Pup E Dog

I agree. The stud fee is for the service provided, not the resulting litter. The stud provides the same service regardless of what the result is. There can be any number of reasons a mating doesn't result in a pregnancy, some of which the dog or the bitch are the cause... medical issues, difficult matings, timing problems etc. Unfortunately there are also the times when the mating does take and other things can cause the pregnancy to terminate early, none of which the stud owner has any control over. Because any of these things can result in no litter, most contracts will have a limit of either time or number of matings. Personally, I and most breeders I know offer a return service but not the option of a refund particularly if the stud has been proven as a sire. The reason I don't offer a refund on unproven sires is because I have a semen viability check done on my boys before they are made available to stud. The other clause I put in my contracts is that if they use one of boys that has not yet produce progeny, they may choose any one of my boys for their return service. If the bitch is a maiden, I also include a clause that says they can use their return service on another bitch instead if they prefer. In my own experience I have found most breeders try to be fair but again, be very careful to make sure there is a clear contract that suits both of you.

I will PM you Romana.

I can think of two desexing cases that have been to court, each time the breeder won. Dogs are property and you cant dictate to someone after you sell them a dog as to what they can and cant do with it any more than you can tell someone if they change the colour of their car that you have sold them they have to give it back. What did they win? My pups used to go out on desexing contracts and I didn't have anyone go back on it for years. Then I did. Their reason "but we decided we want to let her have one litter of pups because it is better for her". They actually used a similar argument to what Steve has stated. One letter from my solicitor and the dog was desexed very quickly. To prevent this from being a problem in the future I changed my contracts. From then if you wanted one of my pups the contract was written up as a lease until the pup was 7 months old, with two clauses. The first being that, until the pup turned seven moths old, the person leasing the pup could present me with a desexing certificate and the ownership of the pup would automatically transfer to them and we would reimburse the new puppy owner for the cost of the desexing. The second being that if no desexing certificate could be supplied by the time the pup turned seven moths old, the lease was over and the pup must be returned within seven days. On the contract, we changed "purchase price" to "lease fee". Never had to have a pup returned.

Any word on how these babies are doing?

Good luck with these babies. I hope they improve. Earlier this year we lost one pup and a second spent a week in hospital... symptoms similar to a snake bite but wasn't a snake bite. We never found out what it was. It was devistating to watch such small babies go downhill and not be able to help them. I can understand vets that require payment at time of consult as they are not subsidised and would go broke very quickly if they operated any otehr way. One problem I had once though was a vet who, when I rang at midnight with an emergency said he would require $170.00 after hours consult payment (this would not include any product he used.. he would send a bill for those) before he would look at the animal.... CASH. He would not accept cheque or credit card and would not turn his EFTPOS machine on for one payment. I had no problem with paying the fee at the time of consult but I didn't have that sort of cah on hand and really didn't want to stand at an ATM in the city, on my own, at midnight. I did it only because I was more worried about the dog than being mugged.

I have taught my beardie to pack up his toys. I started by standing him next to the toy box, picking a toy up, dropping it in the the toy box while saying "packup" and then giving him a treat. I did this a few times then moved on to... handing him the toy and saying "packup". He would drop it and I would pick it up and put it in the box and then reward him. I did this a few times then moved on to... handing him the toy, telling him packup, and giving his head a gental push in the right direction so when he dropped the toy it fell into the box. If it did there was lots of praise and rewards but if it didn't I just handed the toy to him and started again. It didn't take long to teach him. Now, I stand at the bench at dinner time, call out "packup!" and four kids and one beardie pack up all their toys and come to the dinner table. Our basenji will usually take things out as the beardie is putting them away. She is too smart to put things away herself.

Yep we ended up with an accidental command too. "Go down" ;) It started with our first dog. When it was time for her to go out, she would stand at the top of the stairs and look at me. So i used to have to tell her to "go down" the stairs. The rest of our dogs have picked it up also. I have tried to change it but they just look at me like I am an idiot.