If what your saying is true Dawn, they don't sound like a reputable rescue, I'll ask again will you pm me the details of the rescue you mentioned earlier and this one so I can hear their side to the story. If you want to slate rescues Dawn start another thread, this is about whether breeders should carryout the same checks as reputable rescues, not individual cases. Just out of interest would you be just as surprised and appalled if this happened with a breeder's pup that went onto have pups? Reputable rescues would be horrified to find out one of their bitches had pups and would soon put measures in place, imo it should be the same for reputable breeders.

If this is true, it could well be that when the vet went to clip the dog pre spay s/he found scar tissue, similar to that of a spay scar, so assumed she was neutered. Vets routinely check for spay scars in stray bitches to save them being anaesthetised and opened up unnecessarily.
Although extremely rare that the dog would have a scar similar to a spay scar it can and does happen.

I concur that the rescue was grossly negligent, [ purely going by details as presented of course ].

I would add however, there is a measure of responsibility on the owners as well if they did not take steps to terminate a possible pregnancy if they knew when the mating happened and if they did not take all possible precautions to prevent it happening in the first place as soon as a season was evident by keeping the dogs apart properly or a Delvo to try to stop the season [ not applicable to Spaniels I believe which are known to react badly to that jab ], and in not putting her in a kennels or to stay elsewhere if separation at home was not possible.

I was told my Gremlin was spayed [ private rescue ] but the previous owners lied as I found out when she came in season two weeks later, not ideal as I adopted Grem and Defa a day apart and Defa was entire as well [ could not be snipped before adoption due to his poor health at the time ].

Now, angry as I was at being lied to, I took responsibility for Gremlin as my dog so it was up to me to take all necessary measures to ensure she did not get pregnant as soon as it was evident that she was entire...

[ I never realised how expensive nappies were until then, mind you I got her the good ones for fit, comfort, with the tabs you can reseal for when she needed the loo, and excellent blocking qualities against randy boys :smt077
They did`nt do much for her street cred though :smt044 ]

That's fine in theory,but a puppy sales agreement is not legally binding,
As for home checks I don't have a problem with rescue's doing them nor breeders,but I will say sometimes it is impossible,especially if it's a long distance,who will care for the litter.
You can do all the homechecks,interviews etc but we can't see into the future and sometimes thing happen that are beyond our control,and dogs go through rescue or back to the breeder.

I'd assume breeders would have a secondary carer for times when they have to go out for long periods.

. Could breeders not adopt puppies out instead of selling them?

That would be fine in theory but then you have the problem of KC registration and also abuse of the system.

Say the registration papers show the owner of the dog as the keeper - then the breeder says "No, the dog is only 'adopted', it actually belongs to me"... it's not easy is it. Who does the KC put as the 'owner'? The law sees dogs as property.

To be honest I'm not sure I'd want a dog (especially as a show prospect) to be totally under the control of someone else. Any idea of 'adoption' is open to abuse. What if you fell out with the breeder? They could then do a 'check-up' on the dog, decide it wasn't being cared for correctly in their eyes (they can give any reason they like really) and take the dog back! That's not for me I'm afraid.

Debs

KC registration isn't proof of ownership, however it would go under the new owners name.
The breeder wouldn't be able to take the dog back just because they've had a fall out with the owner, or because the dog is doing well at shows, no court in the country would allow it.
The dog wouldn't be 'totally under the control of someone else'
If the dog was obviously not being cared for or is being badly bred from that's when the breeder would step in.
If it works for rescues I can't see why it wouldn't work for breeders.

I think we all know the answer to that one Anne.

Because of the costs involved in breeding a litter, unless the breeder is well-off to start with and doesn't need to recoup their expenses then I don't think anyone would breed knowing they would be giving the pups away.

I'm not sticking up for people that breed lots of litters and live off the income, just pointing out that the ethical breeder that will breed when they want to keep something and have a waiting list for the other pups wouldn't do it.

My own experience involves having the bitch injected twice during the pregnancy for canine herpes (currently £60 at my vets), have the bitch scanned for pups (currently £30 at my vets), some will have paid out a stud fee of around £500. Thats without the cost of anything once the pups are born.

I also had these two bitches previously injected and scanned thinking they were in whelp, only to find they weren't. I had still paid a stud fee and had to pay the vets fees.

I certainly wouldn't breed a litter of English Setters and adopt them out, I could just imagine what the breed club and fellow members would say about me giving puppies away. This is purely my opinion, having only bred two litters maybe I'm not experienced enough to argue the case, but I also wouldn't invest in breeding a litter if I wasn't prepared to lose my investment if anything went wrong.

Then I'm not sure I understand your premise of adoption. What would be the difference between adopting a dog out and selling it outright? If the dog was obviously not being cared for (it'd have to be pretty bad otherwise you could go back to my not being cared for in the breeders eyes scenario which is then open to abuse) then surely the breeder (or someone else) could just report them to the RSPCA?

Debs