need of good forever homes. I don't need to add to the supply, or fill up a home that might be suited for one of those dogs.

And I would have considered taking this dog--who's a bitch, btw, not a male--had I not just taken in the senior dog who was heading for euthanasia if a foster home couldn't be found (as posted here last month). Guess what? He's got discoid lupus, and develops calcinosis circumscriptus lesions; what do you think the chances are that he's a candidate for adoption?  So here we are, better than $1000 of medical bills into him, and he's a very sweet fellow...so despite the fact that he wasn't 'my responsibility', he'll be staying here for the rest of his life, and he'll get the medical care he needs to keep him comfortable and happy for those years. 

So no, I don't think you don't care about *her* because *she's* 'just a dog'...you've made it clear that your interest is lacking because she's not a dog that you brought to be.  But I still believe that the comment, 'just a dog', is offensive and cruel, and has no place on a dog-centric forum such as this. 

Minro-I feel so sorry for your girl.

I have a dog with serious allergies (not a gsd) and have found that with a little work the allergies are manageable.

I know this might sound like a lot of work but after you set everything up the work only takes about 10 minutes a day.

Here are some suggestions:

1. NO dog beds.  I use towels in his crate (cheap at Sam's Club) which I change daily.
2. If she's allowed on furniture, cover the furniture with washable seatcovers or sheets.
3. Wipe your dog down after each outing to remove allergens.
4. Have her wear booties while she's on grass.
5. Purchase a good air purifier, change the filters often & run it constantly. Alen Air Purifiers are the best-more expensive than the rest, but the most effective.
6. Try to keep her on tile or wood as much as possible & dust or vacuum floors & furniture daily (Rubbermaid Reveal spray mop is easy to use & effective.
7. It will be hard for you if your apartment is carpeted & she's allowed free access.  There is a way to work around that if you'd be interested...
8. Cod liver oil supplements.
9. Use antiseptic spray on any irritation from itching to prevent infection (Lanacane anti-bacterial spray is best) & Gold Bond powder on her feet if she chews them.