We bought (let's call a spade a spade, breeders breed dogs to make money; "adopt" only applies to humane societies) a dog from Alena Strelaeff six years ago. She passed away from Cushing's Disease three months ago after much suffering on her part and we are still suffering from her loss and miss her terribly.
I read in the news about how a very pregnant dog belonging to Alena Strelaeff had wandered away and was found some distance away from her home. The dog gave birth at a humane society. I did a web search on Alena's Dogs out of curiousity and found this website. What I read was disturbing. First, it appears that the correspondence here is from two off-kilter dog breeders who are dishing it out at each other - both sound totally unfit to be breeding dogs for sale. Second, the fire at the shed, sick puppies, the name change of her company, lots of breeder dogs farmed out to adoptive families, and the lost pregnant dog are consistent with our experience of buying our dog from her. When we brought our puppy home, she was itching and scratching. Alena said not to worry, it was just an ordinary itch and she had washed her with horse shampoo. The itch didn't go away so we took her to the vet and it took a while for the vet to diagnose that she had sarcoptic mites (which cause mange/scabies). I phoned Alena to inform her so she could let the owners of the other puppies know and all she did was deny the fact. That was disturbing and irresponsible. We also learnt through another dog owner that her prized stud called Pluto, whom we saw, died suddenly some months after we purchased our dog.
We loved and coddled our precious doggy. I even cooked homemade food for her in the hope that this would keep her healthy and extend her life. She was very high strung and suffered from acute separation anxiety disorder but was very smart. She got sick last December and was diagnosed with Cushing' s Disease which wreaked havoc on her body due to an over-production of corticoid (stress) hormones. Putting this together with her high strung nature, it became obvious to us that she was born with a genetic predisposition to Cushing's Disease as a result of irresponsible breeding. Our vet says that the incidence of Cushing's Disease is rising and poodles rank at the top of the list of dog breeds susceptible to this disease. Due the current popularity for mix-breed poodles and the fact that the disease occurs only later in life after dogs have been used as breeders, this genetic defect/predisposition to Cushing's Disease is being selectively passed along in dogs. Dog buyers would be wise to check into the lineage of their puppies to even beyond the grandparent generation.
Back to Alena, it seems that she is not selling her puppies via her website Labradoodle Passion but as the lost pregnant dog suggests she is still breeding puppies and selling through other means. DO NOT BUY YOUR PUPPIES FROM HER - this is the advice that our poor doggy would want to pass along to you.
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