Hello all: I have some bad and good news about our trip to get Maggie.
When we got to her house Saturday morning she told us a few days earlier she noticed Maggie's head tended to tilt to the left. She said she sent videos to 2 vets in Kamloops regarding Maggie's head tilt. Without the vets even physically examining Maggie, they made the diagnosis to our breeder that she has "mild cerebellum hypoplasia". It's a condition that won't get worse or better. She told us she would sell her to us for half the usual fee but it was our decision if we still wanted her or not. We had our heart set on bringing her home. I phoned my own vet and after talking to her we decided not to adopt her, our vet told us without blood tests and a neurological check there's no way to make a proper diagnosis of what the issue was. She also said whatever caused this condition might have caused other problems in the future. After losing 2 dogs in the last year the thought of going through something like that again with a young dog was the last thing we wanted.
Even if we didn't have to pay full price for her because of this condition, we thought maybe down the road as she gets older there might be a chance it worsens and that would be devastating for us. The breeder said in the 30 years she's been breeding this is the first time she's had a pup with problems. Maggie's cerebellum may have not completely matured at birth, being squished by her siblings in the womb? We watched her run and play with her siblings, she was holding her own and there was no outward appearance there was a problem other than the head tilt when she sat down or stood and looked at something. We feel the breeder should have had tests done, come up with a diagnosis and called us ahead of time, before driving up to get her, making that decision after seeing, petting and cuddling her was not easy.
We asked her if we don't take her what will become of little Maggie, the breeder said "you don't want to know". I left in tears.
My husband Googled "head tilt" when we got home and now we think there's a chance she might not have this condition at all. It could just very well be an infection in her ear, which is a minor problem compared to what the 2 vets diagnosed her with. The breeder's indifference toward Maggie is very disappointing, better to just take the loss than to pay for a proper medical exam I guess..?
The breeder mentioned another breeder in Kamloops had some pups ready to go as of November 27, so we phoned her and went to see the pups. We contacted this breeder at one time as a back-up just in case there weren't enough females in the litter Maggie came from.
We ended up bringing home a little 9 week old girl and are calling her Molly, she's a real cutie but we still worry about little Maggie.
Our original breeder was where we got our old girl "Shelby" from and she was the best dog anyone could ever have. So that's why we decided to go with her again, not the way we wanted this story to end.
I am now going to close this thread and start another one for Molly.
This still troubles us because we e-mailed her and said that Maggie should be physically checked out. Why should a dog be put down if possibly a wrong diagnosis was made without even seeing the dog. After the 8 weeks we looked forward to taking little Maggie home this really bothers us.
We've asked the breeder to have her checked out, she's such cutie, pretty little girl we hope there's a happy ending to Maggie's story.
http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com...ber-welcoming-new-golden-girl-dec-1-12-a.html
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