This is the sad story of one of our puppies, Modbury Amarco, Amber.

Ivy Had her litter in March 2007, all of the puppies were born healthy and we had reserves on the majority of them before they were born. We had 'earmarked' a dark girl to continue our working line but due to unforeseen circumstances with one of our older dogs we felt that it wasn't fair to 'bring a puppy on' in the house with his ill health.

We were approached by Ms B and her family with a view to offering a possible home for one of our puppies. We duly spoke at length to Ms B about her reasons for wanting to own a pup, her home situation etc. The family seemed ideal, they had experience of dogs, albeit smaller ones. The family were invited to visit and for us to gauge the situation face to face. They still appeared ideal, the sons would walk the dog as the older son was at home all day, Ms B worked a few hours each day and they appeared to have researched owning a puppy and the Golden Retriever breed in general.

The time came for the puppies to leave, always a sad week for us but we are happy in the knowledge that we had picked perfect homes for our precious puppies. Over the years we have put together an eleven page puppy pack on how to rear, care for and bring up the puppy/dog and we also offer lifelong advice to all of our puppy owners. We also ask the owners to sign two contracts, which they are asked to read at least a week before the pup is due to leave, the contracts are signed when they take the pup. Part of this contract states that if the owner can no longer care for the pup we must be informed and we will take the puppy/dog back.

We maintain contact with all owners and ask them to call anytime if they have any problems or questions. I rang all the new owners the first week and everything appeared to be fine. Two weeks later we had an e-mail from Ms B stating that Amber was settling in well and they had changed their holiday plans as they couldn't bear to be parted from her and couldn't imagine life without her.

A few weeks later I had cause to be concerned as Ms B had replied to an e-mail that I sent enquiring about Amber's progress. She had replied to us saying how Amber had been running around with slugs and loved them, she also said they had given up on her training pads as she takes them from the tray and waves them around like a flag. I rang Ms B to raise my concerns, not only for the possibility of slug pellet poisoning and to advise having her seen by a vet immediately but also the aspect of training her to 'toilet' in a tray. Ms B advise us, when we enquired a few days later, that Amber had indeed suffered slug pellet poisoning and was hospitalised. I can only be grateful that, due to my e-mail and phone call, the pup had been seen by a vet and saved from a horrific death.

We maintained contact and received a few photographs of Amber. However I sent an e-mail in the middle of the school holidays that went unanswered. I wrongly presumed that she was on holiday with her children, as she worked a few hours during term time as a bursar at a school. When the summer holidays had finished I rang and left messages on her answer phone, these also went unanswered. By now my husband and I  were very concerned about Amber's welfare. Eventually, after ringing countless times every evening (each time the phone went straight to answer phone), we eventually got a very terse e-mail stating "Amber is no longer living with us but rest assured she had a happy time with us and is now having an even happier time with her new owner that can be with her all day and has another Golden for Amber to play with".

Understandably, we were distraught about this and following a few more e-mails we learned that Amber had been placed in a Golden Retriever rescue.

We have since found out that the 'B' family had continued to try to litter train Amber like a cat in a cat litter tray !! She was not being exercised, as the family were more interested in reading than caring properly for their puppy. Naturally, she was becoming very destructive and noisy as they were leaving her and she was becoming bored and lonely. Ms B and her family were out at work for far longer than they led us to believe and obviously had not had the experience that they told us.

Amber was placed in a Golden Retriever rescue the same week that I had sent the first unanswered e-mail - she was only five months old! The 'B' family advised the rescue centre that they were too acutely embarrassed to admit to us that they could not cope. Rather than return Amber to us, where she would live out the rest of her days happily, they preferred to do it in an underhand manner, probably hoping that we wouldn't contact them again.

Amber is now in Shropshire and we can only hope that after her extremely unhappy start in the three months that the 'B' family had her, that she now has the love and devotion she deserves.

Naturally, as responsible & caring breeders, this has upset us immensely. We ask that if you are reading this and in the future feel that you can no longer offer a home to your dog for whatever reason, please put your feelings of embarrassment and failure aside & contact your breeder in the first instance. I am sure that the breeder will not judge you and all responsible breeders will only have the welfare of a dog that they bred as their primary concern.

October 2007

He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.

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