Ravine Acres Miniature and Toy Australian Shepherd dog breeders review: Bought 2nd mini aussie from them, no refund after 1 week

I purchased 2nd puppy from this breeder on 5/12.

The puppy has Iris coloboma and priced at $2500.

When I was inquiring about the 2nd puppy and expressed my concern about not sure if my current dog would adjust to a brother (my older dog is also from them and is a very polite and shy puppy), Racene the owner claims "I do not have a doubt, they will get along. They will absolutely live happily together, no doubts. I would not suggest him as a positive personality fit if I didn't genuinely feel that they are a great fit together. I do not have any doubts. If you were interested in adoption, I can meet up and drop him off, and I assure you that they will do so very well together." She also claims the first week will always be hard. And I trusted her and put down deposit.

A few days later the owner brought the puppy to all adoption families in Vancouver. She just hanged the puppy to me with paperwork and puppy packages (a small bag of food, a toy and a blanket with puppy's family smell) in a heavily raining day from her trail full of dogs, I asked her if there's a crate to keep him in, she said he will be fine on the floor of the back seat. But of course the puppy pooped and urinated all over the back seat of my car. Luckily he was not sick through the experience and was cleaned up after I took him home.

After I got the second puppy to my home, the puppy is doing fine, eating and playing. But he would bite my older dog through the gate and take all his toys/food when I let him out for them to socialize for a few mins everyday. Which is fine cause he is just a little puppy and needs guidance. But even though he is in his own gate and has his own crate, food, toys and drink. My older dog is having stress and anxiety to have the second dog in the house, which is normal at first. So I made sure to still working from home and see if they could adjust together and to have consistent training for both.

My older dog was monitoring the new puppy everyday and is feeling a lot of stress. Even I have been playing with him, taking him outside to play like usual, he is not cheering up and not eating any food. He was only eating 2-3 meat treats for a day and refuses to go back to home from walks because he hears the new puppy's sound. He used to sleep anywhere in the house but now he doesn't sleep during the day to just stare at the puppy.

And I have emailed the breeder about my concern for my dog's behavior 2 days after picking up the new puppy, she never replied.

Then my puppy's health situaion is getting worse as he doesn't take any food and lying in the crate or watching the new puppy everyday. I took him to the vet for 3 times in the past week and called tons of hospital/vet. He started to have horrible diarrhea with blood in it, the vet took blood sample and gave him some medicine. Blood work came back indicating he has nothing wrong physically, the vet said it's behavior change due to the new puppy.

I emailed the breeder again, but she never replied. So I texted her the next day, she said she is driving home so she will reply later. No response again in 2 days. Then yesterday PST 1:30 am she replied and saying she lost one of her dog in the park and was spending all day looking for him, sleeping in her car. She said "I will pay attention to your email as soon as I get up and have a moment to clear my head." It sounds horrible so I of course understood and waited for her response again. No response again for the whole day, so I reached out today again to see if everything is ok.

She finally replied and said no refund if a puppy is being returned. It's not the puppy's fault. I find the reply weird but said ok I will find a family for him on my own. I expressed that my older dog has suffered for the past 10 days again and cost me over $800 for vets appointments and no refund is not acceptable for me.

She soon replies that "For some reason I thought he was older than he is“ and offered me 20% of his selling price for a refund.

The whole process makes me feel like this breeder doesn't really care about these 2 dogs at all and everything is just business. I was worried about both puppy because for my older dog, he is already doing really bad, I also don't want the small puppy to get attached to us and can not easily adjust to another new family soon. She could've let me know earlier there's no refund when I reached out to her or state it on the contract, but no. I have to chase her so many times to get an email response because she stated before she doesn't like text or calls, email communication works best for her.

She wants me to put down deposit and claimed they would be perfect together, and when there's issue coming up, she doesn't reply. There's no transparency what so ever, and her statements keep changing. If a breeder can't even remember when the puppy she sold 10 days ago were born, please don't breed so many puppies in a year (they have new puppies almost every month).

She also claims that if she takes the puppy back she needs to make sure he is ok for a few weeks then sell him. But I have seen many times that she put puppies right back on her website when previous families decided to not keep the puppy.

She just replied and stated she is on vacation so she has limited access to phone or internet which she never let me know. She is still udpating her website and arranging puppy drop-offs. She stated " I do not take my work with me when I go away from work. It is nice to have a holiday, I have not had a holiday for a long while. I do not check my emails more than once every day or every 2nd day when I am on holidays. Do you take your work when you are away from home?"

And for the refund policy, she stated, "And no, I do not feel it is necessary to indicate the no refund policy on my contract, that is common sense. You are the 2nd person in 15 years that assumed that you would get a refund." But just in the previous email she sent to me, she stated "Typically, in a situation where the puppy isn't working with the adoptive family, a breeder (myself included) would refund 40% if the puppy is under 9 weeks. 30% if the pup is 10 weeks or under. 20% if the pup is 11 weeks or under. 10% if the pup is 12 weeks or under."

She also stated "I strongly suspect (my older puppy) is acting out due to your anxiety. Usually when there are issues like this, it is the energy of the owner that is projected onto the dog/puppy." She can't even get my puppy's name right in all the emails she sent me even I have mentioned the correct name many times.

I will find another adoption family on my own and I hope no adoption families would have the same expeirence I had. Hope they could have more transparency and share more visiblity to their adoption families.