Complaint Review: Cypress Creek Labradors - Florence Alabama

In April of 2010, I hired a Paul Dunstan to train my labradors for hunt and field trials, at one point, my male labrador was sent home as untrainable,(note, he was certified at 8 months old as a disaster search K-9, building search K-9 and recieved his AKC CGC, after I trained him myself) In the mean time, I allowed my 2 females to stay with him, as I am not a hunt and field trial trainer.
Paul stated that he had to keep my dogs at his house, as opposed to his kennel, in a subdivision in order to protect them, my retrievers are dilutes, and that if anyone found out he was training dilutes that the standard color breeders could ruin him. Overtime I realized, he did not own a kennel, it belonged to his friend. As well, Paul himself had just purchased a "Silver" Labrador.
 
At the time I first brought my pups to him, he had a litter of Black labradors, he had offered to sell one to me, as it would be "A great bloodline to add to my kennels" but wanted to retain the training rights on the dog, I declined. He went on to sell at least one of his pups to a "Silver" Breeder, as well offered several other "Dilute breeders" an opportunity to trade dogs with him.

Several weeks into training, I received a phone call from a jogger in his neighborhood,(we had left collars on the dogs with our name and phone number on them) Apparently our dogs, as well as Paul's were running loose through the neighborhood, as I live over an hour away, I made several phone calls to let Paul and Brandie know.
After this event, he switched all of the collars to reflect his phone number, and built a small fenced enclosure, where he kept his dogs and mine together. At first, I did not see a problem with this, as all except one dog were pups.

I would travel back and forth and tried to at least once a week to check on the "girls", and to help Paul train not only my dogs, but his for puppy trials.  In August,  My girls did place in the puppy series with Paul as their handler, I chose to take and run my "untrainable pup" and we placed fourth. In October 2010, I sustained a knee injury which prevented my trips to Pauls as often as I would have liked.  As, My husband worked out of state, I trusted that Paul was training and caring for my dogs appropriately.

In November, Paul and Brandie were putting together a benefit " A Day of Memories" My husband and I went out of our way to provide money to help pay for hunting/fishing gear for the kids as well as provided Baseball hats from a well known fisherman for all of the children. Unfortunately, there after my husband was laid off and he returned home, I had told Paul, I would pick up the girls and he said, unless I had to have them home just leave them there and we could pay him as we could. 

In January, my husband had decided to drop in on Paul unannounced, as Paul had said that he is up every morning by 6:30 AM to train the dogs, my husband did not feel it was an issue to stop early in the morning to drop off dog food.  Much to our dismay, Paul was still in bed, and my husband had some concerns as to the conditions the girls were being kept in, he asked me at that time if I knew they were in the same enclosure as 2 black male labradors(Voodoo & Zydeco) from the litter I mentioned earlier. I had not been there in several months, so I was not sure what the conditions were.

Two weeks later, I accompanied my husband on another unannounced trip, again, Paul was still in bed. I wanted to see the girls, I was upset with the conditions I witnessed, at the time there were 6 labradors (including mine) kept in this small enclosed area, Feces were piled up, and our one female was eating the feces right out of the behind of Paul's dog Bella, before it could hit the ground, the stench was unbelievable, we inquired as to the males being kept with the females (Paul stated that they had not lifted their legs yet so therefore they could not breed) We had asked about training with Paul to see where the girls were at, he promised he would setup something and call us with his schedule, which he never did. We asked to see the dogs training logs, which he said at that time he kept in his head. We decided that we would prepare a place at home for them and come back to get them, as I was also on crutches at the time from having both of my knee's operated on.
 
A week later, I returned to pick up the girls, Paul started to make insults about my husband and the way we paid him, which even though the payments were late because of job loss, this was agreed upon by Paul. I quickly corrected him, he then began to insult obedience trainers(which is what I do) and then went on to say that he does keep training logs, but he would not let me see them as he felt that it would allow me to compete against him.  He also stated that he did not understand why I had to ask so many questions when husband was present and that he felt he was being ganged up on.. and had told me he had to turn away duck hunters that wanted him to train their dogs after hunting season because of ours being there and blamed me for not being able to pay his bills(he was paid) I guess he is not capable of training more than 2 dogs at a time?hmm, I was happy to take the girls home.

When I arrived at home I noticed that one of the girls was licking at their behind, when i lifted her tail, I was shocked to see worms literally crawling out of her bottom!  when i had asked Paul about where the girls were at in their training, he told me "Wagon wheel and Casting' as i have no clue what that is, I mad an appointment with a well known trainer in Arkansas to evaluate the girls, they spent 2 weeks with this trainer, for me to find out that they had no more training on them than a six month old pup, that there was no consistency with them, and that they lacked even some of the most basic obedience, which truly shocked me as the girls had spent 10 months in Paul's care.

When I returned home, one of the girls did not look quite right, I took her to my vet at which time we did x-rays only to find that she had been bred while in Cypress Creek Labradors care, I immediately called Paul, with no answer, I then called Brandie, his wife.  She said she would have him call me later, which he did,  Brandies response was at least they were good bloodlines, and Paul said , well" nobody would have ever thought to breed them to her, it would have been either Voodoo or Zydeco (full siblings) but it was probably Voodoo because they had to remove Zydeco from the same enclosure as the two males did not get along" he then stated that he would make some phone calls and call me back that afternoon,. Note that our female Lab was not to be bred until Spring of 2012, as she just turned a year old this past January.

The phone call never came, I called him several times, then sent him an e-mail requesting DNA from the sires, so I could register the litter and move on from this horrid experience.  His response was not to call him anymore and all other correspondences should be directed to his Attorney.

The next e-mail that he sent me was to let me know his solution...which in mentioning the LRC and the AKC standards , he felt the only ethical thing to do was to have me bring the pups 48 hours after birth to his veterinarian and he would pay to have the litter euthanized.  I did contact his vet, as well as mine and both stated that they would not participate in the euthanization of healthy pups(which to me was not an option anyway) Again, we have tried to call him several times, and he will not return our phone calls.

Do not trust this man, I honestly don't know that he has ever titled a dog, he does not own a kennel but a fenced yard in a sub-division. After quoting the LRC, he has since changed his website to state he is a breeder of Chocolate, Black and Yellow labradors, which at one time it stated Charcoal and Silvers as well, he owns a Silver Labrador (unless he has since sold it). And after watching a training video of a well known trainer, it dawned on me that many of the things Paul had said to me were direct quotes of someone elses work. Please do your homework and save yourself the expense and heartache of having someone ruin your dogs.  I have since had to start training the girls myself, starting with basic obedience...and trying to sell pups without papers is not an easy task, I have spent over $7000.00 with Cypress Creek Labradors, I could have bought a titled dog for that, not to mention, the time and expenses involved in whelping a litter and having to start training all over again....