Spencer
My partner & I bought our pup in July 2020 for £2500. We saw the advent on Pets4Homes, rang the breeder & he said that he’d just sold his last one but his sister had a litter. He sent us pictures over and we chose our favourite - went the next day to Orpington to his sisters house and saw our puppy along with 2 of his siblings. She apparently didn’t want to bring mum out because it was raining (we were stood in the garden because of COVID) and these siblings were the last ones available so didn’t see the need to bring all of them out. We paid our £500 deposit and we asked for a written receipt which she gave us. We asked if we could take her number so we could get updates of our puppy as it was another 2 weeks before we could collect him. The promise was made that they’d have his microchip & first vaccination done & he’d be up to date with his flea and worming. She stuttered and told us that she didn’t know her number off by heart and to continue speaking with her brother James for updates.
Fast forward a few days and we had some pictures but none that were different to what we’d already seen and whenever we asked for fresh ones he always gave an excuse. A few more days later James drops the bombshell that Spencer was actually ready to be collected - of course, naivety and excitement got the better of us and we shot down to Orpington to pick him up. The lady (we never got her name), met us up the street with just spencer. No puppy pack, no vet information absolutely nothing. She asked for us to send the remaining £2K to her boyfriend, whilst I tried to do that on my phone, I overheard her talking to my partner explaining that she doesn’t have any siblings (which alarmed me). All these red flags were going off in my head but we took him in the hope that we’d give him the best life we could.
We got home and the poor sausage ate and drank like he’d never eaten before. We were alarmed by this and through watching him we notice his belly severely distended. I got him booked into the vets to get him his first vaccination, chipped and just an overall health check-up and explained that over the last few days his bowels were really loose and seriously smelly. Like old blood - to the point where I’d gag. She gave him back to us and told us that he likely had a severe case of worms and to try him on panacur. This was the 17th July - he got home with us that afternoon and was quite lethargic and later threw up. We put it down to his vaccination.
The next day (18th July)my partner & I went out to see some friends and his sister came to dog sit. She mentioned that he’d been very happy and playful but didn’t eat and had actually been sick again. We kept our eye on him and over the course of that night, I slept about 2 hours in broken sleep as he was constantly being sick, having diarrhoea, getting water and just going in cycles all night. I rang the emergency vet at 5am who told me to giving him water (worst advice ever). I rang our usual vet at 9am and they got us in there within 45 min. They confirmed he had Parvo and to take him to another vet where he’d have the best possible care and that’s where he spent the last 10 days of his poorly life. We had him home for 6 days and weren’t there with him when he got put to sleep because of COVID.
We attempted to contact the breeder when Spencer was first diagnosed and he told us ‘that’s a shame, he was a good healthy pup’ but asked us to keep him updated. He went onto block our numbers. We tried to get some money back but after reading about the family by googling them we decided that it wasn’t worth something potentially happening to us.
We miss Spencer so dearly and have his ashes and paw prints with us.