To make a very long story short, my husband and I in our search for a harlequin great dane, came across Davina brown through a site called Puppyfind.com. She was not a registered user, so I had to pay to view her ad.
There were several other ads we were looking at, all of which offered a AKC registration, Current vaccinations, Veterinarian examination, Certificate of health, Health guarantee, Travel crate. Except Davina was not offering registration on our dog. Which was fine with us as we might one day want to mate him.
My husband made the decision to take the pup from Davina as he was a good looking puppy. So we paid our deposit. The travel plans were stressful as originally Davina had said we could use a method in which he would drive up with some people for less than the cost of a flight, we agreed to this before paying the deposit and were informed after our deposit was in the mail that this wasn't an option anymore. We were finally able to find a flight company to ship him and sent our final payment along with the cost to ship, and a kennel fee of $70us that supposedly had to be prepaid, to Davina.
In this time I was also trying to get more details about the health guarantee that was supposedly offered with our dog. This question was avioded constantly by Davina, and finally details were given as:
I guarantee you will recieve a healthy pup with a health certificate to prove it, after he is in your custody you then are held accountable for your puppy. We provide a health certificate for our insurance and your own. If your puppy dies due to something done here then we will take that up, if it happens. This is good for 1 year. I have never had a dane die due to breeding or any other health problems. Naturaly if he is hit by a car ate by a bear no we will not replace him with a free pup. If something geneticly happens then yes something would be done.�
Davina Brown said on 11/21/04 through email correspondence titled Flights
On the 16th of November I express posted our payment to her, she made the flight arrangments, and we waited for the money to arrive to her. Our dog was set to fly on the 23rd of November. Prior to this I had been asking her to make the arrangments as soon as possible in order to ensure our funds would arrive on time. As luck would have it, they did not, and without telling us, Davina canceled the shipment which I found out through calling the airport to check on his eta.
We agreed after a bit of conflict to reschedule the shipping until the payment arrived. For reasons beyond my control our guaranteed delivery within 5 days through express post got held up at customs and did not arrive util the 27th of November and our dog finally shipped out on the 29th.
At this point we had to drive 6hours one way from Saskatoon to Edmonton airport to pick up our dog. Upon arrival we were told to pa the $70us kennel fee, which we had already paid Davina for. We were also sent to customs to pay duty before they would release our dog.
At Canada Customs we were asked for our reciept. We did not have one as Davina had not provided one with his papers. At this point Canada Customs told us they were not going to release him without proof of payment and instructed me to phone Davina in the U.S. A and get her to fax proof. Davina wasn't home. I was very upset, as we had just driven 7 hours for nothing. Canada Customs finally offered us a declaration sheet and we were allowed to take our dog.
When Davina returned my call, she denied that I paid her the $70us kennel fee, had no idea about sending a reciept for a dog we purchased from her "Business" and in my stress I told her I would call her when we got home and hung up.
Once home I wrote to davina, and Davina replied that she would send us back the $70 that we overpaid and a reciept for our purchase. She first said this on the 6th of December. On the 14th she emailed to say she had been in surgery in would get the refund out that day. On the 4th of January I had still not received anything and emailed to aks why as well inform her thaat if a refund did not arrive I would file a claim.
During this time of waiting I had taken our pup to the vet for an examination. The first thing our vet informed us of was that he had only one testicle. We were told this was a genetic defect and he should not ever be bred and his parents would both have displayed this as well and they too should not have been bred. This came as a surprise, as although it isn't a helth issue if he is nuetered it can become a tumor, or cancer if he is not nuetered, as well Davina had not informed us of this after his vet examinations in Michigan.
As well as our pup grew bigger we started noticing a limp in his rear leg, and it became obvious that one leg was smaller than the other and his hip noticeably lower than the other. He starins to get up, and is very lazy for a puppy. These are very early indicators of serious hip dysplasia, which is another very serious geneteic defect.
So taking these defect into account I emailed Davina to inform her of these occurences and inquire about the health guarantee. Nothing has been offered and she has basically renigged all responsibility for the breeding of our dog.
On the 10th of January she denied ever having a dog with only one testicle, as well as denying any history of HD in her danes, she also said on this day that she was sending an additional $70us as still nothing had arrived.in trying to communicate with Davina about all of this, her emails have been quite rude. She yells in computer language, is curt, says the money has been sent, and that I am harrasing her, when all I am trying to do is get some results, and communicate with her.
Today is the 31 of January and still nothing has arrived and no attempts have been made to make any ammends in terms of the health guarantee.
In my opinion I would never do business with her if given the opporitunity. She is irresponsible, dishonest, rude and so on.
I have all email transactions to back up everythign that was said.
Samantha
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Canada
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