I hope that the experienced breeders on here will be able to give me your thoughts please.  Back in November after careful research I purchased a beautiful puppy from a very experienced breeder who regularly shows her dogs and is doing very well in the show world.  Now my poopie was not show potential, his coat was very mismarked, but nevertheless was a lovely specimen; I was not intending to show, so therefore his coat markings were not an issue.  The breeder was very honest and explained that he was not show material because of his coat, and his price was reduced to reflect this (£750.00)

When my pup reached 5 months of age he was diagnosed with HD :( his breeder was kept informed.  We have him insured so thought we were covered, wrong, his total insurance cover is 2,000 per year, so that ruled out total hip replacement sadly as this procedure would cost 4-5,000 per hip.  After discussions with out vet, we are going ahead with femoral head ostectomy, which is roughly 1,500-2,000 per hip.  So pup is covered for one leg only, the other leg will be operated on in 3/4 months time which we have to fund ourselves.

His breeder has been kept informed every step of the way.  I should mention that I realise these things can and do happen despite the very best health tests, and expressed my feelings to said breeder (both sire,dam and all grandpartents,grt grandparents have all good health results).  The breeder has suggested that I could have another pup in the future, same sire, different dam. (This was said to me several weeks ago via telephone conversation)  I found out last week that she has a litter of pups but have heard nothing from her!!!  Now I realise that it is still early days and she could contact me but I have a feeling that wont happen.

What I would really like is the money from my pup refunded so as we can put that towards his next proceedure in October (he goes for his first proceedure next week), do you think that is unreasonabe???  Also the timing is not really right for another puppy as we need to concentrate all our efforts on gettng our baby well again.

Apologies for long post, but can you please give me your thoughts.

D

Firstly sorry to hear that your pup has HD.

Firstly is your pup in pain as I would wait until he is a little older until he has grown a lot more as things can change and so the severity may well change for the better as his bones and muscles will develop and may stabilise the hips. Is your vet a specialist in HD as would make sure you get a specialist involved in his diagnosis and suggestions of further treatment.

In the meantime what excercise do you give him and what food and supplements is he on ? There are many things you can do to help a dog with HD through diet and types of excercise.

As for the price of the pup is 750 a reduced price as how much do poodles normally cost ? It seems high even if it has been reduced ?

I would also say getting another pup at this time would be the wrong thing to do as you need to concentrate on your current pup as he still has a lot of growing to do and so your effort would be best placed concentrating on his training and health. Even with a healthy pup it is not recommended having two pups so close together and normally 2 to 3 years is a good time to think about getting another pup.

My middle Lab Puds has severe HD but we manage her through diet and excercise and she is a happy healthy 8 year old who gives our 3 year old a run for her money in zoomy races !

I don't really see how the breeder could have forseen that this poor lad would go wrong with haveing done all the tests appropriate to the breed and him leaving her appearing perfectly healthy even if mismarked so its not her fault and any offer she makes would be pure generosity on her part and not something she would be legally or morally bound to do.
it is terribly sad your boy has hd and I really hope you get him through this ok.

> its not her fault and any offer she makes would be pure generosity on her part and not something she would be legally or morally bound to do.
>

Absolutely agree and any reparation she offers is over and above your rights.

Although this is a sad case, it is unwise to go down the route of looking for blame and the 'right' for refund. In any court of law this breeder
(from the details given) has taken " every possible care to produce a living creature fit for the purpose for which it was purchased."

As to whether she is deliberatly hiding the fact of another litter - I doubt it, knowing that you are about to embark on surgery for another dog,  most breeders would baulk at letting you have another youngster at this time.

However, I probably would give you a refund towards towards the surgery but that is my personal decision and cannot expect everyone to decide the same.

Dillon is now approachng ten months and is on painkillers and glucosamine supplements.  He is extremely lame on his back legs.  We have taken him to hydrotherapy which he hates, but it gives him every chance for his forthcoming proceedures.  My vet had sent his x-rays off to a speciaist (Royal Vetinary College Cambridge) and that is where his ops will take place.

As I said I do not blame and never have blamed his breeder, these things happen sadly.  Morally I would have liked an offer or a refund as we had only had Dills for 4 months when he was diagnosed.  If the breeder feels she can offer another puppy why can she not offer any financial help, im confused.

Dx

Sorry to hear about your pup. Can't comment about financial refund, only that maybe if refund is offered it's some way of accepting blame?

