GERMAN ROTTWEILER BREEDERS

ABOUT PETER HANNEN OF VOM NEUENSCHLOSS ROTTWEILERS

Many people who like my dogs ask about their breeder, Peter Hannen of vom Neuenschloss Rottweilers, but I do not recommend him. I found out about good/bad breeders the hard way with him, and breeders are not always what they seem. Unfortunately, you often don't find out if your breeder is going to be good or bad until you have problems with your dog. That's where the rubber hits the road, so to speak.

In my case, the breeder lied about health certifications on his dogs, and when my dogs failed OFA and were found to be dysplastic, he chose to not honor his contract or refund the difference in price between a show and pet quality dog.

Peter also lied about my dog's pedigree. One of my dogs, Luna, is not from the sire that he said she was, or the sire that he put on her AKC registration papers. As a result of AKC's DNA program, we know this 100% for sure.

I have two dysplastic dogs, one of which was supposed to be sired by a German National Champion with advanced working titles, that is actually sired by a dog he didn't even own, with no health clearances that I can find, and most certainly not comparably titled with any track record as a sire.

We got Max as a 12 week old puppy from Peter Hannen. Our rottweiler, Reno, had died of cancer a month earlier, and we missed him horribly. We began searching for a breeder, and I admit, I was desperate to find a puppy. It was excruciating for me coming home every day after work to an empty house that seemed so dead and cold without the life he breathed into it, and I dreaded the weekends.

Having gained some knowledge of the breed during our years with our other two rottweilers, Reno and Vegas, I knew what a backyard breeder was, and knew it would not be a good idea to search in the newspapers. So our search for a reputable breeder began.

We went to some shows to try and make some contacts. Several of the breeders would not consider us without show experience or the desire to show. We did find a few that considered a good home priority over a show home, but didn't have any litters planned. Frustrated, we turned to the Internet. We called all over the US talking to rottweiler breeders. Some were terribly rude, some were selling puppies like cattle to whomever would pay the price. Some sounded like ethical breeders, but had no puppies available.

It was through one of those breeders that we were referred to Peter Hannen. He had a 10 week old male puppy left from a recent litter that was a small male. He told us that even though he should mature to be within breed standard, he was having a hard time selling him because he was small. We were OK with that because at the time, we were not really sure if we were interested or not in showing dogs, although it was not totally out of the question. Peter sent us a hand written contract, guaranteeing Max as a show quality male, and with a health guarantee for hip dysplasia. We jumped at the opportunity, and two weeks later, we had our precious rottweiler puppy, albeit, without the promised registration papers.

We called Peter immediately because he had told us that he would be shipping Max's AKC papers along with the crate. Peter told us that there was a delay with registering the litter with AKC because Max's sire and dam were imported from Germany. It certainly sounded plausible, so we waited another two weeks and called again when no papers arrived. Much to our distress, Peter's phone number had been disconnected. We called the three numbers that we had for him, and all three had been disconnected. A few days later, the signed contract that we had mailed to him came back as undeliverable.

We were concerned because during our search for Max, a slight interest in showing our dog had kind of sparked, so we contacted AKC. They told us that Peter had submitted the paperwork on the litter to AKC late, and that there was no delay on AKC's part in registering the litter due to the sire and dam being German imports. They had been previously AKC registered. AKC told us that they had sent the registration slips out to Peter a few weeks prior, but it was to the same address that we had.

I turned to the Internet to try and find Peter, and found quite a bit of distressing information. Court documents on the King County Washington website about bankruptcy, siezed property, and several different addresses and phone numbers that had all been disconnected. I was beginning to get worried that we had not done such a great job of picking a breeder.

We got back into contact with the breeder that originally referred us to Peter She told us not to worry, that Peter would eventually contact her because they co-owned some dogs together. She was right, and sure enough, she called us back two weeks later with a working number for him. She also said she had talked to him about Max's registration slip, and that he promised to send it out.

When we called him, he apologized that he had not sent out the papers, and promised to send them out immediately. A few more weeks passed, and still we had no papers. I continued to call him about it pretty much every day, which is why I am sure that I eventually got them - two months later. From what I have heard, some of Peter's other puppy buyers were not so lucky as us about getting their papers.

