Yep you read it correctly! After three years since my dog suddenly passed away, my family is going to get a new puppy. It is not in any way a replacement for my schnauzer or olde english bulldogge girls that I had before I moved to Australia. This pup is going to be a bit different. We loved the personality and humor that the bully offered but she was very very big, too big to physically handle. But we also loved the intelligence of both dogs. We have found after three years of looking at and searching for dogs, that the French Bulldog would be a good size for our family and have a similar temperment to that of our bulldog. Once we decided on a breed, it was two thousand times harder to find a frenchie. First we looked at shelters but most frenchies don't end up in shelters and the ones that we found in shelters, were too far away for us to ship here and we wouldn't want to put a shelter dog through that long of a ride.

My family also decided that a younger dog or puppy would be better for us as well since we are adventurious, outdoorsy people and older dogs especially of that breed are more likely to have health problems and be less active. So we went and looked for breeders nearby. Every breeder that we found were only selling blues and blacks and lilacs and none of us want any of those colors particularly because they often cause the pups to have mutations. We also wanted the parents to be healthy which is hard to find when you have alot of backyard breeders that breed for how much money they can make off of a dog and not their quality of life.

Which brought us to another issue: price. Most french bulldog puppies cost anywhere from 4,000 USD to 8,000 USD and some people even sell their pups for 10,000USD each. Which is really expensive and my family doesn't necissarily think that spending that much on a dog is reasonable when there are other things we could spend the money on. And though it is okay to spend a fair bit of money on a pup for your own reasons, we decided that just wasn't for us.

After searching and searching and searching, we found a breeder that lives near us that breeds english and french bulldogs. They have very few breedings and don't breed for profit but because they love the breed. Their pups are AKC shown and registered and based on the way they look, the dogs are in amazing condition, well treated and healthy. With Covid going on, people have slowly stopped spending money and aren't buying dogs so breeders as a result are lowering prices. But these breeders have no need to lower prices because they don't breed for profit but instead for quality pets or show dogs.

This quarentine has only made more of a reason for my family to get a puppy at this time. So, we plan on calling the breeder within this week to purchase the POL of their next breeding. I will post updates and pictures as new developments come along :)

Yep! My sister and I were trying to convince everyone that Doggo was not the best name for a dog but since they have been referring to a pup as Doggo for the last year and a half now (it use to be peanut) now my mom is convinced that's what the dog's name is going to be XD. But she also said that we will pick out a name once we see the pup

So a quick update on the puppy:

we may not be getting one afterall. We are having some issues with the breeder. After giving them a downpayent of $500 USD for a pup that may not even be born yet, we waited and waited and waited. Yes, it has been only 3 weeks but they expected litters to be born on the 11th and 15th. Typically, as soon as the litter is born, it is posted to their facebook. My family continued to check and check and check for the past couple of days and have not seen or heard anything from the breeder. So we looked to see if anything new was posted at all and there was a comment posted on the 10th that is most likely by someone who visited the facility/farm recently. It is a farm and they breed several types of dogs as well as sheep and cows and they grow their own crops hence the "farm" name in it. The comment reads:

"(farm name) is a puppy mill. They have 52 dogs in kennels - some doubled up. They have dogs outside with little shelter year round. There's a reason their bulldogs are less expensive than other breeders in the area. Before you consider purchasing a dog from them, please take a tour and inspect the conditions in which they care for their breeding dogs."

Now this is the only comment and review like this so people have advised myself and my family that it is possible that the commenter is just jealous and having a low go at the breeders. Now our puppy's estimated price is not at all cheap but is not as expensive as other dogs in the area either which leads me to believe that they are not just doing this for the money as a mill breeder would. We have been told we are allowed to visit the farm and kennels at any time since they encourage buyers to look at how they raise and care for their dogs. But, my family is still very frustrated. We haven't heard anything AT ALL from the breeder (we haven't attempted to contact them yet) about the situation and it has been a few days since the comment was posted.

When I was doing more research on the breeder the same day the comment was posted, I noticed that the breeder was ranked 4th in the US in 2016 which was several years ago. Perhaps their breeding got out of hand? But we have seen videos posted of the facility and kennels and they are very clean and indoors with an outdoor kennel shelter for the dogs as well. But they let the dogs inside from what we can tell and they are shown. But when I was looking at the AKC website to see if they were still recommended breeders by the AKC, they were not on their list(granted there were only 2 breeders there for our state and area). So it really is a waiting game and despite being very upset, if the opprotunity comes up and we are offered a puppy, we know we will probably take the dog anyways. We will of course visit the facility and if they are a mill breeder, we will probably still buy the dog. The reason for this is because if we leave the puppy and the breeder, the conditions the puppy would grow up in would be unfortunate and poor quality. We consider it rescuing the dog because their fate and life would be worse.

We do not know for sure what will happen from here and we do not even know if the breeder is really a mill breeder but, if we do not get a refund from these people(or a puppy), we will not be able to get a dog at all.

Maleficent Acres said:

Please do not still purchase the dog if they are a puppy mill. Your heart is in the right place, but that is how they get people to fund them. People think they are helping the puppy, but what you're really doing is putting money in the puppy mill's pocket to continue to run said puppy mill. If it's a puppy mill, do not buy from them.

update:

We received an update from the breeder that addressed the comment made that accused the breeder of being a puppy mill. Along with that, the breeder has given an update on the puppies that have been born.

First things first is the puppy mill comment. The breeders sent out a large letter to all of their depositors which included my family and spoke about the comment. They had explained that the commenter (we will call him Karen) had left the comment a few weeks after he was supposed to pick up an adult female dog that the breeder was selling. Karen didn't show up to pick up their dog and never contacted the breeders so the breeder assumed they didn't want the dog and sold her to someone else. Karen then wrote the comment in anger and will now be sued for defamation since the breeders called animal welfare and had several authorities out to the "farm" to check their property. Their property was cleared and received excellent reviews from animal authorities and inspectors. The breeder has tried to contact the commenter about the situation and has encouraged all of their customers to come forward if they know anything.

Now the moment everyone (in my house at least) has been waiting for! The puppies!! We are number 9 on the picking order which means we will be one of the last people to pick out a pup. We have to go to the farm to check out the facility and see the puppies and physically choose which dog we want. We will get to bring a pup home mid to late July but pick out mid June which pupper we want. Unfortunately, due to covid, only adults are allowed to go meaning my siblings will not get allowed to see the pup until we pick her up or she is delivered. I may go and see her but my parents may be the only ones able to see her depending on their policies at that time due to the virus. I will still post photos here and updates :)