I have a girl with HD, parents good hips, grand parents, etc, good hips. She was officially diagnosed at 11 months, though from around 6 months I thought her movement was a bit different to the other dogs I'd had. She went to a different owner from 8-12 weeks, I don't know whether she was over exercised, or had an injury. I informed the breeder of the problem, but she comes from a litter where at least 2 of the other dogs have been scored and well below the mean. Sadly HD is as much a numbers game as anything. There are so many other factors involved in addition to the breeding from parents with good hips. Early injury (in the whelping box, using stairs at early age, fall, anything), level and type of exercise, food, etc. I can't blame the breeder as she did everything right, I just don't know the reason for her having it, whether it's down to previous owner, down to me or just down to that law called sod.

In terms of having another pup from the breeder. Only you can decide whether to take her up on that, but I would say that at 10 months it would be much better to wait longer before introducing another dog, and maybe that's what your breeder thinks? From my own experience - forget the HD stuff - your youngster is still learning so much and it's much better to wait for an 18 month - 2 year gap.

Hope all goes well with the surgery when you go through with it :-)

If the breeder feels she can offer another puppy why can she not offer any financial help, im confused.

Could be a simple case of money available or not. She may not be able to offer actual money at the moment, but a pup would not mean actual cash to find. We can all be short of money at times. But also if I had made sure to breed from parents with good hip scores (and everything else relevant, so I knew the problem was not my fault), then personally I would be inclined to feel that the buyer should have taken my advice (that I always put into writing) on getting the puppy insured, so that if there was any future problems, money need not be an issue. If the breeder hasn't done anything wrong, I would feel it somewhat unfair to expect them to pay towards vet costs when the dog could have been insured. Please don't take this the wrong way as I absolutely do not mean it to sound accusatory, but is it possible the HD is a result of the puppy being exercised too much? We know it can happen. I'm just trying to reply here AS a breeder to give the breeder's perspective. If it was me I too would offer a free pup.

I too have had a dog with severe HD (score of 96), he lived until he was 13 I'm pleased to say -Glucosamine with Chondroitin worked miracles for him. Hope it all ends well for you and your pup, best of luck.

Edited to say: I realise your pup IS insured, it's the question of the maximum paid out, I just meant generally speaking.

Thank you for your advise and good wishes:)  With regards to exercise, we were very careful, but you do think is it something we have done? Vet assured us hd is a hereditory (sp) condition, but obviously not helped by excessive walking, to be fair my baby never ran not from day one but bunny hopped, a sure sign of hd.

A valid point, something to be considered when taking out insurance, check and double check what your dogs and how much treatment they are covered for, something we should have checked as we were horrified to discover our baby was only covered for 2,000 of treatment.  I suppose it is an individual thing from a breeder point of view with regards to reunds and I take that on board.

Dx

probably just extremely bad luck :(

I'd be inclined to keep quiet about the gait being funny from day one when dealing with insurance or they may decide preexisting condition...
My own dog I discovered at first vaccination had extra eye lashes - a fact i was devestated to find out- it had been missed by the breeder and her vet and I have nasty feeling that if ever she gets issues with her eyes the insurance won't cover as its obvious now she was born like it so pre-existing.

I'm very sorry that your pup has problems.  It must be very difficult to watch and deal with.

Vet assured us hd is a hereditory (sp) condition
Malcolm Willis, who used to be the top man regarding HD, used to say that the predisposition of HD was hereditary but whether it progressed was more often due to environmental and dietary effect.

but bunny hopped, a sure sign of hd.
My experience is that bunny hopping is in no way an indication of HD but more likely indicative of luxating patella.

I'm sure if you were careful with exercise etc you didn't cause it. I was just thinking back quite a few years now to a court case where some breeder was sued for selling a puppy with HD. Turned out it had been walked 3 miles a day from 8 weeks of age -so rather extreme.

I've often heard it said that HD is part genetical, part environmental, and part we don't know!

My experience is that bunny hopping is in no way an indication of HD but more likely indicative of luxating patella.

My Golden with severe HD started to bunny hop in his old age as his hips got worse and worse.

I have a breed that frequently bunny hop as their movement of choice when searching and running around fields.  This is not indicative of HD or luxating patella either.  Only way to tell is by x-rays.  I think to put all breeds/dogs in the same bracket is totally incorrect.  My almost 10 year old girl bunny hops for Britain with wonderful health tests which were carried out at around 5/6 years of age!