Tropico Kennels Southern Cal Kennels - golden retriever with hip dysplasia and allergies - Palmdale, California

After coming across these other ripoff reports for Tropico Kennels, I feel obligated to tell our story. We purchased a white Golden Retriever from Lisa at Tropico in November 2003. We named her Kiki, and she is beautiful, sweet, calm - everything you'd expect from a Golden.

However, when Kiki was 6 months old, she started walking funny and had trouble getting up. Our local vet, as well as a specialist at the UCDavis School of Veterinary Medicine, diagnosed her as having hip dysplasia in both hips AND elbow dysplasia in her front legs. Because she was already clinical, we opted not to have the TPO surgery at that time and went with a more conservative management of her conditions, using NSAIDS and other supplements. At this time, she is 6 years old and, athough she manages to get around okay, she does have trouble getting up and limps on her front right leg most of the time. We may look into surgery later if it continues to worsen.

After the diagnosis, we were obviously devastated. We contacted Lisa at Tropico who offered to replace our 6 month old puppy with a new one, only if we send Kiki down to Southern CA so Lisa's vet could diagnose her. By this time, we were completely attached to Kiki, and there was NO WAY I was going to send her back to Lisa and get a different puppy. The idea seemed absurd to me. At any rate, we didn't get a refund and there was no further contact with Lisa.

In addition to her hip and elbow dysplasia, Kiki has terrible allergies. She started gnawing on her feet/forearms and getting constant ear infections a few years ago. So we took her to a allergy/dermatology specialist. Turns out she is allergic to several species of grass, weeds, trees, you name it. This condition has turned out to be more problematic for her and us than the dysplasia! In addition to her dyplasia medications, she is now doing allergy shots and needs constant maintenance on her ears, feet, and legs to prevent an infection (brought on by her allergies). And she still gnaws on her feet most of the day.

Kiki is part of our family and we love her, but it makes me so angry that she has to live like this. Not mention the thousands of dollars we've spent on her health care thus far. We are absolutely done with breeders and will only be getting mixed breeds from the shelter from now on.

I just wanted to share our story in case someone was considering getting a puppy from Tropico Kennels. I would strongly advise against it.