As pet owners and breeders, we have many years’ experience contending with pet contracts and health guarantees. Some of those experiences have been the most difficult and emotionally painful of our lives.
As the saying goes, “contracts are for divorce.” Upfront, when you are about to buy or just bought your dog, and are extremely excited and full of good cheer, it might sound warm and fuzzy to reference the “health guarantee” the breeder gave you, the one that inspires so much confidence. But do you really know what it means? What will happen if you have to invoke it with a sick or dead dog? Better yet, is there a better way to think about a “guarantee” or increase the probability of buying the healthiest dog possible?
the realities of health guarantees
Most people gloss over the idea of health guarantees and do not adequately consider the realities. If you need to invoke a health guarantee, it means your beloved pet is either suffering or has died. All the comfortable thoughts you had when shopping for the dog will be replaced by an emotionally fraught, stressful, and even desperate situation.
A health guarantee is a gamble on the part of the breeder. But it is one that typically works in the breeder’s favor, whether they choose or refuse to honor it later.
Firstly, the fact that a health guarantee exists at all seems to be enough to lull most consumers into automatically assuming they are dealing with a professional and ethical breeder. Do not sleepwalk into a dog purchase with this mindset. A standard “health guarantee” is not necessarily a guarantee of health. It does not guarantee that the breeder has made or will have to make an investment into the health of their dogs. It is nothing more than a promise to replace the dog under stipulated contractual conditions related to the dog’s future health.
Secondly, will the breeder honor the guarantee? Maybe not. Maybe so. But if they do, it will be on the back-end equation of their business. Sadly, for many breeders, it is probably cheaper to replace an occasional dog than it is to fully invest in proper health testing and attempt to prevent disease and health problems.
Thirdly, if something does go wrong with your dog’s health and you want to invoke the health guarantee, realize that you are then talking about a refund or a replacement for the dog. Will you be willing to give up the dog that you have come to know and love, the same dog who loves and trusts you? Disreputable breeders are betting that you will not be able to part with the original dog, and declare that if you cannot honor your terms of the “health guarantee,” neither can they.
Lastly, study the language of the guarantee very carefully. Oftentimes, there is extraordinary ambiguity and room for interpretation in the contract language. It may be difficult to interpret it in a way that is productive for the dog owner or breeder, not to mention what such ambiguity means in terms of upholding a contract legally or in court. Furthermore, the breeder may expect you to perform expensive medical procedures to prove a health problem exists, which in some cases may be so oppressive or cost-prohibitive as to negate the value of the health guarantee. Other breeders may cast blame on owners for health problems, which to be fair is a possibility. For example, we have known breeders producing dogs with a genetic disposition for elbow or hip dysplasia to suggest that overfeeding or low-quality food, provided to the dog by the owner, produced the crippling conditions. Sometimes it was. Other times, not at all. Often a request from the breeder for medical proof or questions regarding the care and diet of the dog may be completely appropriate or correct. But be aware for the potential to weaponize such a situation in a way that has nothing to do with facts or the spirit of the law. In other cases, it may be impossible to determine the root cause at all, even when both parties share good intent, due to the complex and unknown origins of health problems, the randomness of genetic expression, or any other number of undecipherable elements. In all such scenarios, oftentimes the “health guarantee” serves only as a get-out-of-jail free card for the breeder.
This is not to say that reputable breeders who honor health guarantees do not exist. They do. However, these points showcase the weaknesses and pitfalls of health guarantees with a “fix it later” approach, and a misunderstanding regarding what such a guarantee could possible ensure. We think there is a better and more realistic way to approach optimal health in dogs and increase the probability of everyone’s success.
built-in quality
Built-in quality is a universal business practice that means you ensure that each element of the product or service you are producing, at every incremental stage of development, meets appropriate quality standards The idea is that the quality is built into all the development steps that ultimately produce the end product. By “building quality in,” you will have done everything possible to produce the best possible outcome.
In dog breeding, that idea translates into doing everything pre-emptively possible to ensure the good health of the dogs produced, beginning with decisions and actions long before any dogs are even born. These measures go far beyond just standard health testing. While by no means an exhaustive list, consider the following points and ask your breeder to transparently share such details:
Profound breed knowledge
Intimate familiarity with the pedigrees of their breeding dogs (aka the lines or lineage)
Firsthand exposure to as many dogs in the pedigrees as possible, preferably ownership of the dogs
Multiple generations of dogs produced under a breeding program, showing continuous improvements in the breed and a consistent type synonymous with the kennel name (not just buying dogs from other kennels and breeding them randomly)
Strategic breeding decisions that tie back into the aforementioned points and can be explained
Proper diet
Proper exercise
Proper health care
Proper socialization and temperament evaluations
Proper prenatal care
Health testing (in the case of the Boerboel most importantly elbow, hip, and heart health, although there are other health considerations)
Genetic testing
Veterinary health certificate and vaccination records for the dog before it leaves the breeder premises to go to your home
Three-day grace period from purchase date to have your vet examine the purchased dog with a contingency to return it
why WE DO NOT OFFER “HEALTH GUARANTEES”
We have given an enormous amount of consideration to the notion of a health guarantee. In the end, we find it to be a disingenuous term, wildly open to interpretation, emotionally manipulative, with an implication that any human could actually guarantee the health of any other living thing, something that allows consumers to rush into a purchase without proper consideration or real protection.
Instead, we have decided to fully commit ourselves to a strategy of built-in quality at every stage of development in our program. The list in the previous section is just a small sampling of the many areas in which we commit ourselves to the highest standards of development to produce the best and most consistent outcomes humanly possible. We health test every single dog that is a member of our program. These test results are listed openly and transparently on our website for public review and consideration. Dogs that do not pass rigorous standards of health and quality are eliminated entirely from our program.
Understand that such decisions come at great cost to a breeder, and explain why it is too tempting for some breeders to resist cutting corners. For every single healthy breeding dog that makes it to adulthood and can be included in a program, there may be two or six dogs that were excluded due to health issues, conformation shortcomings, or any number of other issues. Imagine that the breeder incurred the same costs to health test and raise all the dogs, whether they made it into the program or not. Purchasing, raising, and health testing six breeding quality dogs to adulthood might cost on average $6,000 or $8,000 per dog. If only one of the six dogs ultimately makes it into the breeding program, the average cost for that healthy, breeding dog could be in excess of $30,000 or $40,000. It is easy to give lip service to ethical standards. But on this point, ethical breeding could not be a more extreme purity test.
We choose to consciously and continuously “build quality in” to our program. We run our program with a culture of continuous learning, so as to also aspire to achieve improvements and greater quality in the future. We openly offer such details to prospective owners for their consideration, as a more realistic measure of future health, instead of a blanket “guarantee” that acts as a palliative marketing point, but does not serve as a measure of truth or protection.
final thoughts
Do your research and know what health issues are a concern for the breed that interests you. Even the highest standards in breeding and fully health-tested parents do not provide guarantees. Living creates develop health problems despite good intentions and health testing; sometimes genetics manifest themselves in random and unexpected ways; the care you provide the dog will certainly impact its health.
Discuss these issues with the breeder. Do no take the term “health guarantee” at face value. Rather, understand the reality of its meaning and coverage. Consider that there are other points of upfront investment in the dog you are buying, ones that might not be as readily apparent, but that may serve as a better measure of your dog’s future health and optimize the possibility for everyone’s best outcome.