# Boo to Bad Breeders!! Buyer Beware!!



## amandah

I need to let all toy poodle lovers that there is a thief diguising herself as a breeder in Michigan. Dawn Tillery of Tillery's red toy poodles took a $200 deposit for a red female toy poodle who was to be born 2 months after I made my deposit. We both signed her contract stating that a refund would only be given if there was "no red female to choose from in the litter". Unfortunately only 1 male pup was born from the litter and she still hasn't refunded my deposit. She refuses to answer my e-mails and even changed her e-mail address! BUYER BEWARE!!! Dawn Tillery of Tillery's Red Toy Poodles does not hold to the conditions of her own contract!! She will take your money!


----------



## Olie

I feel for you and that really sucks:wacko: Are you going to continue your search? I suggest reading through these threads / past threads too. At this point all you can do now is keep calling etc in an attempt to get your money but at the same time what you have learned from dealing with this person you feel wronged you?

I went to the website, and she has a LOT going on with litters, wow. And just ooooddles of what I call red flags that I would not have went past page 1. I am sure if you are interested there are many experienced people here that can help answer any questions you may have. 

Good luck getting your money back and I hope you find a GOOD/GREAT breeder!


----------



## spoospirit

_Oh, dear....I am so sorry to hear news like that. I don't suppose you will ever see your money but you learned a hard lesson and I thank you for sharing it with the forum members. I do hope that things will go better for you next time.
_


----------



## Cdnjennga

I'm sorry you got burned by this breeder. Have you tried calling rather than emailing?

IMO any breeder who asks for a deposit before the litter is born is suspect. Every breeder I have spoken to who I would actually consider has said we can wait until they see if they might have a puppy for me and then we'll talk deposits. I would walk away from any breeder who asked for money up front.


----------



## Fluffyspoos

Ew.. she's calling her browns 'chocolates' xP


----------



## BFF

It's really unfortunate she won't refund your deposit. Maybe in time, she will come to realize it is the right thing to do.

However, if she doesn't, just be thankful that you didn't get one of her pups. I haven't looked at her website yet, but it sounds like you will be much better off with a more reputable breeder. It's a real shame that the toy breeders in particular tend to be breeding for money rather than the betterment of the breed.


----------



## Tess

Sorry to hear about your bad experience! Getting the word out about this gal's dishonesty will hopefully keep another unsuspecting person get burned!


----------



## april1694

Sorry for such a bad experience. Have you tried calling or going to see her? 
Hopefully she will give you a puppy from her next litter if nothing else. Good Luck.


----------



## Harley_chik

Do you have a copy of the contract that both of you signed? If so, take her to small claims court, if the contract says what you posted and you both signed it, then I don't see how you could lose. She will also be responsible for your court costs. If you have her physical address, send her a letter giving her 30 days to send your money or you will file. How did you pay? Credit card companies and Paypal should be willing to refund you, JMO. 

I don't know how most breeders do it, but the breeder I'm hoping to buy from doesn't ask for deposits until the pups are born and they know how many puppies of which color and sex they have. Even if most breeder ask for a check before the pups are born, they should either not cash it or put the money aside, until their end of the contract has been filled. In this case she shouldn't have touched your money until there was a female red puppy for you.

If nothing else you learned what not to look for in a breeder. Take some time to check out this forum and see what reputable breeders do.


----------



## Rockporters

I'm sorry that things didn't work out for you as hoped. I do hope you're able to get your deposit back. If not, just remember everything happens for a reason and you're probably better off to not have gotten one of her pups. Perhaps something even better is in your future !

I did glance at the website. Her pups are cute, but they do seem to be a bit mishapen/long. There are lots of Toy breeders, I'm sure your perfect dog is out there!


----------



## cbrand

I'm sorry that you are out your deposit. However, this is really not the type of breeder you want to buy from in the 1st place. From her web site, describing one of her brood bitches:

She loves to be held and rocked just like a real baby. Her favorite pastime is to sleep on the bed with her dad. She has her own pillow and blanket and sleeps just like a real baby. She is spoiled rotten and loved very much. She is our forever baby as we could not imagine life without her.

