When a friend gets a designer dog from a breeder

[connie]

I have a hard time, lately, hanging on to my optimism and it's only by controlling my exposure to news, etc., that I manage to avoid being angry some or all of the time. I see stupidity on the rise everywhere, and I don't react well.

Last night I went to dinner with a good friend of 20 years (who is also a FB friend, so thank goodness once again for ODO) who recently lost one of her 3 dogs, and wanted to get a third dog. Her three dogs, and the dogs before them, came from rescues. Lab mixes. Nice dogs. My friend does not 'do' anything with them: no training classes, no dog sports, no excursions. Not criticizing, just saying, she is the pet owner who wants her dogs to be family members and they might get taken for walks, but they are house and yard dogs almost exclusively. So no real big items on her list of what she's looking for in a dog.

She got a third dog last week: she went to a breeder of Labradoodles and bought a 10-week old puppy. She decided that she liked the 'hypoallergenic' bit, even though (1) it's bullshit and (2) neither she nor her husband are at all allergic to anything.
She called the rescue where her rescue Doodle (who is now 4) came from and they provided a referral to this breeder. The breeder then gave her a 'discount' for the rescue referral, and my friend paid $500 for her puppy, instead of the $1500 the breeder usually charges.

That's not a typo, folks.

So my friend is telling me all this, and I am sitting there drinking my Dos Equis and smiling as my back teeth grind down to nubs; what am I going to say? That she has now encouraged this breeder of mutts to produce even MORE dogs who may be nice but add nothing of value to any breed or job, when there are already so many dogs who are nice and who are also homeless? She'll justify her decision with more BS.

At the $1500 mention, though, I did splutter on my beer. I can buy a *really* well-bred Border Collie from WORKING LINES for half that!

There is one born every minute, and it just confounds me when a friend of mine joins the ranks of those suckers.

[SherriA]

Ahhhh! I so feel you! I have friends who have done exactly the same thing, and it's always a doodle too damn it.

Well, not always, one friend has bought a couple of labs from breeders, but she researched the breeders pretty thoroughly because she was looking for, as your friend, the right temperament to be a house/yard dog and not one that had high drive, etc. She really wanted friendly, sociable couch potatoes that would enjoy an occasional walk but not need significant exercise beyond playing in the yard, etc. (I can't see a doodle EVER being that; the ones I've met are coiled tightly as bedsprings)

Once it's a done deal, I don't know that there's much you can do other than bite your tongue. And what's up with the rescue recommending she go to a doodle breeder???

[emmas_mom]

I hear you! I have had friends buy from puppy mills, buy designer dogs, buy from back yard breeders, just days asking me to help them find a suitable dog from a reputable rescue or shelter. Up here, $1500 for a doodle would be cheap - most start at about $1800 (okay that's Canadian, which would be about 1500 US, but that's a STARTING point here, and $2000-3000 is the norm for doodles when one looks at the webpages of these breeders. Even backyard breeders charge over $1500 for mutts - Just this week on our community facebook page I saw rotti-lab cross pups advertised for $2800, and something with some designer name I'd not heard of (a cross between a chihauhau and a yorkie and a bichon, IIRC) for $2500.
What I'm really appalled at, in your post, is that the RESCUE gave a referral to a breeder of designer dogs. I understand that if someone has their heart set on a pup and is not willing to wait until one comes into rescue, they might choose a breeder. And under those conditions, I can see a rescue helping that person understand how to identify a good breeder. But referrals to a cross-breeder? Good grief!

[maxs_mommy]

Ok, seriously? The rescue recommended this "breeder"and the breeder gave a 66% discount? Wtf? Does the rescue get a kickback? This is just bizarre to me.

[connie]

I have my suspicions about the rescue ... I don't even want to ask my friend any questions to confirm my suspicions, I won't be able to be civil. Here's the deal: there were 14 puppies in this litter. WTF?! That's pretty extraordinary, and my GUESS is that the breeder contacted the rescue because she wasn't able to place them all. (Gee, she doesn't have a website, I'm actually surprised.) If she couldn't get them all placed, she would probably dump on the rescue the dogs that she had 'left over.' My friend got her puppy at 10 weeks old. Shitty breeders don't actually keep puppies that long, they sell them at 8 weeks.

I don't have a particularly high opinion of this rescue, and I have a lot of questions about it; I also think my friend is telling me what she thinks I want to hear.

It's just frustrating. It's like the people I met at a local baseball game once, who told me they 'rescued' their Bichon from a pet store. SERIOUSLY, FOOLS, THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS!

Everybody wants the props for doing the right thing but not everybody wants to actually DO the right thing.

[connie]

Update: I went with this friend to the Pet Expo yesterday, hadn't seen her since last summer. The puppy is now a teenager, and all is not well. The puppy does not get along with the two resident dogs (a rescue Lab mix, 11 years old, and a rescue SomethingDoodle, 6 years old, both neutered males) and they will not play with her, and her play style sounds entirely inappropriate for them. Consequently, the puppy is separated from Charlie and Boston much of the time.
My friend was absolutely not equipped to get a high-energy puppy. She and her husband are in their late 60s and all their past and current dogs have been pretty much just yard dogs, occasionally walked around the neighborhood but not even that in recent years. This Doodle puppy needs way more than that, and she's not getting it. My friend has zero interest in dog sports or any form of training; she's always claimed to 'train' her dogs herself, and we have differing definitions of that word. Someone with training chops could integrate this puppy with the resident dogs with a pretty good chance of success, but my friend is not that person.
The puppy is a very nice girl and my friend loves her and has considered rehoming her but the odds right now are much against that. My friend will simply wait for Lucy to grow up and get through puppyhood. Perhaps then the boys -- or boy, since Boston's littermate died last year and Boston is probably a short-timer, he's a very large dog with many health problems -- will have a better relationship with her.

