Watch: Health Guarantees

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Transcript

Monica DeBosscher [0:02] Judi will discuss the specifics of what goes into a health guarantee, but first we can cover some of the basics. Earlier, we talked about the warranty of merchantability (which, if you remember, just means that the dog is fit for the purpose for which the dog will be used, which in most cases will be as a companion). Good health is generally considered to be part of that warranty of merchantability because courts feel like a dog can’t be a good companion if it’s in bad health. A breeder can usually ensure that an animal leaves her premises healthy. Many breeders do extend this health guarantee. Some will make the guarantee contingent on the buyer obtaining a vet exam within a short time of purchase, maybe within 72 hours of the buyer bringing the dog home. But you can’t foresee the animal’s health throughout its lifetime, right? So your disclaimer in your health guarantee should really address specific health conditions that you acknowledge the puppy may have in the future, and it should state (if you’re comfortable) that you don’t promise that the puppy is forever free of that condition. In your health guarantee, you’ll want to decide things like how long the guarantee will last, whether or not you’ll require proof from vets to confirm the condition, what kind of remedies the buyer will be given. We’ll discuss later which remedies are more buyer-friendly versus more breeder-friendly, but on this slide, there’s a good example that’s pretty flexible and pretty buyer-friendly where it’s a 2-year warranty. The buyer must supply vet records that show that the condition is existing, and the seller also has the opportunity to take the dog to the seller’s own vet to confirm. But if the dog does have a disorder, the buyer has three options. One is return the dog and receiving a replacement dog. Another is returning the dog and being reimbursed. And the third is keeping the dog and having some vet expenses covered. We’ll look at those a bit more in-depth later, but Judi, do you want to cover some of what goes into a health guarantee? 

Judi Stella [2:11] Real quick, I just wanted to make sure that you all have a bit of an understanding about what you can and can’t guarantee for life. The genetic diseases that are going to be common are going to be breed-specific, so just make sure that you understand how those diseases are inherited, because it will impact what you can and cannot guarantee. For example, a simple autosomal recessive gene—if the dog doesn’t have a copy of it or even if they only have one copy of it—it’s likely that they’re never going to come down with that disease. You can pretty much guarantee that. But for some other things like incomplete dominance or diseases that are more complex that we’ve only identified one of the genes that is involved in it—it’s going to be more complicated. Just understand the genetics and maybe get some genetic counseling about what you will and will not guarantee the dogs will be free from. And then for some of the other diseases that we screen for—hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, a lot of those phenotypic diseases—they’re very multifactorial, so you do your part by guaranteeing that you screened the parent dogs and that you are breeding dogs that are more likely to produce puppies that have good hips or good elbows or good heart conditions. But again, it’s also up to the puppy buyers and how they care for those dogs because other factors will play into whether or not they get those diseases: environmental factors, diet, exercise, if they’re overweight—those types of things. You just want to be really careful about that and think through what you are and are not guaranteeing and just make sure that you’re comfortable with the decisions that you make and how that’s going to be remedied.