This makes me shudder. :wacko:


----------



## roxy25

cbrand said:


> I'm sorry that you are out your deposit. However, this is really not the type of breeder you want to buy from in the 1st place. From her web site, describing one of her brood bitches:
> 
> She loves to be held and rocked just like a real baby. Her favorite pastime is to sleep on the bed with her dad. She has her own pillow and blanket and sleeps just like a real baby. She is spoiled rotten and loved very much. She is our forever baby as we could not imagine life without her.
> 
> This makes me shudder. :wacko:


They Suffer from SDS !


----------



## amandah

Thanks everyone for your advise. Yes I have the signed contract and a receipt. She required a postal money order, Unfortunately she lives in Michigan and I live in North Carolina. At this point I definately don't want one of her pups because I can't trust her. So I continue to try to get my deposit refunded. I will definately try sending her a letter and see if that works. I've been e-mailing her, she changed her e-mail address (notice 2 addresses on her website). Then I e-mailed her new adress and she ignores my e-mails and then I e-mailed a copy of the contract and now she is trying to give me a pup from a different litter. At this point, I know she is not the breeder for me. Since I placed my deposit she has added numerous new dogs that she is now breeding. Its just so disappointing. Guess I'll just have to wait to see if she grows a conscience!!


----------



## amandah

WOW! I went back to Dawn Tillerys red toy poodles website and she has changed alot of her policies that are out of an effort not to refund my deposit.


----------



## Harley_chik

Send the letter certified so you can prove you sent it and she got it. Also save a copy for your records. It doesn't matter what her site says, what matters is the contract that she signed. It might be a good idea to start printing off anything you saved from her website.


----------



## amandah

Thank you everyone for your helpful advise! Next time I search for a new poodle I will definately ask my poodle forum friends for people who they have dealt with that have handled business situations with integrity and honesty!!


----------



## Marian

I would bet that you aren't the only one who was cheated, Amandah.


----------



## Winnow

I would look elsewhere. 
They say nothing about any health test just that all there dogs are adorable.
Well what poodle is not adorable ? 
They do not show.

I would look for another breeder.


----------



## thestars

Definately try and get your money back and document all the attempts you made to contact her for your small claims if you end up having to take it that route. 

As a breeder, I don't accept a deposit until the pups are born. I do have a reservation list. At birth that list is notified and the deposit is taken in order of reservation and for the specific type (sex, color). If the dog of their choice is not available they can be placed on a new reservation list at the top or I can refer to another reputable breeder that may have something available.


----------



## RILabradoodles

I do not understand why deposits, required by so many breeders are not refundable? We will gladly refund if the customers preference for male, female, and or color preferences are not met at time of selection. This is called fair, and all breeders should change their practices to refund deposits, especially in this economy. I am so sorry you came cross a greedy breeder.


----------



## neVar

many breeders do not refund deposits for specific reasons. 

IE if there is a suitable dog (at breeders choice) for you... but it's the wrong 'color' or you fell in love with another puppy.... you shouldn't get your deposit back. 

If a suitable dog is not born- your refund should be refunded. .. any other answer is IMO not appropriate


----------



## BigEdLB

*Despoits - Reservations*

I am a Standards breeder, not Toy, so I hope you won't mind if I inject a thought or two here...I have a few things to say about deposits and reservations... We will take a reservation (no money) from interested folks. We like to give past buyers who have done well with our pups first crack, give us an EMail or call, we will put you on the list... We are going through this process now as we are expecting a litter on or about June 2.

Once the pups are born (probably after we file with the AKC - age 2-3 weeks - get the mortality rate out of the way), and we know what we are dealing with, we will contact the reservers first to see if what we got in the whelp - matches with what they want, and THEN ask for a deposit, so they can pay the balance when they pick up the pup at the 8-9 week mark.