Max was turning out to be quite a dog, and as responsible owners, we did everything within our power to help him grow up to be a great dog. We fed him a top quality dog food and kept him lean, we were cautious about him getting too much exercise, we didn't let him run or play on slick floors, and we didn't let him jump on or off furniture, but at around six months of age, we started hearing a clicking noise in his hips. He was not showing any signs of discomfort, but we took him to the vet anyways. The vet said the clicking was a sign of hip dysplasia, recommended we wait until he was a year old to x-ray his hips, and to start him on glucosamine supplements, which we did.

The clicking continued, and when he turned a year old, we had the vet x-ray his hips. Our fears were confirmed. Max was dysplastic. We had the option of surgery, or to manage it through supplements, exercise and weight control. Since he was showing no sign of any pain and spending $10,000 for two hip surgeries was just not possible at the time, we opted for management. When I told Peter about Max, he sounded genuinely concerned, and told us he would give us a replacement dog from another litter if we wanted; however, he did not have any litters at the time.

During the course of the year since we had bought Max, I had been keeping in close contact with Peter, and had struck up a friendship with him. I wanted a mentor in the breed, and Peter was very knowledgeable about German lines. I talked to him regularly on the phone about rottweilers in general, German pedigrees, and about Max. I build websites, and shortly after we got Max's papers from Peter, he asked me if I would build a website for him. He said he had paid a guy for a website some months back, but that he had never launched the site. He told me that he had been having some hard times financially (which I knew to be true) and couldn't pay me for the site right then, so we worked out a deal that as payment for the site, he would give us a show/foundation quality female. A dog that would hopefully become my foundation bitch.

The site I built for Peter was a nice one. He got comments on it all the time from other breeders, and I saw the complimentary comments posted in his guest book. I'm pretty good at seach engine optimization, and I worked diligently at getting his site to the top of the search results. He was consistently in the top five for all his targeted search words and phrases, and Peter began selling a lot of dogs from his website. It became one of the top rottweiler sites on the web. As his webmaster, I also started getting a lot of emails and complaints in his guestbook about the dogs he was selling. Show people who had bought show quality rottweilers from him, but never got their registration papers, people who were upset because their dogs were dysplastic, or had temperament problems that had become unbearable. I would talk to Peter about it each time I got one of these complaints, and he ALWAYS had an excuse, and it was ALWAYS the other persons fault.

Peter regularly sent me information on litters to put up on his site for sale. It seemed to me that he was breeding a lot of dogs. Each time I put them up, I would ask him about the replacement puppy for Max, and about the bitch he was going to send me in exchange for the website. Everytime I brought it up, he would say that I did not want a dog from this litter or that litter, that it was the wrong litter for my goals.

After a year and a half of hearing excuses from him, I asked him to either make good on our agreement, or pay me for the website, plus the difference in price between show quality and pet quality for Max. It was a fair demand as far as I was concerned, and I sent him a bill. He told me he didn't have any money to pay me (surprise, surprise), but he promised to send me a puppy from one of two litters that he had planned, that both were very nice breedings.

I was pretty excited from what he told me about these litters, and I trusted his judgement and what he told me about the dogs and their pedigrees. So when he wanted me to list them for sale on his website, I brought it up again, and this time he agreed to send us a dog and we got Luna.

While Luna grew up, I continued to work on his website, putting up litter after litter after litter, but I was not in any rush to get a third dog. Two young rottweilers requires a great deal of time, and I was actively training both dogs for obedience and showing Luna in breed. The complaints continued to come in from his website, and I always questioned him about each one. It was always the same story. People had unrealistic expectations and it was always their fault, never his.

My knowledge of the breed was growing, and more and more, some of the conversations I had with Peter began to concern me. He had a falling out with one of the breeders that he co-owned some dogs with. I managed her website as well, and although I do not know the details of what happened, she asked me to remove all references to him and his kennel vom Neuenschloss from her website. There were also times that the search engine algorithms would change and his site would drop in rank, and he would not get as many inquiries as he was accustomed to getting from the site. He would be distressed about this because Peter did not work, and he told me he relied upon what he sold through his website to help support his family. A Canadian breeder who had bought a dog from a very nice breeding that Peter had either bred or arranged was furious because Peter would not send him the registration papers. Peter blamed it on a another breeder in Canada, and the guy was posting daily in his guestbook that he was a crook, and sending me e-mail after e-mail. Every night I had to remove his entries from the guestbook database. Then I started getting e-mails about Peter having dogs in Brazil, but he was always very tight lipped when I asked about what he was doing in Brazil.