All of this was entirely predictable, and that makes it really sad. My friend is disgruntled at not getting the dog she wanted; she is now down on breeders and says she will only get rescue dogs in the future. Yeah. Good plan.

[maxs_mommy]

Four little words. You. Can't. Fix. Stupid. I don't think you're friend is unintelligent necessarily, I do think this was a stupid move and your friend is digging in their heels. All you can do is keep your mouth shut. SMH

[connie]

Yeah, I agree. My friend is not stupid, but she told herself a story , here, and she's sticking with it. She turned 'I want this' into 'this will happen', in her mind, and landed in this situation. We all do it from time to time.

The breeder, who should never have matched this puppy with this home, told her that the puppy would enjoy dog sports, like agility. Probably true (assuming the dog is structurally sound; how would we know that, hmmm, no-health-tests breeder?) but who thinks a 67-year old woman with no history of physical activity is going to start dog sports? Hey, I'm 62 and the biggest reason I'm in dog sports is because I started when I was in my 30s. Just saying.

[Amanda]

I guess the silver lining is that she’s not dumping the dog after it didn’t turn out the way she expected? I meet sooooo many people that this happens to them. Doodles are predictably nothing like they are advertised to be. I have a 45 lb 6 month old doodle in my class that was promised not to grow over 35 lbs. whoops! And another that had her heart set on doing therapy work and the dog is a wound top that couldn’t settle to save his life let alone pass a CGC. Not a doodle fan over here and shocked that they continue to be bred and purchased for how many I see with major issues.

[emmas_mom]

So many doodles around here, none the wonderful dogs their breeders claim - they seem to get the worst traits of both breeds rather than the best, and they go to people who thought they were getting a 'perfect' dog and are mostly not interested in really working hard to help their dog be the best he/she can be. We're also seeing lots of doodles turn up in shelters and rescues and rehoming ads - mostly when they are teenagers, not surprisingly.

Connie, you mentioned how your friend now wants nothing to do with breeders and will only go to rescue for her 'perfect dog' next time. I can't tell you the number of people I've met who say just the opposite - having adopted one less than perfect dog from a rescue or shelter, they now badmouth them all and will only get a dog from a breeder - mostly from a backyard breeder because they don't have long adoption processes and waitlists.

Last week I was introduced to a friend of a friend who wants my help finding her 'the perfect dog' - but it needs to be small (under 14" - strata rules in her condo)), not bark, be willing to use puppy pads on the balcony for its business because she claims she can't walk to take it down the elevator and outside, not be scared of visitors, like to cuddle, and not need walking. Strangely, I met her at a social function where she was walking around, so she's not completely unable to walk - she just can't walk far and doesn't want to walk a dog. Oh, and the dog should be cheap to adopt and cheap to maintain. And nothing from the SPCA because she is done with them since she adopted a small dog from them a year ago and it turned out to be afraid of anyone who came to her condo - she gave up and returned it a year later, expecting her money back which she didn't get. Then she saw that they sent it to another SPCA up island, who put it up for adoption again and she was outraged because "they sold it twice!". Aaargh. Needless to say, I'm doing nothing to help this woman. She needs a cat, not a dog. Preferably a stuffed one.

[connie]

I know, Jean ... sigh ... I used to think that people were really asking for information or direction when they asked about getting a dog; as I get older, I think that less of the time, and I respond less of the time. The woman who wants a dog who is not a dog is, sadly, not uncommon. People like that want to HAVE something that other people appear to have, but they don't want to actually INVOLVE themselves in the process of getting and owning it. Dogs are a consumable item, like a nice set of patio furniture. And when people like that actually get dogs, it is not a good thing!

Thankfully, my friend is not one of those people, but she is a person who has had dogs that were well-suited to her home and her lifestyle, and she has come to think that's typical. It's really not, especially nowadays, when anxiety in the canine species seems to be at all-time highs, and when our lifestyles are less and less suited to including animals. Her new dog is more of a challenge than any of her previous dogs were, but everything about her life is different now -- a retired husband with health issues who is unwilling to do anything but watch TV all day, both of them with less physical mobility, etc. I know she is giving all her dogs a good home, but the way she's owned dogs for the last 20 years isn't so easy now.

[connie]

And I REALLY don't like the Doodles I have met. That may be in large part because they are owned by clueless people who think they don't need to train the dogs or do anything beyond what they would do to maintain a large stuffed animal. Even the few Doodles I have met in dog sports aren't dogs that appeal to me, they're way too wound up, like the one Amanda mentioned. Who wants that temperament?!

[maxs_mommy]

I have met some nice doodles, mostly golden and labs. (Full disclosure, my dog-niece is a g-doodle). I will say they are not really golden or poodle at that point and it really is a crap shoot what personality and coat traits you're going to get. I am not a fan of mutts for mutt's sake and yes, people are clueless. Sam, the dog-niece, is ball crazy and too smart for me but also a great family dog for my SIL. I think she is the exception though and not the norm. She is also heavily socialized with daycare 3 days a week and is a running buddy to burn energy. I think if a person is prepared for each breed's tendencies or predominant behaviors a dog has a better chance of having a good homelife. But isn't that the case with every dog, purebred or mutt? There seems to be a disconnect here with owner abilities and dog needs that seems apparent to everyone but the breeder and owner.