*Someone who always wants money before pups are born is suspect. 
*
Note - in last years litter (April 2009) 9 pups born - 9 went to homes. One of he boys died in an accident last month. The other 8 are all doing great. We follow up periodically... That's also a way to get cool pics of those little curlys as adults.... For example - There's the only girl in the litter, who lives with a toy poodle and likes to sleep in the toy's bed... It doesn't fit so well...LOL We feel it is important that the breeder stays in contact with the pup buyer too...


----------



## 4theLOVEofPOODLES

So sorry to hear=( There are a lot of crooks out there but there are also a lot of honest people and I'm sure you will find what you are looking for both in a dog and in a breeder who will be a great mentor as well. I agree with Harley Chick though...you should see what you can do if you both signed a contract. Good luck and thank you for sharing.


----------



## PuppyPeople

*Yes bad breeder. Michigan Red Toy Poodles Dawn Tillery*

Bought 2 pups from her. She lied about their weights during the weeks up to pick up. The house smelled worse than a septic tank. Nasty. You couldn't smell the house, but we have no excuse - we were just dumb, Thought all breeders houses must smell from having many dogs. One of the pups had ear mites.


----------



## Reb

Too bad. I hope the pups are OK now that they have someone to love them and take care of them. Enjoy your new babies.


----------



## Tiny Poodles

Gosh, sorry to hear this, but glad it was only $200, and not worse.
My Toy Poodle breeder won't even take a deposit until the puppies are 5-6 weeks old, and then only if somebody insists - she would really rather wait until later when she can be sure the puppy is healthy and better asses if it is a good match.


----------



## Mfmst

Thank your lucky stars that you are not getting one of her puppies. You want a Poodle that comes from health tested lines so your dog can live a long happy life with you. I would rather lose $200 than take the risk of getting a puppy health/behavior time bomb. There is a great puppy out there for you and I'm sure you'll find the breeder who has it!


----------



## rdgallo

I would like to share our recent experience with Dawn Tillery and Michigan Red Toy Poodles. In January of this year, my wife and I decided we wanted a red Toy Poodle. We found Michigan Red Toy Poodles with an on-line search. I then went to this forum to see what kind of reviews were there for Michigan Red Toy Poodles and found these negative posts. After reading the negative posts on here, we were hesitant to consider Michigan Red Toy Poodles for our purchase. We decided to contact Dawn and talk with her. She was aware of the negative posts on here. She suggested we visit her to see for ourselves what kind of business she operated. She had just had a litter of 4 females and we decided after talking with Dawn, to take a chance despite the negative reviews here and put the $200 down and signed the contract. We found the contract to be very straight forward. When the puppies were 3 weeks old, we drove to Michigan to have a look and pick out which one we wanted. Dawn and her husband, Bob, were very nice. We didn't see nor smell anything to substantiate the negative reports on here. Throughout our wait to pick up our puppy, Dawn provided pictures of our puppy. When our puppy was 8 weeks old we picked up a healthy little female red Toy Poodle. The transaction was flawless. Our little darling is now almost 5 months old and is a beautiful dog. We would not hesitate to purchase another puppy from Dawn and Michigan Red Toy Poodles. I just thought I owed to everyone on here to share our experience with Michigan Red Toy Poodles. We are thankful that we didn't base our decision on the negative reviews here.


----------



## Dechi

rdgallo said:


> I would like to share our recent experience with Dawn Tillery and Michigan Red Toy Poodles. In January of this year, my wife and I decided we wanted a red Toy Poodle. We found Michigan Red Toy Poodles with an on-line search. I then went to this forum to see what kind of reviews were there for Michigan Red Toy Poodles and found these negative posts. After reading the negative posts on here, we were hesitant to consider Michigan Red Toy Poodles for our purchase. We decided to contact Dawn and talk with her. She was aware of the negative posts on here. She suggested we visit her to see for ourselves what kind of business she operated. She had just had a litter of 4 females and we decided after talking with Dawn, to take a chance despite the negative reviews here and put the $200 down and signed the contract. We found the contract to be very straight forward. When the puppies were 3 weeks old, we drove to Michigan to have a look and pick out which one we wanted. Dawn and her husband, Bob, were very nice. We didn't see nor smell anything to substantiate the negative reports on here. Throughout our wait to pick up our puppy, Dawn provided pictures of our puppy. When our puppy was 8 weeks old we picked up a healthy little female red Toy Poodle. The transaction was flawless. Our little darling is now almost 5 months old and is a beautiful dog. We would not hesitate to purchase another puppy from Dawn and Michigan Red Toy Poodles. I just thought I owed to everyone on here to share our experience with Michigan Red Toy Poodles. We are thankful that we didn't base our decision on the negative reviews here.


