My husband and I purchased two Great Dane puppies from Marcie Janick of Cool Danes in December. We chose to adopt one male and one female puppy that had been sharing a kennel/quarters for a few weeks, though they were from separate litters and were one week apart in ages.
We sent a deposit in November when the pups were five and six-weeks-old respectively of $200.00 to hold the puppies we chose until they were old enough to be weaned and taken from their parents. As it turned out, Ms. Janick was travelling through Chicago, and she (kindly) offered to deliver our pups for us, allegedly to save us a lengthy drive. We were pleased with the offer, but I now believe we should have been more responsible and met Ms. Janick at her home and insisted on meeting our pups' parents.
We agreed to meet Ms. Janick in a mall parking lot, so that we would both be able to easily find the location. Upon delivery, we were alarmed that Ms. Janick was travelling with 9-10 large Great Dane pups uncrated and unprotected in the back of her SUV. The dogs (being puppies and unused to travel) had made quite a mess. There was an unlocked crate, large enough for only one puppy of their size, left open in the cargo area of the vehicle, and three pups had crammed themselves inside of it, including our male pup. Both puppies smelled awful and had to be bathed as soon as we arrived home.
However, our pups were a joy and we quickly fell in love. Unfortunately, our happiness did not last. We picked our puppies up on a Saturday morning, Dec. 2nd and took them to see our veterinarian the following Monday. Our vet stated she felt the puppies were underweight, but that there might have been a great deal of competition for food at the kennel and that we would have to monitor their wet gain closely. They were also given their 2nd sets of vaccinations, because although Marcie stated the pups would be up-to-date on their vaccinations on arrival, they were both past due. Additionally, the only vet records we received were envelopes with handwritten dates and no veterinarian contact information of any kind.
By the next Friday morning, only seven days from bringing our puppies home, Isabella, our female pup, had begun to vomit and had stopped eating or drinking. I called my vet and was advised to take her off of food for a few hours, but to bring her in the following morning if she had not improved. At that time, our male puppy, Augusts was behaving normally and seemed healthy. I worked on Friday, but called a friend in to babysit them as I was worried and wanted to be sure Isabelle was taking fluids throughout the day and did not get dehydrated.
By the next morning, Issy was much worse and we took her to the vet. She was given antibiotics and anti-nausea medications. She was only slightly dehydrated, thanks to the care of my friend and "babysitter, " but our vet felt she was not out of the danger zone. Keep in mind this has been all in the first week with our puppies.
I called Marcie that evening and told her that Isabelle was sick and everything the vet had told us. She expressed concern, but thought perhaps Issy had been eating out of our cat's litterbox. We accepted this idea too, because we had caught Issy nosing around the litterbox before moving it, and because our vet suggested it was possible she had "eaten something she shouldn't have."
Issy began to improve right away after going on her medications and we made sure she was kept well-hydrated through the weekend. Unfortunately, just as Issy was feeling herself again, Auggie came down ill. He had been a much shier, calmer puppy and considerably smaller than confident-outgoing Isabella. The illness hit him much harder.
We contacted our vet and stopped-in to pick up additional medication for him on Monday morning, but we did not have him examined then, concluding that he had the same illness as Isabella. Near dawn on Wednesday morning, just ten days after bringing the pups home, I woke up and found him in a near-catatonic state and the bed in his crate was soaked from a combination of spit-like vomit that smelled metallic and urine.
We rushed him to the vet, making an emergency appointment, but had him there by 6 am. He was immediately put on itravenous fluids, given sugars to increase his blood sugar, and had blood taken for analysis. He spent the entire day and that night at the animal clinic, and stayed throughout the next day. Though the bloodwork came back inconclusive, he had all the signs and symptoms of advanced parvovirus, something he should have been vaccinated for.
During the day on Thursday our vet called me at work to say Auggie was improving, but it was still "touch-and-go", but she was to report he was able to stand (shakily) and had lapped a little bit of water on his own. We brought Auggie home Thursday night and monitored him by getting up every two-hours throughout the night to give him fluids with a turkey-baster and take his temperature. He was lethargic, but occasionally thumped his tail for us, and was happy to see his sister. We returned him to the vet's office as soon as they opened in the morning, and he spent the rest of the day on fluids.
