Shiraz Farms German Shephards in Virginia - Page 3

Horton, why do you and Nikki say you "got burned" by this breeder?

The OP Nikki was offered a replacement, you got your money back, and were allowed to keep your dog...
What else shall a breeder do?

You sell puppies, that said you are a breeder, too - what do you do in case somebody calls and tells you the pup he bought from you has an hip or elbow issue? Do you pay for any vet bills? Do you allow owners to keep the displastic dog without spaying/sending the pedigrees back, and give them all of their money back?

There are always 2 sides to the medal, sometimes buyers try to cheat breeders, too...

I know of 4 dogs from this breeder. Some of, if not the actual, prettiest german shepherds I ever met personally. They have all 4 been in good health except one who had demodex as a pupuppy but went away with minimal treatment and one who had giardia as a puppy and it too went away fairly easily. The rest no issues to my knowledge. They are very large dogs but truly stunning. One of them has a bit more aggressive personality but the others are great dogs. That's the extent of my knowledge of them. Other than I know they price their pups pretty high. A few thousand dollars was what I was told.

Good luck with your pup and I hope it can have many good quality and painless years ahead!

My in-laws don't speak English, hence why I did the research on this breeder and I made the call to Leigh after finding out that our dog was really unhealthy. The breeder, Leigh, was completely unsympathetic. If she was willing to replace our dog with another $2000 dog, then why couldn't she simply provide some money towards our dog's medical care? Because she was probably banking on the fact that we would never trade her in, so she wouldn't be out any money. Also, we can't trust what she would do with the dog. Why would she keep a puppy that required thousands of dollars of surgery and give us a dog? It would have been easier for her to just euthanize our dog, which is what we feared. Leigh doesn't let you see where she keeps the dogs - the puppies are kept in her basement, so I don't know the conditions in which they live. And some of you posters are correct - I should have done more homework. I've always adopted dogs and since my in-laws don't speak English, I took on the role of finding a reputable breeder for them (at their insistence); obviously I didn't cover all of my bases. And I guess I am biased. I have always adopted shelter dogs and almost every single one has lived to it's mid-teens with minimal medical problems. And to the commenter who said that some buyers cheat breeders - how would we be cheating a breeder by spending thousands of dollars on surgery on this dog? It's not like we were scamming them. We sent them the x-rays, as asked, and they never got back to us. We also left them a couple of messages and they didn't return our calls.

And my post is a couple years late, as we were just sent a generic email from Shiraz inquiring about our dog. This is what prompted me to post about my experience. If I had seen any negative posts about this breeder, I would have never gone forward with this purchase. And I hope that others who do their research will now investigate Shiraz puppies before purchasing them.

Susie's remark that "Sometimes buyers try to cheat breeders too" was a general, and true, one, Nikki - it was not said relating to your specific circumstances.

Also, I am sorry but 'homework' does not just relate to internet research. If you visit any breeder, even if it's for the first time ever that you want to buy a pup, and that breeder turns out to have many, many dogs, and will not let you see much of their place, to see how the pups are kept, do alarm bells not automatically ring in your head ? Nobody can look after huge numbers ('barns full') of dogs PROPERLY, without a huge, very evident, amount of input from staff or family. And probably a lot of wealth too. Surely it is 'common sense' to query such an arrangement, even if it only becomes apparent after you get there and could not be guessed at from their website ? There is an onus on the buyers to walk away if all seems not as it should be.

You're absolutely right. I had never purchased a dog from a breeder and didn't know what I didn't know. And just to note, I didn't see barns full of dogs - another poster mentioned that.  I just didn't see where the puppies were kept.  Which isn't that weird.  We have a foster room in our basement and don't usually have people come down to it - we usually bring the respective dog upstairs.  In retrospect, I should have just gotten them a rescue shepherd. At least it would have come from a reputable agency. And after this experience (and two others with previous breeders), they will no longer be spending enormous amounts of money just to get a dog with a fancy background (which honestly, no one cares about - we're not showing dogs, so it really doesn't matter). It just makes them look like elitist jerks.  Especially since most of our family friends are active in our local shelters and don't see the prestige of a pricey dog.  In our neighborhood, it's kind of frowned upon and embarassing to spend so much money on a dog when there are so many being euthanized on a daily basis. I guess our dog took one for the team. Thanks to her, my inlaws will be sticking to rescue dogs. And if they're sick, that's ok - we expect that. We have the money to nurse sick dogs back to health (which we do on a regular basis anyway with our fosters).  We did not anticipate a $3000+ surgery on a dog that costed $2000. We should have just spent $20 at the shelter and we would have been better off. Thanks Shiraz!

 

I get that you love GSDs and you seem to fervently deny any wrongdoing here on behalf of the breeder.  Here's the thing though - it's ok to admit that in light of the poor experiences that several people have had with this breeder, it's safe to say that they're probably not 100% transparent and reputable.  Then again, it's easier to victim blame.  It's the consumer's fault, not the crappy breeder.  You're right - I'm such an idiot for being duped.  Shame on me.

I personnaly have NOT defended / denied wrongdoing by the breeder. I thought I had been pretty even-handed on this one, if you read MY posts (rather than the collective bunch !)

It is not uncommon for puppy buyers to get defensive when anybody suggests they should have been cuter on a common sense basis about what they see at somebody's 'saleroom' - I have seen this on many occasions - but being defensive about it does not excuse the obvious, and I said what I said ^^^ as much for other new buyers to take note of as in direct response to you. TBH, if I had come to buy/foster one of YOUR dogs and you refused to let me SEE the basement where they are mainly kept I would almost certainly have walked away. But maybe I am just a stickler for doing things right.

Well I never refuse to let people see my foster room, I just don't have them come down because my living room is much nicer than my basement. :l  And it didn't occur to me to insist on seeing her basement.

Yeah but I would have ASKED to see your basement. That's my point. It is not what people who are selling you something SAY that you be should watching out for; it is what they DON'T say.
If you ask to see (anything), you give them the opportunity to refuse. If they refuse, you can ask why, and then you can base your decision on whether to give them your money. If they don't refuse and all is well, you can give them your money. If they don't refuse but then you see something you don't like, you can then consider whether to give them your money.

If you do not ask in the first place, you are just placing trust in them. You do not need to do extensive online research on particular kennels to have seen multiple general indictments of puppy farming practises etc.

Thank you, Hundmutter - I never said the OP tried to cheat - this was a general statement, there are always 2 sides of the medal...

To the OP:

Did you really believe it´s possible to breed 100% healthy dogs, only because the parents do have a pedigree?
What about common sense? What about nature?

Have the parents been x-rayed? Any results ( OFA, SV, anything else ) ? Did you ask?
Did you sign a contract? Did you get any kind of "warranty" ? Guess, I missed that part of the story.
Did the breeder stick to the contract or warranty in case you subscribed anything?

This may sound harsh, but there is no way to "guarantee" the health of a puppy, and because of that responsible breeders use "warranties", almost always stating: HD = new dog, sometimes ED = new dog;
in case of a so called "show prospect" (whatever this means) ears not up = new dog, no testicles = new dog, missing teeth = new dog...

In my country we don´t tend to ask for warranties of this kind, because we KNOW shit happens, on the other hand we only pay around € 800 for puppies out of health tested, titled parents.

That said a "responsible" breeder will offer another dog, and a well caring, not already disillusioned breeder hopefully will allow you to keep the original dog, too ( debatable because of dishonest buyers ) - but nobody will pay for any treatments / surgeries.

I am glad you will stick with rescues in the future - a lot of dogs need help because of us, the humans.