What is the name of your state? Texas
We purchased a very large breed dog in February of 2004 for $2000 from a breeder in NC. We signed a long lengthy contract that we have abided by the entire time. The dog began having seizures at 10 months old (in December of 2004). The breeder offered to take the dog back to try and figure out what was going on. We declined and spent thousands of dollars on testing and medication as well as emergency hospital stays...doing our best to figure it out ourselves. It became worse and worse to the point where the dog would throw up several times a night due to all the medication he was on . He couldn't keep down food and ran into things all the time. We finally called the breeder and took her up on her offer once we had done everything we could.
We gave him to the breeder in August of 2005. After only a few vet visits, the breeder learned that he had Lyme's disease which was causing the seizures. However, only TWO WEEKS prior to giving him to her, we had the dog tested for Lyme's disease ourselves and it came back negative. Apparently the lab that my Vet uses cannot differentiate between "exposure to" and "infection of" Lymes. We have all the documents proving that we had all the same tests and did everything we could to solve the problem. How could we have known that the Vet uses a bad lab?
Now that the dog is better, we want him back. If she refuses to give him back, we at least want the $2000 refunded that we paid for him. The breeder blames us even though we have followed her contract completely...including the weird feeding schedules, etc. She says we should have contacted her sooner rather than trying to figure things out on our own. I say we paid $2000 for the dog and it is OUR dog...so there is nothing wrong with us doing our very best to figure it out with our Veterinarian before taking the problem to her.
So, do we have a case to get our money back or have the dog returned to us? We also paid thousands of dollars in medical expenses, but we don't blame her for that (even though it was determined by the Vet that the dog probably came from NC to us with Lyme's disease when it was a puppy). Lymes isn't a genetic breeding thing, it is aquired so we aren't asking for the medical expenses. Just a refund of the dog since we gave him back to her...or for her to deliver the dog back to us. This was VERY hard emotionally on our entire family.
Do I have a case? The contract does state that if at any point the dog is delivered back to her in a sick condition that she is not reponsible for a refund. But we have medical records stating everything we attempted to help the dog...not to mention that the dog probably came from the breeder already infected. However, that can't be proven. Help!
We purchased a very large breed dog in February of 2004 for $2000 from a breeder in NC. We signed a long lengthy contract that we have abided by the entire time. The dog began having seizures at 10 months old (in December of 2004). The breeder offered to take the dog back to try and figure out what was going on. We declined and spent thousands of dollars on testing and medication as well as emergency hospital stays...doing our best to figure it out ourselves. It became worse and worse to the point where the dog would throw up several times a night due to all the medication he was on . He couldn't keep down food and ran into things all the time. We finally called the breeder and took her up on her offer once we had done everything we could.
We gave him to the breeder in August of 2005. After only a few vet visits, the breeder learned that he had Lyme's disease which was causing the seizures. However, only TWO WEEKS prior to giving him to her, we had the dog tested for Lyme's disease ourselves and it came back negative. Apparently the lab that my Vet uses cannot differentiate between "exposure to" and "infection of" Lymes. We have all the documents proving that we had all the same tests and did everything we could to solve the problem. How could we have known that the Vet uses a bad lab?
Now that the dog is better, we want him back. If she refuses to give him back, we at least want the $2000 refunded that we paid for him. The breeder blames us even though we have followed her contract completely...including the weird feeding schedules, etc. She says we should have contacted her sooner rather than trying to figure things out on our own. I say we paid $2000 for the dog and it is OUR dog...so there is nothing wrong with us doing our very best to figure it out with our Veterinarian before taking the problem to her.
So, do we have a case to get our money back or have the dog returned to us? We also paid thousands of dollars in medical expenses, but we don't blame her for that (even though it was determined by the Vet that the dog probably came from NC to us with Lyme's disease when it was a puppy). Lymes isn't a genetic breeding thing, it is aquired so we aren't asking for the medical expenses. Just a refund of the dog since we gave him back to her...or for her to deliver the dog back to us. This was VERY hard emotionally on our entire family.
Do I have a case? The contract does state that if at any point the dog is delivered back to her in a sick condition that she is not reponsible for a refund. But we have medical records stating everything we attempted to help the dog...not to mention that the dog probably came from the breeder already infected. However, that can't be proven. Help!