When discussions started about revising the AKC breed standard to address tails, I encouraged Peter to join the ARC. As someone who was importing tailed dogs from Germany, I thought he would want a voice in the process. His response shocked me. He said that he couldn't join ARC because he bred litters back to back to back, and because he refused to do OFA health certifications on the dogs he imported if they already had German clearances. Since this is an ARC Code of Ethics requirement, I was frankly a bit shocked, particularly because he had told me that he did clear his dogs through OFA. Peter had also made several comments to me about wanting to breed exclusively for the pet market, rather than the show/working market, because these people were just too picky about their dogs. Comments like these gave me cause for concern about what Peter was doing with his breeding practices.

Peter told me about a bitch that was sent to him for breeding that had apparently got out of his yard and was seriously injured in an accident. It ended the dog's show career, and the owner was suing him. Again, Peter expressed that he felt no responsibility, and told me that it was the owners fault for not telling him that the dog was a runner. A pattern was clearly emerging, and more and more, I was ashamed that my dogs carried his kennel's name. My husband always says, if one man calls you an ass, pay him no mind, but if five do, it's time to invest in a saddle. More and more it seemed to me that Peter needed a saddle.

When Luna turned two, we got her health clearances done. While we were in no hurry to breed her, she was structurally correct, she has a wonderful temperament, and her pedigree was very good (or so we thought). She had done really well in the AKC show ring in youth classes, winning every class she was entered in but one, and in that class she took second. She had received some very nice comments from judges, including a respected breeder judge, and I was pretty excited about her future. I had discussed some potential stud dogs with Peter, but first we wanted to put her back in the breed ring to finish her AKC championship. She was a late bloomer, and needed to mature a bit more physically to compete in open, and we also wanted to get an obedience title or two on her. She passed her heart clearance, her CERF eye exam, and she passed her elbows. Then I got her hip results, Unlateral Mild Hip Dysplasia Left. I was crushed.

I contacted Peter, whom I thought was my friend, only to hear, "Gee that's too bad. What do you expect me to do about it?" Instead of a sympathetic ear, I got the cold shoulder.

After he found out that she failed OFA, he wouldn't answer my phone calls or return my emails. I really did not expect him to do anything at the time, but his lack of response angered both me and my husband. When I was waiting for the results from OFA, I was checking their online database daily, and I noticed that her dam was not in the database. I also talked to another breeder who had used her sire (or whom was supposed to be her sire), Lauser vom Schwaiger Wappen, in several breedings in her kennel. She told me that Lauser was ED++, not clear as Peter had told me, and that she used him very cautiously in her breeding program because of this.

I did get hold of Peter. I called him from a cell phone where he did not recognize the number. We had a long talk (or should I say argument) about the lies he had told us. Again, he took the position that it was not his fault. He offered to send us another replacement dog, which we declined. Why would I want another dysplastic dog from him? Instead I told him that I wanted him to pay me for his website, and that I would accept only a small portion of what the bill actually was, and that we would call it even. That small portion was a measly $1,000 - the difference between a show and pet quality dog from his original contract. More than fair in my opinion for 3½ years of work on his site, and two dysplastic dogs. He refused. He said he had no money to send and hung up on me.

Luna's dam, although born, bred and living in the United States, had never been cleared by the OFA, or any other organization as far as I could tell. Peter told me during that last phone call that she had been cleared in Brazil (??), which is strange since she has never been to Brazil by Peter's own admission. I asked him for proof that she was cleared somewhere on the planet, and of course, he never produced anything. He still continues to use her in his breeding program, and only recently has an OFA record (see update below). When Peter offered Luna to us, he told me that her dam was OFA certified good, and that her sire was certified in Germany as free of hip and elbow dysplasia. Both of these statements are, of course, false. Her sire is HD+/- on hips, and ED++ on elbows.

When I asked Peter about this information I had found out about her sire and dam, his answer to me was that it "must have slipped his mind". How can something as important as health clearances slip your mind when you are a breeder?

I sent Peter a bill again, and tried reach him by phone. No response. Since he had not paid me one dime for his website, I took it down. It took him about a week to notice, and he called me when he did. He thought it was a problem with the site that I would fix for him, free of charge of course. I informed him that I had removed the site, but if he wanted to pay the bill for it, I would be happy to send him the files and copyrights. He hung up on me again, and had one of his friends (Erika Butler) copy the site (verbatim) I had built from the search engine archives. I had to threaten him with a copyright infringement lawsuit for him to change it. It still does not meet the requirement of substantially different as required by law, but at least it is not the same as what I created. I retained and registered the copyrights to the site, so the graphics, design, code and most of the text is mine. All he owns are the pictures of his dogs. What I really regret is that he still reaps the benefit of all the work I did to get him ranked high in the search engines. Unfortunately, I can't undo that much as I'd like to, and he will still continue to suck in unsuspecting buyers as a result.