This breeder does nothing to better the breed. On the contrary, she breeds poodles to maltese. Her dogs are far from looking like well bred poodles. She is a backyard breeder with no particular merit.

I don't see why anyone would choose someone like that to get a dog from, unless they are a very novice dog owner or with no knowledge of what a reputable breeder is.

I think it's sad that she is breeding dogs.


----------



## zooeysmom

Me too, Dechi. I think it's just gross to support a breeder like this.


----------



## rdgallo

Dechi said:


> This breeder does nothing to better the breed. On the contrary, she breeds poodles to maltese. Her dogs are far from looking like well bred poodles. She is a backyard breeder with no particular merit.
> 
> I don't see why anyone would choose someone like that to get a dog from, unless they are a very novice dog owner or with no knowledge of what a reputable breeder is.
> 
> I think it's sad that she is breeding dogs.


Thanks so much for your insults. As I said before, we purchased a very nice red Toy Poodle from Dawn and are very happy. As far as a novice dog owner, you could be no further from the truth. We used to raise Toy Poodles.


----------



## Dechi

@rdgallo I am sorry if I offended you, I didn't mean to. 

I only meant to discourage people from buying from this poor breeder or should I say greeder.


----------



## rdgallo

Why do you refer to her as a bad breeder (or "greeder)? Have you seen her dogs and her operation? Not trying to insult you, but our dog is every bit as good looking as the one you have in your posts. I sure hope you find gratitude in trying to destroy someone's business for whatever your reasons are. I will now quit debating with you as I have better things to do with my life. Have a nice day and life. By the way, your dog is a very nice looking Poodle.


----------



## lily cd re

rdgallo I am glad you have a pup that you are very happy with. I am sure you have a good eye on what to look for since you used to breed tpoos. That being said I do have a question for you, which is why you would indirectly support the breeding of maltipoos by choosing this breeder? In my experience of looking I don't think I have seen the best of poodles, labs, goldens, CKCS or Maltese going into making these hybrids and it often seems that many of the breeders of such dogs are producing pups at a high rate (lots of litters) and selling through the pet store market. For me those are concerns. Can you explain further why you feel as you do please?


----------



## rdgallo

lily cd re said:


> rdgallo I am glad you have a pup that you are very happy with. I am sure you have a good eye on what to look for since you used to breed tpoos. That being said I do have a question for you, which is why you would indirectly support the breeding of maltipoos by choosing this breeder? In my experience of looking I don't think I have seen the best of poodles, labs, goldens, CKCS or Maltese going into making these hybrids and it often seems that many of the breeders of such dogs are producing pups at a high rate (lots of litters) and selling through the pet store market. For me those are concerns. Can you explain further why you feel as you do please?


First of all, I have no intention of supporting or not supporting any particular breeds or breeders' choices. I only stated truths about our experience with Dawn and Michigan Red Toy Poodles related to our recent purchase of a female red Toy Poodle. I really don't care if Dawn breeds Poodles to Maltese or to Elephants. I personally don't agree with Poodles being bred to Labs, Retrievers or anything else. My post was only about the experience my wife and I had with our purchase of our little red Poodle. We are not showing the dog or breeding her. She is just a very nice looking red Toy Poodle that we are very happy with. I didn't know this forum was populated with a bunch of professional hypocrits. Thanks to all of you for your negativity.


----------



## lily cd re

I was not trying to be negative, just to ask you a question that I was interested in understanding your thinking on. I guess you have no thinking in that regard though. I personally would not choose to indirectly support the breeding of hybrids by using a breeder that produced them, but I guess I am just one of those hypocritical snobs you seem to find so objectionable. 'Nuff said.


