I bought my dog from PurebredBreeders.com in April. I LOVE my dog, but he has some problems. If I had to do it over again, I would not choose this company.
The Good:
PureBredBreeders offered to put me in direct contact with the breeder in Arizona (over the phone). I am confident that she did not run a puppy mill - not only did she send videos and pictures of my dog and his littermates in her house, along with pedigree info, but she drove from AZ to Los Angeles, where I live, along with my dog's littermates and dropped them off at my house. I did some research and found that she has her own website where she sells her puppies, I'm pretty sure she's just a plain old backyard breeder with one litter at a time in her house. Although she THINKS she's a legitimate breeder - I really think she has good intentions. My dog has an amazing disposition and spent the first 10 weeks of his life with his dog family. I do think that is important, most of the time you can tell by a dog's behavior if he was shoved in a cage and prematurely separated from his litter. He is AKC registered.
The Bad:
I read on the website that my dog's parent's were between 3.5-4.5 pounds, and my dog is currently 11.8 pounds. I haven't done genetic testing, I'm pretty sure he IS a purebred. He's a Pomeranian and has a beautiful coat. My dog arrived with giardia. He also was constantly sick/barfing as a puppy, but I'm not sure that's related to his breeding. Today, at a year old, I had him xray-ed and he has bow legs, arthritis, and luxating patellas which need to be corrected by $4,000 surgery. The vet said that uncorrected this condition could lead to "crippling arthritis". I called today to let PureBredBreeders know about these issues because knee problems affect a dog's quality of life. Any responsible breeder will NOT breed dogs with serious knee problems that they will pass to their puppies. I spent close to $3,000 buying my dog, which was clearly not responsibly bred, and I am sure that my dog's parents were nowhere near 5 pounds or with any sort of impressive pedigree. Also I saw on the breeder's website that she charges much, much less for her dogs. Oh - but my point was that Purebred breeders were not concerned AT ALL about these things, didn't say they would really look into it or contact the breeder or ANYTHING along those lines. They would prefer to make a profit breeding animals with no concern about responsible breeding. This really disappointed me - how could they be so indifferent? They also told me that "dog weight is just an estimate" and it was "normal" for weight to deviate like that -BULLSH*T! It's clearly not possible that my dog is THREE TIMES the size of his parents and that's a normal deviation. The Purebred rep didn't say something like "oh, wow that's weird", it sounded like this happens ALL THE TIME.
I think if you're willing to spend the money, you can TOTALLY find a better source for a healthier puppy - and that money will pay for genetic testing and responsible breeding practices, instead of just creating a huge profit for a big corporation. Or you can always contact rescue organizations for the breed of dog you're looking for.
Best of luck to you on your puppy search!
Ch
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