Thank you for taking the time to read this! I am looking for people who have had trouble with any puppies they have bought from Lori Vincent, Southern Belle Danes in Shelby, NC. I can email anyone copies of the emails, more vet statements and any needed information. I am filing a small claims case against her this week but I want to find enough people with problems that they would like to resolve in court so that we can file a class action lawsuit against her. I have a statement from 1 other unhappy person and have spoke on the phone with another. Please contact me with any information! I really would like to find littermates to thunder and know if any have hip problems also!! We have 3 young children that have become attached to him and will know when he is put to sleep because we cannot afford the $6000 to $8000 surgery to fix him. I will put this on here for Lori also - SLANDER is a false and defamatory statement or report. DEFAMATION is false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another. LIBEL is anything that is defamatory or that maliciously or damagingly misrepresents. **None of this is false, I have proof of everything.**
These are pictures of some of her dogs. The harlequin pup in the pics is the male we bought from her. The adult harlequin standing in one pic and a head shot in another is our pups sire. I contacted Lori in May 2010 about getting a show quality harlequin male. I told her I wanted to show. She states on her website that she shows so I thought she could help us with a nice show male. Thunder was born 6/4/10 to a harlequin male (pics above) Ima blue huckleberry and a blue female Dees got the blues lillian. There was one other harlequin male in the litter, larry, she called him. Several blacks and blues. She also had another litter born within days of this one from a harlequin female, Pepper and a blue male, Storm. That litter was also harlequin, blues, blacks and merles. She had a merle from that litter she tried to sell me as a "blue harlequin" My friend warned me blue harlequins are not an AKC accepted color and are not rare as her $1200 price would make one think. I know someone with a pup from the Pepper/Storm litter thats puppy also had a severe worm infestation and a staph infection. I sent a deposit on Thunder when he was a little over 1 week old. He was sold to us with a 2 year health guarantee on his hips. She stated in emails that our male, Thunder, is show marked and show quality. About a week later I looked at the AKC website and read the harlequin standard and realized he is nowhere near show marked. When I asked her she said "You see all different markings in the show ring and his conformation will make up for his markings being too heavy." You can tell by his older pics that is not true. He is severely cow hocked, has a horrible topline and steep croup. When we got him at 7 weeks he was very bloated and infested with worms. We picked him up July 23rd. We stayed in TN in a hotel that weekend for a vacation and when we got to the hotel that evening the first thing I noticed was how horribly infested with worms he was and I could tell he was having trouble walking. We came home Sunday and I took him to the vet Monday. The vet confirmed the worm infestation and checked his hips. He said there was a strong possibility of hip dysplasia and was surprised of our pup showing symptoms at 7 weeks. He said it might also be that he was having trouble walking from being so badly bloated. He suggested a high quality feed, good deworming and getting Xrays to confirm the Hip dysplasia at closer to 6 months. We called Lori as soon as we left the vet and told her everything he said. She said we could bring him back now and get our money back but would prefer we wait until we can get Xrays to confirm incase it was something else. She said if the vet can confirm with Xrays that it was genetic then the guarantee would cover it and she was great with us keeping him until then. She said if it was because of an injury then we would not get a refund. We fed thunder Diamonds Naturals dog food and started supplementing him with Glucosamine DS with SMS and Chondroitin hip and joint supplement as recommended by our vet and he still continued to get much worse. He was having trouble walking, never wanted to play (specialist said its because he is in pain) yelps when his knees/legs are touched and has trouble getting up after resting. On 10/07/10 we took him to an orthopedic specialist where they did an exam and several Xrays and confirmed the diagnosis of Hip Dysplasia and also Cruciates Disease (which is also genetic) The specialist also noted many conformation defects. I immediately contacted Lori with the results and she acted like she would meet us and replace him with a fawn male that had a hernia at birth. We were to leave at 10am on 1/3/10 and she called at 8:30 and said she wouldnt meet us. I have decided to take her to court in hopes or recouping some of our costs. We offered to return Thunder since I do not want to have to put him to sleep but she always made excuses. I also told her that the specialist said it is HIGHLY likely that one of the parents also suffers with Hip dysplasia and possibly also cruciates disease since our pup had both so severly at such a young age. I advised her to get them OFA certified and she said she would do so later 2010 and would not breed them until she did so. She has had at least 3 litters from the same male since then. She is also STUDDING OUT THE MALE. Thank you again for taking the time to read this. I hope no one has to go through what we have. |
