Complaint Review: Christi Harmon Cody Harmon Christi's Puppies Double C Ranch - Lebanon Missouri

My story is very similar to the others but has a different twist. On Monday, Sept. 24, 2007 I was looking on Puppyfind at Clumber Spaniels, I noticed some Clumber puppies for sale in Lebanon, MO. The puppies belonged to Paula Walters. I e-mailed her and asked if she had any older adult males available, the next day I got an e-mail from Christi saying that she had an AKC registered male that was 2 years old that she wanted to sell. I called her and I made an appointment to meet her the next day, Sept. 25, 2007.

My husband and I met Christi at Paula Walters' home. We looked at the dog and concluded that he was very timid and reclused, he had patches of balding hair and he needed a bath but we decided that we could fix those things once we got him home, we were unable to really take a good look at him as he was huddled in the far end of the crate. Paula invited us to look at her kennel setup and it was neat and tidy even though it had been raining a lot.

Before leaving I personally asked Christi if she was going to guarantee the dog to be Brucellosis free, she said I am 1000% sure he is clean, I replied that was fine but....would she guarantee that? She said yes, that was heard by my husband, Paula Walters and Paula's husband. Later they would deny that I ever asked. I wrote Christi a check and we headed for home.

The next day, Sept. 26, 2007 Charlie had a 10am appointment with our vet, after a thorough exam and blood draw we noticed that Charlie had wet, oozed sores on his s*****m, a nasty eye infection, and had patches of missing hair, not to mention a putrid smell and fleas. My vet gave him a large dose of Naxcel and some other medications, when the blood tests were finished they informed us that he was a very hot positive for Brucella Canis. The test they performed was an in house card test.

I immediately tried to call Christi and was unable to reach her so I called Paula, Paula said that Christi was at the dog auction and she would give her the message. When Christi called me back she swore (literally) up and down that the test was wrong, I gave her then benefit of the doubt. The very next morning, Sept. 27, 2007 we took Charlie to another vet, this time Charlie was given a 2 part test, 2ME-RSAT, both showed positive. This vet told me to either euthanise the dog immediately or return it to Christi, this vet also notified the Mo. State Veterinarian in Jefferson City.

Again, I called Christi, again she said the tests were wrong, her dog did not have Brucellosis. I asked her to take the dog back, she refused, she said that I just wanted to bring him back because he was shy, I told her that Brucellosis is contagious to people and what about my other dogs, I had to keep Charlie in isolation, this disease is highly contagious and he had been infected quite some time. She refused to take the dog back, she refused to refund my money, she told me to bring him to her vet and have blood drawn for a culture that would be done at Jefferson City. She refused to accept a blood draw done by my vet, she said that I could be drawing blood on some other dog besides hers, but I reminded her that this dog was micro-chipped and positive identity was certain. This was the same day I stopped payment on the check.

I had the blood draw done on Oct. 1, 2008. 8 days later, the report came back with a positve test. Christi still refused to take back the dog or refund my money, she said that if I put him down she would never give me back my money. When the culture came back positive I called her vet, her vet is familiar with my vet. Dr. Jenkins said he did not want to be involved with this and hung up.

In the meantime while we were waiting for the culture results Christi called a few times, on Oct. 4, 2007 she called me and was very irate, she had just discovered that the check had been stopped, she said that she had reported me to the local prosecutor and accused me of stealing her money and her dog plus the papers, I told her she was welcome to have her dog back at anytime! She threatened me and told me to have the money to her by 5pm that day or she would send the law out to pick me up for stealing.

She also stated that she was still 1000% positive that Charlie was clean, she said that I would be sorry for what I had done and that I was going to look really stupid when that culture came back negative, she assured me that if the test was positive that she would refund me the money. Later that evening my husband and I decided to pay her again by way of PayPal, based on what she had said earlier I hoped she was honest, unfortunately... she was not.

The first culture returned positive on Oct. 9, 2007. On Oct. 12, 2007 Charlie had another blood draw, this time 3 tubes were taken, 1 tube was submitted for another test along with blood from my other dogs, 1 tube remains at the vet clinic as it was set aside in case Christi wanted to test it herself, 1 tube is still in my possession, just in case! This is also the day that we put Charlie down. He was humanely euthanised and cremated. The entire time the dog was here he was in pain, his eyes were infected and swollen, his testicles were swollen and had wet sores, his joints ached and he barely moved, all caused by Brucella Canis.

At 1 point in time Christi had said that he must have had the disease when she bought him at the dog auction, but then she said that she had him tested at the sale and he was negative. When Charlie went through that sale , Feb. 3, 2007, he was negative, he was sold that day with several other Clumbers, all the Clumbers came from the same breeder, all were negative for Brucellosis,

I happened to find another buyer that was at the same sale, he bought 3 Clumbers from the same lot and they are all Brucellosis negative, in fact 2 of those dogs now live with me! They are NEGATIVE for Brucellosis. Charlie had to contract the disease at her kennel. Look at the facts, Feb. 2 he is negative, he goes home with Christi, Sept. 26 he is positive. As far as I know Charlie never left her place during that time.

I want everyone who reads this to understand how serious Brucellosis is! It is contagious to humans, it is very contagious to other animals, it is true that most Brucellosis infected dogs will abort the babies, but.......after some time a female dog can start whelping full term puppies again, and yes the babies are born infected!!!! I tried to explain this to Christi, do the research yourself, Google it and learn about this disease, the numbers are growing in this country because breeders refuse to test (costs too much)!

What Christi did was wrong, I feel like she knew that dog was sick and saw her chance to recover some of her money, I owned the dog less than 16 hours and discovered it was sick. There are several things that bother me and the two biggest are: 1) Christi told me that Charlie had sired 2 litters of pups but 1 litter had died shortly after birth because the dam was a horrible mother, if Charlie sired even 1 litter then why did I receive his AKC puppy papers? You can't register a litter from a sires litter paper. 2) On Sept. 27 I called Christi and asked her to take the dog back, I told her to even keep the money I just wanted him off my place until he was proven clean. She said that she had no empty pen to put him in, I told her to put him back in the pen he had come from just 2 days prior, she said that she couldn't because the Newfies she bought at the auction (9/26/07) were in his old pen!!

In true Christi fashion I am sure she will rebuttal this report as well as she did the others, but the fact remains that she sold me a walking time bomb that was a health hazard to man and animal alike and she just didn't care. How can she love dogs and knowingly endanger mine? How can she live with the thought that she could have caused my family or myself to contract this disease? What if?

I begged her to do the right thing, and what of poor Charlie? He is the one that suffered, this dog was in pain, his eyes were swollen in the sockets, his joints ached and he itched constantly from the disease irritating his skin, he scratched huge sores all over his body, he literally clawed himself bloody, he cried and thumped all night long (scratching) while we waited for her to do the right thing. 16 days of torment was all I could take! I don't even care about the money, what about the dog!??? Let's wake up people!!

Cat

Zizzer Country, Missouri

U.S.A.