Welcome to Renaissance Havanese
Located in Southwest Connecticut

When someone buys a puppy from a pet store, they are paying a puppy miller and encouraging the abuse and neglect of poorly bred dogs.

When someone buys a puppy from a back yard breeder they are gambling with the future health of the puppy they brought into the family and encouraging the continued indiscriminate breeding of these dogs! Inexperienced breeding ruins a breed and ultimately creates undesirable diseases and conditions, traits and behaviors.

Over the years I have rescued and assisted frustrated families who ended up with this type of Havanese dog and each one was either from a puppy store or a back yard breeder. It is most always a case of the inexperienced breeder who did not care to take into consideration the personality of the puppy when placing it with a particular family and just plain bad breeding. Sadly, some were very difficult to rehabilitate even with the expertise of a dog trainer.

The cute puppy becomes aggressive, unbalance and maybe neurotic. Most times an otherwise normal looking puppy developes severe physical faults such as CD, luxating patellars, skin allergies, extreme over/under bites and they do not have the delightful personality that the family expected. 

If a breeder has 20 puppies listed for sale, no health testing for the sires & dams, it should not be difficult to ascertain that they breed for profit and NOT for the improvement of the breed. In this, there is only one who benefits. 

The Havanese can be a passion or a it can be a profit for some who benefit from people whom are willing to overlook the red flags, of no health testing or limited health testing. A back yard breeder often only has a CERF test done on their breeding dogs, coincidentally, this is the cheapest of all health testing for the breed, the average cost is only $25.

Often they give excuses, their dogs are seen annually by the Veterinarian, their dogs are healthy, they don't give you AKC papers because your buying a pet, they breed to type but all their dogs are shaved down to the skin... 

In the end, many will be affected by the very bad decision to overlook the lack of responsibilities of the breeder you choose. It is often those who make an unwise choice that will surrender their dog to a rescue or shelter.

There is power in educating yourself so that you can make an informed decision before entering into the commitment of owning any breed of dog! Your standards should be high. 

Only when more people choose to say no, will the neglectful and abusive operations be shut down.

© All text and photography contained within this website is the exclusive property of Renaissance Havanese and is not to be removed, re-posted or copied without written permission from the author, Veronica Guillet.