We put down a deposit for a chocolate lab puppy in May 2020. We made the choice of going with Circle B as a friend of ours has a great lab from them and Cassandra has a lot of really great, 5 star reviews. I'd like to provide feedback on our experience in hopes of helping all future puppy owners know what their experience could be like with Circle B.
First, I highly recommend reading their puppy contract in its entirety before putting a deposit down. In my excitement I did not, and one surprise to me was the health clauses being tied to their recommended dog food. Second, Circle B gives the puppies to their new owners around 6-7 weeks vs. the recommended 8 weeks. Read on for more specifics about our experience.
There was minimal communication during the entire process (May-now). The only photos that were sent to us was the day the puppies were born. No videos. The only "official" email we received from Circle B was four weeks before pick-up date promising more puppy photos (which never came) and then details about how to order their recommended (but also enforced) dog food, Life's Abundance.
Life's Abundance ingredients looked pretty good however it is expensive so you should look into it before you commit to potentially feeding it to your dog for their lifetime. After researching Life's Abundance, we found that it is a multi level marketing company. This makes sense that the health guarantees in the contract would be structured this way as they likely get a commission with every dog food bag they sell. We did some research and did find that other PNW breeders fed the same food and had similar conditions in their contract but this didn't sit well with us.
We went to their farm to pick out which dog we wanted from the litter. The place met most of our standards/expectations. During our visit, Jonathan made a couple comments suggesting we take the puppy that day (at 6 weeks and 1 day old) and as we had told him a couple times before, we weren't comfortable taking the puppy before 8 weeks (so they can be properly socialized with mom and littermates). All but two of the litter had already been picked up by 6 weeks and 1 day old. He said that whichever dog we picked would be in a crate on their own for the next 1.5 weeks which obviously made us feel awful.
We couldn't decide between the two available dogs so I asked Jonathan's opinion on the two dogs from a breeder's perspective and he said "I don't know, the kids spend a lot of time with them". When I asked Cassandra via FB messenger the next day if she had an opinion on the two dogs and their differences she told me that she doesn't run the business anymore, her husband Jonathan does. I was shocked to hear this as the whole reason why I went with Circle B was because of the great reviews about Cassandra. When I asked for the health certification for both parents, Jonathan said he didn't know if the puppy mom was certified (and this was her first litter). I never received it for the dad.
We did research about the potential effects of picking up a dog earlier than the recommended minimum of 8 weeks and found that this can impact if/how they learn about bite inhibition from their puppy siblings and can also lead to general behavior issues. I found it extremely interesting that it is illegal in 22 states to give away a puppy before the recommended 8 weeks. Unfortunately, Washington isn't one of them. For these reasons, we weren't comfortable picking up our puppy before 8 weeks.
While Circle B seems like they produce nice and beautiful puppies, we decided that we would forfeit our puppy deposit and go with another breeder. We found that Circle B was run like a business vs a small breeder who is intimately involved with each puppy and their future home.
We ended up getting a chocolate lab puppy from a small breeder, who only breeds 1-2 total litters a year (mainly motivated by raising her own show dogs) and our experience with them was very positive and more in-line with what we were expecting from a breeder. read more