Has anyone ever had to replace a puppy sold as a show prospect? If so, what are your terms, (original contract, and what you may have done in the actual situation)

A friend of mine has recently evaluated a pup that she sold as potential show, and the person disagreed with her about the quality of the dog. The buyer who obviously was speaking out of emotional attachment and not evaluating breeding/show stock, said she intended on showing the bitch no matter what the breeder said. My friend co-owns the bitch, and has a number of things in her contract(i.e. the breeder has last and final say on evaluating the show potential, the buyer understands and agrees to spay/neuter puppies found to be not show quality, if the buyer wishes to keep the dog they get half off on another potential show pup from a future litter if they choose, or they can return original pup for another show pup.)

The buyer in this case, said she wasn't going to spay a dog for which she had to pay, and claimed she would look stupid to her friends for paying for a dog she had to spay. The breeder explained that many pet owners pay for dogs that get spayed or neutered. The breeder then offered her a show quality pup as a replacement from her current litter, (pick male) or a replacement of pick female from the repeat breeding of the original pup's parents. The buyer made arangements to return the puppy, then never showed up. She didn't call, and when the breeder called her she claimed she was advised not to hand over the dog by a paralegal, (legal advice from a paralegal is illegal as far as I know) until the registration papers were transferred for the puppy.

It turns out the Buyer violated other clauses in the contract, including nut not limited to not taking the dog to the vet when it had kennel cough, and not even getting the initial vet visit, (within the 3 day time limit, after picking up the dog). My friend, the breeder, is now in a legal battle with this person.

I am surprised at both the buyer and my breeder friend. The buyer has had labs in the past, and bred 4 or 5 litters. (none of the offspring are CH, and as far as I know only one was shown, thought excessively and only aquiring a single point in six years), none of the bitches that were bred were shown though a couple of the studs were CH. Though the buyer is board member for the Federation of Dog Clubs and member of a Local Labrador Retriever club, I am surprised my friend sold her a pup to begin with! Especially a possible show bitch. The buyer, I am surprised at too, as being a member of the local labrador club, and being a board member on the Federation of Dog Clubs, and supposedly being active in dog clubs for many years, (though apparently she never competed in the conformation or any other ring) she has never learned the art of evaluating breed stock, nor that one may pay for a spayable/neuterable pup, nor that one may have to exchange/purchase another pup if the first one turns out not to be show quality. I wonder what she would have done if the clearances came back with a problem... (they never got that far by the way.)

I am totally confounded at the whole situation, and it made me wonder about my own contract/clause regarding pups that may go into homes as show potential. I also wondered what I might have done in the same situation... though I believe the pup might not have gone into the home to begin with...

What iam confounded about is why does it matter if this buyer has never finished a dog or doesnt show
her dogs. And what clubs she belongs to has nothing to do with the situation with the puppy. Your e-mail was just alot of rambling. Iam not being mean about this, just feel it is none of your concern.

plus this is a small community and by naming organizations the person is involved with, I'm sure someone knows who it is.

If the breeder isn't happy then maybe she should just offer the $$ back for the pup, take her back and be done with it, despite what the contract says.

I didn't name a state or specific organization.. and its one of the reasons I didn't put an e-mail, name, etc. So no one can narrow down the parties involved. There are federation of dog clubs in many states, and local lab clubs in a number of states and areas. I doubt anyone will know these people, unless they are in the immediate area, and have heard it straight from the buyer.

The person was offered her money back. To no avail.

But, that is secondary, I only mentioned the situation to help make people understand why I was confounded... and why I was looking for recommendations/examples of what people use in their contract as a clause for potential show pups, and how people handle when a pup possibly doesn't turn out.

Don't charge for the puppy in the first place, co-own , retain ALL showing decisions , and the right to spay, and ALL breeding rights. And hope the newbie's go some place else to cause someone else grief ! WHO NEEDS IT ! Put your puppies in PET HOMES ! Problem Solved !

I had a really hard time following the whole rambling discourse. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the gist of the whole thing (from what I can tell) is that your friend sold a show prospect that in her opinion is no longer a show prospect and she doesn't want it out in the ring, but the owner wants to show it anyway - is that right? That's the breaks when you sell a show prospect puppy. She has done all she can - offered another puppy, but frankly, if the owner doesn't want to give her back, there's nothing your friend can do other than not selling her another puppy in the future.

I think what the poster wants to do is update her contract so that he/she doesn't run into a similar problem.

In all the years I've sold dogs, Labs and other breeds, I have never sold one as a "show" prospect and some have even gone on to be Group winners.

You, the breeder, cannot control the environment, feeding, grooming, health care, etc. of any puppy you sell. Thus, you can't know if the pup will grow into it's possible potential of being a show dog.

I've noticed from this Forum that it is the newbies and lesser experienced breeders that get into trouble with contracts and various "deals" etc. The long-time breeders usually don't part with their show potentials to people that they don't know and respect and usually co-own the "show" pup.

And, in Labs, the 8 week old pup can be cute but you can't know that it will turn out to be a show dog. Why do you think that those breeders hang on to their pups for as long as they do??????

Assuming that most breeders are breeding with the intention of "improving the breed", I think our approach is worth consideration. Only the best puppy from a given litter is the "BEST" puppy. That litter was bred after giving a lot of thought to the sire's pedigree, and what that pedigree brings to our breeding program. We're thinking of a sire for the best bitch in that litter when we do the breeding. In other words, we're thinking a generation ahead. To sell puppies that are less than the "best", and to allow them to be bred to a sire that might or might not enhance the line is not (necessarily) an "improvement of the breed".

Keep your best, breed your best, and everyone else goes to a pet home. If you have more than one "best", co-own and retain control over future breeding. If you remain on the registration as an owner, you must sign off on the registration of any litters whelped by that bitch. There's your safeguard.

"If you remain on the registration as an owner, you must sign off on the registration of any litters whelped by that bitch. There's your safeguard."

Not much of a safe guard when the AKC will go ahead and register a litter without the signature of both parties. They only care about the registrations not the agreements of two owners.

Perhaps I have been misinformed, but we have had to get the co-owners signature to register litters in the past. If the AKC has changed its policy, that's a change for the worst, IMHO. I'll have to look into that. thanks for the heads-up. (We no longer co-own any of our breeding bitches, so it hasn't been an issue lately.....)

The AKC's take on it is that they do not get involved in "contract disputes" which is apparantly what it is called when someone refuses to sign paperwork.

If it's proven that the pups are indeed the offspring of the parents listed, the AKC considers them purebred and registers them.

If the breeder doesn't think the puppy is show potential and the owner does, the breeder can sign off the puppy. End of story.