Boise Bulldogs review: English Bulldog 1

Dear Heart Broken Bully Mom,
Thank you for posting this and giving us the opportunity to reach out to you once again. I remember you clearly, you were getting a bulldog puppy for your husband as a birthday gift. We were so excited to be a part of this secret with you!
Your puppy was vet checked before he was driven to you in the next state over. Our vet, unfortunately, did not identify a hip dysplasia condition at that time, which is not uncommon for vets to miss at such a young age. I assume you had your vet check the pup as well within 72 hours of receiving him, as required by the health guarantee, to make sure your vet also had the same findings on your end within a day or two of receiving him. This is the second line of defense for unfortunate occurrences like this. If your vet had been able to identify this condition at this initial vet check up we would have done immediate replacement before the chance of forming any bonds would have occurred. But we didn't hear back of any findings contrary to our vet’s. We only heard that the birthday surprise was a hit and the puppy was much loved.

The potential for two vets to miss a condition at such a young age is exactly why we offer a health guarantee. Nature has a way of throwing curve balls no matter how much due diligence one may strive for. We want our puppy families to have exactly what they hoped for, so we offer replacement puppies for such occurrences as these.

When your husband contacted us in December 2015, he was beginning to voice some concerns. He called back a month or two later with the diagnosis of severe hip dysplasia. We never intended to place a bulldog with such a problem and offered immediately to replace the puppy for a healthy one, and to have the exchange pup’s hips x-rayed to eliminate the off chance that this could happen again. However, he was entirely unwilling to do this. Instead he began searching for solutions that entirely ignored the purchase contract and health guarantee with threats to smear our name if we did not comply. We begged him to please return Duke so we could find him a home that would be better suited to his condition where his dysplasia would not at all be aggravated and to allow us to send a replacement puppy per the contract that had been signed and agreed to. As discussed in our conversations, it wasn't fair or reasonable to expect you to replace your extensive smooth floors throughout your home. Merely adding rugs is insufficient to give Duke traction wherever he would walk. It is also unreasonable to expect you build him long, low incline ramps to replace the stairs, or to lock up or find new homes for your other dogs because it encourages the puppy to run and play in ways that are bad for his condition. None of this was reasonable to ask of you just because nature handed this pup an unexpected circumstance that requires an entirely different home for him for his own well being.

You are in no way bad pet owners, you love your bulldog so very much, and it is obvious by the lengths you went to assist him with his dysplasia. Dogs are pack animals and want to run with the pack. Your bully would not physically be able to keep up with your other large dogs, but he would try, and would hurt himself. He was also allowed to become overweight (they sent a very cute picture of them under the Christmas Tree…) we recommended cutting back his food amount as proactively warned about in our new puppy pack which is received with puppy at pick up time. Bulldogs will eat to unhealthy levels if allowed to and require their owners help to monitor how much they consume. Being heavy would cause other health concerns as well as severely aggravating any hip dysplasia, and we told you this in an effort to help you alleviate his pain and any inflammation or undue stress on the hip joint. We understand you are attached to him and love him, however, your environment simply is not the best for his condition through no fault of your own or ours. Part of being a good breeder is to place dogs and puppies in homes well- suited for each particular dog.

We still stand by replacing him with a healthy bulldog puppy. You asked for an additional puppy but also wanted to keep Duke. Unfortunately, that is not our policy nor what is stated in the guarantee, to give another puppy but not receive the first back. Also with Duke’s condition, that would not be good, as Duke would then have another dog to try to play and run and keep up with, he would become the weak dog, and possibly inevitably be hurt by your other healthy dogs.

He really should be in a home with all carpeted floors to give him adequate traction, no stairs or inclines at all, and a calm environment so he doesn’t feel compelled to run and jump. We would never euthanize him, but would honestly post his condition and need for a loving rescue home. There are retired or disabled folks without the means or energy for potty training that would benefit greatly from a low or no cost placement like that where they can provide the exact best situation for the puppy and know what they are signing up for up front.

We still stand by our replacement policy, but replacement means replace, not give an additional puppy. This is an industry policy that protects you and the Breeder and especially the puppy. It protects the puppy from unscrupulous buyers and even vets that have been known to injure a healthy puppy to obtain a refund or additional puppy especially because of the large investment this breed calls for. We are not accusing you of that, but merely pointing out that this is why no responsible Breeder would do what you are asking for. In our over 10 years of breeding, we hear very little back from our puppy homes other than gushing appreciation and cute pictures showing what a loving addition their puppy has been to their lives and families. We only have the puppies for 2 months, and if a health issue comes up later than that, we would only learn about it from our puppy purchasers. If you don’t tell us, we would not know, so we are thankful to learn of any issues so we can adjust our matings and determine if some gene pools just don’t mesh. We offer a health guarantee exactly because we know mother nature can always throw a curve ball to two wonderfully healthy parents, just as what happens to people who suddenly find they have a child with a birth defect. Also, we are not vets, but depend on our vets’ knowledge and experience. We have had to change vets one time in our 10 years of breeding bulldogs, due to a huge mistake on a vet that was rather old and missed hearing a heart murmur. We use young vets now at a state of the art vet hospital. Please forgive us if our vet missed something.

We are not in ‘cahoots’ with our vet to produce faulty health report cards. Remember that you agree to also have your vet examine the puppy as thoroughly as needed to ensure that the puppy is healthy as well and to activate and validate your guarantee. We gain nothing by creating unhealthy puppies and making pet owners sad, and it breaks our hearts to learn of a puppy that is not healthy. Please just realize people can and do miss things and make mistakes. We will always stand by our contract though, “Should the puppy be diagnosed within one year of any genetic disorder which is considered by two unassociated veterinarians to seriously impact the quality of life, short of euthanasia, or requires continuous medical treatment throughout the course of the puppy’s life, the Seller will upon provision of veterinary reports, provide Buyer with a replacement puppy as soon as one becomes available”.
We still extend this to you, our Heart Broken Bully Mom. We’d love for you to have the healthy, active bulldog puppy you were expecting, and wish you would agree to the replacement puppy and to allowing us to relocate Duke to a home better suited to his condition. We are still praying for the best of outcomes for you and Duke.

Sincerely, Heart Broken Breeder, Michelle