Breeder fraudulent, avoided me after sale & threatened to kill me!
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Breeder: Cissye(Merri) Chaffin
Chaffin Raised Kennel (Atoka, Oklahoma)
I’ve noticed other YT members sharing stories about unethical breeders, so I thought I might as well share my bad experience.
Last fall I was looking for a small male terrier (2-3 lb.) to breed with my female terrier and use as a stud dog. I could only find 4-5 lb. males in my area of Canada, so I went looking on the internet. (I had purchased 2 yorkies in the past and things went smoothly during and after the sale – so I was pretty trusting). I fell in love with a male yorkie advertised on
www.yorkiebabypup.com (Chaffin Raised Kennel). Advertised as 13 oz. at 7 weeks, it was the smallest and was the most expensive male they had (out of about 10 male puppies). ($1500 US) The breeder, Cissye Chaffin told me the puppy was the smallest in the litter, one of the smallest males they ever had and mentioned several times how the dad was 2 ½ pounds. (I was told mom was 5 lbs.). She discussed how she thought the puppy would be small like the dad (I did the 3x 8week weight and sure enough it worked out to a 2-3 pound adult). He was adorable, the right size and I bought him. There were some red flags at this point already that should have made me suspicious:
1.Cissye sent me the 8week old pup on a 12 hour journey to Canada (now I know that the tiny yorkies need to stay with their mom much longer before attempting such a flight)
2.Cissye didn’t show me a picture of the mom (just the adorable 2 ½ pound dad) even though I asked for a picture.
3.She had about 20 yorkie pups at that time for sale, and also maltese and brussels griffin pups (does this mean it was a puppy mill?)
4.She didn’t ask me any questions to qualify if the puppy was going to a good home or what I planned on doing with him.
Well I got the puppy – he was adorable like all yorkie pups – but seemed just as big as my five pound yorkies had at 8 weeks. Plus he had these huge paws. My husband immediately told me that the puppy was not going to be a tiny adult. We weighed him and it appeared he had almost doubled his weight in about a week (now was 1 ½ lbs.). I emailed Cissye letting her know that the puppy was cute but why was he so big? Cissye always emailed back quickly b/f the sale, now I waited 3 days with no reply.
Finally I got a hold of her by phone but she couldn’t talk b/c she had a migraine. She told me to phone the next day. I did, but she told she hadn’t had time to look at his weight chart, and that her husband would phone me (he never did). She also told me to buy some stuff from Walmart to deworm him b/c maybe he was full of worms and that was why he was so heavy. My vet rolled her eyes about that one and questioned the puppy’s rapid growth as well?
By now I was becoming suspicious -- they were avoiding me, and the puppy was not the small puppy they had promised and that I had payed extra for. I again looked at the date that their ad first ran on the internet and the date of the puppy’s birth and realized that the puppy was actually 5 weeks old (and not 7 weeks as they claimed) when he was 13 oz. I recalculated his adult weight and discovered his adult weight could reach the 5 lb. range (5 lb. male dogs are $800 in Canada – I paid $1500 U.S. and with shipping, exchange etc. the puppy cost me $2300!!!).
I emailed the Chaffins again stating that I now realized they had given me false information and that I wanted to pay for what I had actually gotten (i.e. I wanted a partial refund). I did not want to exchange the puppy b/c at this point I didn’t trust them: they already had my money, and now I was going to send back the dog??? Plus Cissye had originally told me that it was the smallest male they ever had. So how could they send me a smaller one? Also I didn’t want to put this puppy back on a 12 hour plane ride ( he had arrived with runny eyes, a cough, a horrible smell that lasted weeks, and was diagnosed with an ear infection). I told the Chaffins that if they refused to reply I would report their fraudulent actions to the AKC. Again they did not reply.
I waited a couple days – got up my courage and phoned them again – Cissye was abrupt and told me she didn’t take kindly to threats. Her husband grabbed the phone from her and started yelling at me and verbally abusing me. He kept yelling “WHAT DO YOU WANT” but wouldn’t let me talk. He told me I was nothing but a complainer, a scam artist like all the other scam artists they have to deal with and that I was lucky I didn’t live close by, that I was force feeding the dog, that I knew nothing about yorkies, and that $1500 was the going price for yorkies in the U.S. and that he could have charged me more. When I realized I was getting no where with him, I said I would exchange the pup (didn’t want to do this but didn’t know what else to say) but I asked that they pay for the shipping, since it was their false information that caused the reason for the return. Mr. Chaffin refused. I then asked him to at least split the cost b/c in Can. $ it was going to cost me another $600 to send the puppy back and receive another one. Again he refused to help out and said it wasn’t his fault the Canadian currency was so rotten. At this point I was so frustrated, overwhelmed, and feeling victimized that I started to cry. Mr. Chaffin told me he had better things to do with his time then listen to me cry. I finally lost it, swore at him (I never swear), and told him I was reporting their service to appropriate organizations. It was then that Mr. Chaffin told me that when he comes to Canada to go hunting he’s going to coming looking for me with his gun. He then hung up on me.
On the phone, Mr. Chaffin was totally out of control and sounded like a lunatic. Since I don’t know him from Adam, I decided I should bring his threats to the attention of law enforcement agents. This incident has been reported to the Canadian police and Atoka sherrif’s department. They have dealt with this matter with Mr. Chaffin and commented that Mr. Chaffin to has a “I’m right and every one else is wrong” attitude. He was rude until he was told that a further threat would have him turned away at the Canadian border – according to the police office, Mr. Chaffin suddenly became civil.
When my male puppy finally reached 5 lbs, I got a letter from my vet verifying the weight and e-mailed a copy to the Chaffins letting them know my instincts had been correct, and that I was not the “complainer” and “scam artist” I was accused of being. I asked them one more time if we could work something out. They did not reply - I wasn’t surprised – they already had my money.
My male puppy is now six pounds – a breeder in my area told me to neuter him b/c he will be too big to breed with my 5 lb. female. I have debated selling him and starting over with a new male, however, I will only get $800 for him if I’m lucky. Also my kids have become attached to him, and he to us … Unfortunately I want to stay as a small breeder and I am not in the position to own terriers I cannot breed. I am now in a real dilemma.
One thing I’ve learned from this experience is that it’s not what happens during the purchase that makes a breeder a good, ethical breeder but how the breeder acts after the sale. In my opinion, the Chaffins just want to sell a puppy, and don’t care about the purchaser’s needs or the puppy’s well being. I’m hoping by bringing our experiences into the open, that breeders like the Chaffins will think twice before misrepresenting facts/scamming and abusing their purchasers.