Friday evening, I called before the vet closed to ask how he was doing again, and to see if he was well-enough to come for the night as he had Thursday night. I was horrified to hear, after doing so well on Thursday, he had taken a turn for the worse and we were advised to leave him at the vet's office on an IV throughout the night. Of course, we took the advice and spent a worry-filled night cuddling his now healthy and happy sister at home.
Saturday morning at 7 AM our vet called us to inform us that between the overnight vet's last visit at 5:30 AM and her arrival at 7 AM Auggie had passed away. She had found him prone in his cage when she arrived. We asked her to do a necropsy and have his tissues sample to determine the actual cause of death, and to see if parvovirus could be confirmed.
It was later confirmed that he did have parvovirus.
When I reported all of this to Marice, she did express sadness at our loss, but offered no replacement or refund of our costs, as her contract stated a guarantee against only genetic defects, and she tried to convince me that he must have contracted parvo at our vet's office, therefore removing her from liability for the illness.
When we again spoke with our vet, and subsequently did some extensive research on parvovirus we discovered that the disease has an incubation period (the period of time between contracting the illness and the expression of symptoms) of 14 days. It would have been impossible for Auggie to contract the illness in our home, our car, or our vet's office.
Evidence suggests that Auggie contracted parvo from Isabella, who would have actually come into contact with the disease 7-14 days before we brought her home, based on the date she began to show symptoms. Augustus was already dead from the disease by the time he had been with us for 14 days—he could not have contracted the disease from us or our vet's office, as Marcie suggested.
After finding this out I contact Marcie again and requested documentation from her veterinarian for Isabella, and from the veterinarian who had attended Augustus. Recall that the pups were from separate litters, with Augustus being one-week younger than Issy. His litter had been born in Iowa, through parents bred and co-owned by Marcie Janick and registered under the Cool Danes kennel name. Marcie had picked the pups up from their breeders' home and brought them to Wisconsin weeks before we purchased Augustus.
It took several weeks and several phone calls to actually receive the documentation. Finally, we received two sheets, one from each veterinarian stating one set of puppy vaccinations. Isabella had been vaccinated at a vet's office at 6-weeks of age, at a time when she would have been fully weaned. But, poor Augustus had been vaccinated in his breeders' home at only 4-weeks of age. So, not only were they vaccinated too-early (particularly Augustus, who would not have been weaned and whose mother's milk would have counteracted the vaccine rendering it completely ineffective as a source of immunity) but their vaccinations were 1 and 4 weeks overdue by the time we adopted them.
I presented this information, as well as our sources, copies of our vet bills and out veterinarians comments to Marcie Janick and never received a response.
We asked to have Augustus replaced out of another litter, and were told that the pups would cost anywhere from $800 and higher... She made no mention of the fact that we had paid $400 for Augustus (we paid a total of $600 for both puppies, a deal she offered because she was having difficulty selling her large number of pups so close to Christmas). She refused to lower the selling price, even to the $400, and refused outhandedly to replace Augustus for free.
Despite our request that we be at least partially reimbursed for Augustus' and Isabella's medical bills and expenses, she did not respond, and of course, we never saw any reimbursement.
As Isabella became older she began becoming more and more aggressive.By nine months of age she had already attacked three children, in closely watched unprovoked cases. We contacted private trainers, one a well-known Wisconsin author on dog-aggression, who were able to help train us to work with Isabella on some of her aggression problems.
In June of when Isabella was 10 months old, we took a vacation leaving Issy at home with our adult Great Dane, and our elderly Border Collie. We received a frantic call from our pet sitter, who had been forced to contact animal control regarding Isabella, after she had attacked and killed our Border Collie. To this day, we have no idea if the attack was provoked, or outright aggression on Isabella's part, but we made the very traumatic decision to put her down.
We've come to believe that Isabella had very poor bloodlines, though I have no further information to support my opinion. I can only say, after the consider heartache and trouble we experienced as a result of our dealings with Marcie Janick, we feel she is a disreputable and dishonest breeder.
I found this complaint about Ms. Janick on the internet, while checking to see if she had changed her website, etc. I am happy to see that her website is no longer up and working.
My condolences on your losses, as well.
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