[pauldo]

My female went into heat a few days ago and there are only three male studs in my area. I contacted the owner of my favourite stud (Duffy) However this yorkie stud has no history of live puppies. One female that became pregnant lost the puppies (probably not the fault of Duffy). The other two females (both in heat the same week) did not get pregnant. I spoke with a fertility vet at the Vet College in our city and he advised me against using Duffy -- he suspected a low sperm count and said that one or both of the females should have gotten pregnant. Anyways I let my heart lead, and contacted Duffy's owners. I told them I wanted to use Duffy but b/c he wasn't proven were they willing to be flexible on the price (I mentioned the other two studs were proven and their owners charged less). The owner sounded defensive and told me that one of the two females did get pregnant. I told him his wife said the two females did not. There was silence, then he told me "I don't care what you do!" and he hung up on me. I immediately decided these were not the people I wanted to spend time with while my dog was being bred, so I contacted my second pick and made arrangements for breeding. Nonetheless I felt bad for how my discussion went with the other breeder and contacted his wife and apologized. I explained my concerns and why I had been looking for some flexibily if I used Duffy. She was very cold on the phone, stated "yes you did offend my husband" but she did not offer an apololgy for how he had hung up on me. My question is, aren't I paying for not only the "quality" of the stud, but also the studs ability to be a stud? If he did not have a record as a stud dog, did I not have the right to express my concerns and see what we could come up with other than me just handing over $500 for an unproven stud???? I'm new at this and I don't know if I really blew "stud service conventions" or if I just dealt with some "overly-sensitive" breeders.