----------



## rdgallo

lily cd re said:


> I was not trying to be negative, just to ask you a question that I was interested in understanding your thinking on. I guess you have no thinking in that regard though. I personally would not choose to indirectly support the breeding of hybrids by using a breeder that produced them, but I guess I am just one of those hypocritical snobs you seem to find so objectionable. 'Nuff said.


I thought I clearly stated my thinking. I do not believe in breeding Poodles with any other breed. If you want the characteristics of a Poodle, then purchase a Poodle. Again, I only tried to share OUR experience with OUR purchase from Michigan Red Toy Poodles. I never once said anything about supporting or not supporting anything. You folks are the ones that jumped all over my post. I thought a forum was a place to share your experiences with others rather to defend what one posts on the forum. I was not looking for any support or non support from anyone. Anyway, I hope you all have a nice day


----------



## rdgallo

Here are a couple of pics of our poodle


----------



## zooeysmom

How in the world are we being hypocrites?


----------



## rj16

My way of thinking about buying a puppy (or basically anything for that matter) is that you are supporting that business or person in their totality. If I buy a pencil from company X that also produces pens, I'm supporting their pen _and_ pencil productions. 

For 101 reasons, I would buy not a mix breed of any kind and I don't think, with few exceptions, anyone should be intentionally producing such puppies. Therefore, I would not buy a poodle from someone who breeds poodles and poodle crosses, because I would be supporting their breeding of poodle crosses. I don't need to see their puppies, visit their operation, smell their house, count how many litters they produce every year, or question the conformation of their dogs. One strike, you're out. 

This forum is a very good resource for anyone thinking of buying a puppy. So for the benefit of anyone who may stumble upon this in their research, it is very important that we discuss breeders and breeding programs, raise up those who are doing everything right and call out those who are not benefitting the breed. If that makes us negative or hypocritical (not sure how it would...) then so be it. If it prevents the breeding of one cross litter for lack of buyers, it's all worth it.


----------



## Eclipse

rdgallo said:


> Why do you refer to her as a bad breeder (or "greeder)? Have you seen her dogs and her operation? Not trying to insult you, but our dog is every bit as good looking as the one you have in your posts. I sure hope you find gratitude in trying to destroy someone's business for whatever your reasons are. I will now quit debating with you as I have better things to do with my life. Have a nice day and life. By the way, your dog is a very nice looking Poodle.



I will preface my below comments by saying if you like the way your puppy looks against the breed standard and are happy with her conformation and temperament then that is great for you, best of luck with her! However, most of us here don't support what we consider to be less than par breeders. 

I have not seen your breeder's dogs or her operation but I agree with others who have said that they would not support someone who is intentionally breeding mixes by buying a poodle from her. If she was a serious poodle breeder, then poodles only are what she would concentrate on - striving to always breed better poodles and improve her lines. And most serious breeders only concentrate on a couple colors. Per her website she is breeding toys in red, black, chocolate, cream, parti and phantom. Add into the mix her malitpoo breedings and occasional mini breedings. To me, that is not a quality breeder. But, that aside, the number one thing that would make me class her as a "greeder" as opposed to a breeder is the amount of dogs she appears to be breeding. When I checked her website a couple days ago she had 2 litters scheduled for June and 4 for July - looks like she has revised some of the pages now to reflect what might have been born. That's 6 known litters in 2017. I guess she could have planned all her breedings for the year so that all her 2017 litters were born in June and July but somehow I don't think that is the case. I would bet there have been litters born all through 2017 so that she has produced many more than 6 for the year. In my mind, that makes her a "greeder" breeding many litters for $$$ and quantity over quality. If that is not the case, I would be happy to be corrected. 

You said you used to raise toys. When you did, how did you structure your breeding program? Did you do all the recommended health testing on your breeding dogs per the Poodle Club of America? Did you title/prove your breeding dogs in either the breed ring or the numerous performance venues?


----------

