Hi everyone,
I'm yet another person who found Yorkie Talk by googling Starmye Halpain. Some two years ago, I helped my house mate search for a Yorkie puppy; both of us fell in love with the perfect facade that is their website. Living in California, we decided to skip the hassle of flying all the way down to Oklahoma just to check on the puppy.
After all, the hundreds or so positive testimonials posted on their website can't be wrong, right?
How young and naive we were.
Sure, the puppy was adorable. Sure, he never did bark... I'm not even sure if that's a good thing. But oh, the hyper little furball had such separation anxiety and never failed to leaves gifts on every possible corner of the house. Over time, we drifted apart as friends, and it is only through a common friend that I heard that the dog had died due to some digestive system related health problems. I don't know the specific details of it, but she was grieved enough to immediately buy another Yorkie and gave him the same name.
A part of me felt sorry for her, but somehow I give the Halpains the benefit of the doubt as I didn't know what exactly happened to her Yorkie. Needless to say, my initial resolution to boycott them is often swayed by how precious their puppies look and how affordable they are. I can't help checking their website every now and then just to ogle at the cute little dogs.
It wasn't until I came across YT and saw
three separate threads of warning on the Halpain family, and the posts by gingerslovesella, luvryorkies that in gist fervently defends the Halpains. Be it when they're posing as an inquiring buyer (who created an account just for this thread and never posted again ever since) or one of their friends claiming that their farm is a top notch breeding ground (same case with the account). I mean, even if you don't know anything about dogs, how honest and genuine could someone be if they had the audacity to create fake accounts in order to defend themselves. That's mistake numero uno in terms of forum integrity. I know, I sound like I jumped into conclusion but hey, who am I supposed to fear? More random new accounts?
Now that I'm (slightly
) older and wiser, I noticed that not only do they have multiple breeds, they have never updated their dams and sires photo page, their warranty scantly covers anything for a maximum of 6 months at which point the puppies wouldn't even have reached their adult stage, and upon contacting them as an "interested buyer" (hey, they're not the only ones that can pose, y'know), more red flags arose. For example, a puppy that was listed to be "lively and energetic" on Puppyfind.com is suddenly the mellow puppy (I know, ain't that an oxymoron?) I asked for. Also, back in January, a female puppy named Laci was listed as having champion bloodline on Puppyfind.com whereas her two other male litter mates, Luke and Lew (listed as having the same dam and sire on their website) weren't. Upon confronting the matter, i received the following rubbish:
She is out of champion bloodlines but not parents. Her mom was shown in a couple of shows and won both of them. We did not get to finish showing her because she was going to have these babies. She is an awesome dog with the nicest and thickest hair coat. The boys are her brothers and have the same bloodline. Thanks, Robert
Please, please, please, would someone who knows how to request a USDA inspection / any other form of reporting them do something about them?