That is why I am sharing my story of my experiences with Peter Hannen of vom Neuenschloss Rottweilers on the Internet. If it saves one person from the heartache that I have about my dogs, then I have done the right thing to try and rectify the damage. There are other similar stories out there, just Google his name and kennel. Here's one: Tank's Story.

Could all of this have been avoided if the breeder had done the proper health clearances on his dogs? Even with the best breeding practices, genetic disease still happens. It is; however, far less likely to happen when dogs used in a breeding program have been properly screened for genetic disease. Had Peter told the truth about Luna's sire and dam, I probably would not have accepted a puppy from that litter. What concerns me the most about Peter is the number of dysplastic dogs that I directly saw complaints on. Search for his kennel name in the OFA database and you will find very few of his dogs in it, even though he breeds and sells a lot of dogs. Why is this?

Why is it that his sales contract allowed for his puppy buyers to breed once a purchased dog reaches two years of age and clears OFA, yet he does not OFA his own dogs? What about titles? Shouldn't an ethical breeder require that the dogs he produces be titled before they are bred? Shouldn't at least a CD or BST be required? How about a breed championship or V ratings? Why did his contract for hip dysplasia only offer a guarantee up to 24 months of age, when he knows that you can't x-ray a dog for OFA prior to 24 months of age, even if it's by by one day? Why are the links on his new website to puppy websites where puppy millers and backyard breeders advertise their dogs for sale?

Why is it that you see so few of his dogs in the show ring? In dog sport? Just who is Peter Hannen breeding for and selling to? You be the judge.

UPDATE #1: I received an e-mail from Erika Butler asking me to remove her name from my website and threatening me if I didn't. I'm sorry Erika, but I won't remove your name, because you are still in violation of copyright law by using text written by me on not only Peter's website, but on your own. Peter's site to this day does not meet the acid test of being substantially different, but that you actually have used this same copyrighted material on your own site speaks for itself. Erika also informed me that Queeny vom Neuenschloss, Luna's dam, now has an OFA record for hips. I'm glad that she does, but excuse me if I am not a bit impressed by this. I always thought that hips were to be cleared BEFORE a dog was bred, not after multiple litters are on the ground. Further, I noticed that Queeny's OFA record has no permanent identification on the dog that was x-rayed. That means no tattoo or microchip was present. Just another one of those things that make me go HMMMM...

UPDATE #2: I received a letter from AKC in June 2007 on our dog, Luna. As if this story couldn't possibly get any worse, now her AKC registration and titles are in limbo because one of her littermates did not pass an AKC DNA test as a result of the Frequently Used Sires program. As a result of DNA testing, Lauser vom Schwaiger Wappen was determined with 100% accuracy NOT to be the sire of this littermate. The entire litter must be tested in order to determine parentage.

In August 2007, I was told by AKC that DNA on her dam was "Inconclusive", and that an additional sample was required in order to attempt to determine if she was the dam, and hopefully determine the correct sire.

In November 2007, AKC told me that they found a DNA match for the sire. However, it's not Lauser vom Schwaiger Wappen, but an unknown dog with no OFA record by the name of Muck De-Vi-En?!?!? So instead of her sire being a German National Champion with advanced working titles as represented to both me and the AKC on her registration papers by Peter, I apparently instead have a dog with an unknown health history, no titles, with no track record of producing anything except lining for Peter's pockets.

Peter's response to all of this? He says it's not his fault! Gee, isn't THAT a big surprise! And guess what he is going to do about it? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! He says it is the fault of the person who witnessed the breeding, or the person who whelped the litter. Peter is now trying to say that he did not even have the sire or dam in his possession at the time that the breeding or whelping. However, Peter owned both Lauser and Queeny, and he attested to the breeding on the litter registration papers he submitted to AKC, so by AKC's requirements, he is RESPONSIBLE. I wonder what a court of law would think about all of this? Fraud? Trademark infringement?

It's kind of hard to have an accidental breeding when the actual sire has never been owned by Peter, or been on the premises where the breeding took place. The co-breeder of this litter also has no history with this dog. Is it coincidental that the owner of the littermate that failed the first DNA test now owns this sire? Something about this whole story stinks.