I purchased my yorkshire terrier puppy, Huck, from Cindy Johnson of Valley View Puppies in April. After lots of research (though apparently not enough) and an exhaustive search, I stumbled upon Cindy's website, valleyviewpuppies.com Right away, I was impressed with the information provided on the website, general information about yorkies, information about herself, pictures of the sire and dams, testimonials, etc. I made it very clear to her size was most important to me, and I really wanted a teacup sized yorkie. I also admitted I was very, very leery about buying a puppy online. She assured me the little male I had chosen would definitely be less than 3.5 lbs, and would probably barely reach 3.
The little male I purchased was still too young to travel, so Cindy promised she would keep me updated with pictures. I didn't receive any pictures or emails for a while. I began to get the feeling I had been scammed, and I even ran an identity check on her, to make sure there really was a Cindy Johnson living at the address she had given me.
When she finally did touch base, I questioned her. She gave me a huge guilt trip, explaining that she was digging herself out of blizzard conditions in Nebraska at the time. I felt terrible like a paranoid, crazy lady - here this poor woman was suffering through a blizzard, and I was doing background checks on her! The funny things was, I noticed the blizzard didn't keep her from updating her web page with new pictures of her other puppies that same week.
As the weeks progressed, I began to think my puppy looked a little large. But Cindy assured me, he was a tiny teacup, and that her teacups tend to grow very quickly at first, then just completely stop growing. Still, I wasn't convinced, so I asked if she could photograph my puppy next to a slightly older puppy that came from a different litter. The sire and dam of this other puppy had a proven history of producing tinies. (BTW, I was originally interested in this other puppy, but Cindy said the little male I chose had a much better pedigree, his mother was smaller than the other's, and his bone structure was much more petite.)
I also asked if she could provide me with both their weights, so I could compare that as well. She said she couldn't get the two puppies to stay still long enough to snap the shot, and she never did provide the weights either.in hindsight, I now wonder why her husband or some other person couldn't have held the two puppies next to each other while she took the picture. But the thing was, I was still kind of embarrassed over the whole blizzard-background-check-episode-thing, and I just didn't want to come across as a difficult or hard-to-please customer. Plus, Cindy comes across as so sugary sweet and so genuinely interested in being helpful.
I really felt guilty questioning her at that point. I did, however, ask her to provide the puppy's weight a week before he was due to fly home. She said he weighed 1 lb. 5 oz. Funny thing is, when Huck arrived, a week later, I weighed him on my digital scale, and he weighed in at a whopping 1 lb. 12 oz. Teacup yorkies don't gain 7 ounces in 7 days! At that point I realized, either Cindy wasn't being completely upfront or her scale was way off! I expressed my concern over his size. She said he was just fat, because he had received lots of table scraps (That's a whole other issue!
To this day, we still struggle with Huck's annoying tendency to beg and rummage through the kitchen garbage!). She said his weight gain would slow down and taper off, especially once he no longer received table food. Anyway, to make a long story not too much longer, as you might have guessed, Huck continued to rapidly grow, and grow, and grow, and grow! He is not the tiny teacup she promised. At 9 months, Huck weighs 5 lbs and is not showing any signs of slowing down. He receives cup of NutroMax every two days, and usually doesn't even finish that. And we DO NOT feed him table scraps! So, he's definitely not over fed.
By the time I paid for shipping ($350), I had shelled out $2200 for Huck. Cindy said she based his price first on pedigree, then on size, then on coat, then on ears. Unfortunately, I was misled on every one of those traits. She told me he had an impressive pedigree on both the mother's and the father's side, which she said was the main reason he was priced higher than the others she had listed. However, when I received his 3-generation pedigree, there was only one champion, and it was on his mother's side. She told me he would be a tiny teacup (her exact words).
Well, he's not even a teacup, much less a tiny teacup. He's barely even what most would consider a tiny toy. As for coatshe told me Huck would have a "very nice coat". Huck has what's called a wiry coat. A wiry coat tends to appear dry and frizzy and usually never achieves any significant length. As for Huck's ears they're big and tall. I have to keep them trimmed very short and I let the hair on the bottom half of his ears grow, so it hides their size.
When you charge that much for a dog, a breeder should be willing to stand behind their puppy. I know an exact size cannot be guaranteed, but at that price, a breeder should guarantee a size range and if it's advertised over and over as a tiny teacup, then the buyer should receive at least a teacup sized dog. I've asked Cindy to provide me with a partial refund, since Huck has fallen short, not just in size, but in every area she promised quality.
Just charge me what you would normally charge for a dog with his pedigree, size, coat and ears, and refund me the difference. She refused, claiming she'd already bent over backwards for me, and said she was sorry Huck didn't turn out to be exactly the size I had hoped for. It's not that he isn't exactly the size I had hoped for. Rather, it's that he isn't even near the size I paid for, nor the quality.
0 comments