My daughter and I were looking into getting a pug since we had heard what great personalities they had. There were no good quality pugs in the area at the time that we were looking, so we started to look online. We had spent quite a while looking online before we stumbled across Anypets.com.
I registered really quickly and didn't really look into it much further. The next day a representative of the organization called me and told me the basic information for the company. They stated that they had been in business for quite a while, and they had helped many people get their pets. They said that they personally ensured that no puppies came from a puppy mill, and that the people who sold through them were hand selected for the quality of life for their pets, and how basically socialized they are with their parent's family. They also guaranteed that I would be spoken to from a woman who would lay down the nutrition needed for the pet.
We picked the pug baby that we wanted. A female who was supposed to be seven weeks old. The pictures depicted her as a tiny little thing in front of a pink background in good health, kind of chubby. Really cute. That pug was shown to me by the representative that had originally called, and although I wanted to consult on it, he was really pushy about it. I was excited to get it so I didn't really think much of it.
Now comes the bad part. When I purchased the pug, they said that I had to wait about a week for the transit to be set up and for the information about the flight number and all that to come to me. It was fine, since I didn't think that it was illogical that it would take that long. I paid an extra 300 for it to be transited over an airline or quick delivery and safe transit.
It took them three weeks to finally set that up with me. I got emails from the lady who told me how to receive the puppy and what precautions I should take to ensure the best health for the puppy. They were pretty basic and overall didn't really work with a small dog, so I just ignored it as automated, since most were already thought of by us.
When they finally got around to setting things up, they told us that they wouldn't be sending her over air transit, but over land, which was a distinctly cheaper for the breeder option, but it would make us wait three additional days. Their excuse was that it was simply too hot for them to ship her over the air. But that didn't really make sense since not only are planes so high up that it's cold, but even the airports are highly air conditioned. Air transport is highly sensitive to the needs of pet transport.
So when we finally got the puppy she was 4 months old, she wasn't carried with her papers, and she was in poor health. She had no hair on her neck, chest, base of her tail, weak knees, and weak ankles. All of those are symptoms of bad nutrition and stress. She was even afraid of a squeaky toy, which shows plainly that she wasn't really socialized at all, or if she was, we didn't see it in her personality.
The first two weeks that we had her, she was constantly hungry. We had put her on a specialized veterinary diet to get her back into shape and back into proper health before it was too late.
When we called the breeder back on the puppy, she tried to sell us another puppy. When we stated our concerns about her health, she blamed all of the existing problems on the transit and the little collar that they had put on her for identification. If that were the case, it would only be a strip on her neck of no hair, but this was her entire neck, chest, and the underside of her tail.
Not only that, but the organization itself never contacted us with the regular pet-checkups to ensure that we were happy with the puppy and the puppy was healthy, as they had stated that they would. I never got the email about the nutrition of the puppy that it would need, and just overall they were negligent. It was all about making the sale instead of ensuring that the puppy was healthy.
We asked the breeder to send us pictures of the parents of our pug, and all she could say was that it was their last litter, and that she was going to retire them after this litter. She finally agreed to email me some pictures, and I have yet to get an email from her at all. That was six weeks ago, and she has never returned any of our calls, or even answered her telephone.
We are convinced that the breeder was not a home breeder, but rather a puppy mill herself.
Don't get us wrong, we love our puppy to death, and we wouldn't trade her for the world. It was just a long hard road for all of us getting her healthy and properly socialized. Through all of our experiences with the company, however, we would not recommend them to other people.
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