M & C Bassets

What we guarantee, and what we honestly can’t.

We want you to know what this guarantee covers, and what it doesn’t, before your puppy ever comes home rather than after something goes wrong. So here it is, written the way we’d explain it to you in person.

No one can honestly promise a puppy that will never have a health problem. Any living animal can run into something down the road. What we can do is stand behind the problems a puppy is born with, and be straight with you about where our part ends and everyday care takes over. If you ever want to see a dog’s health and care records, ask. We keep them, and we’re glad to share.

Your first step: a vet visit in the first 72 hours

Take your puppy to a licensed vet within 72 hours of bringing it home, at your expense. This first visit is what starts your guarantee. It confirms the puppy left us healthy and gives you your own vet’s read from day one. Skip it, and there’s no baseline for either of us to point back to.

What the guarantee covers

We cover the serious health problems a puppy is born with. The kind that trace back to how it was bred, not the kind that come up later from an injury or everyday life.

  • Hips and elbows. If a problem turns out to be hereditary and structural, it’s covered for two years. We set it at two on purpose, since that’s about the age these can finally be x-rayed and graded for certain.
  • Other hereditary conditions. Anything a veterinarian confirms a puppy was born with, including problems the breed is known for like thrombopathia, primary open-angle glaucoma, MPS1, and Lafora disease, covered for one year.

What it doesn’t cover

A few things look like they should be covered but aren’t, and we’d rather tell you now than have you find out later.

  • Back injuries and IVDD. Bassets are long and low, and that build is hard on their backs. There’s no test that predicts it, and a lot of what keeps a Basset’s back healthy is everyday handling: no big jumps, no flying off the couch, taking the stairs easy while they grow. That’s in your hands day to day, so we can’t guarantee it.
  • Cherry eye, entropion, ectropion, and the ear and skin issues the breed tends to get. They’re usually treatable, and they come down to a mix of growth and care as much as genetics.
  • Anything that happens after a puppy leaves us: an accident, an injury, an illness picked up somewhere, parasites, or care that slipped.
  • Anything regular care would have caught. Missed vaccines, skipped parasite prevention, and no routine checkups fall on the owner, not on us.

If a covered condition shows up

If your vet confirms a covered hereditary condition within the time frame above, we’ll give you a replacement Basset Hound puppy from one of our future litters, whenever the right one is ready. And you keep the dog you already have. We’re not going to ask a family to give back a dog they love to make this right. That has never sat well with us, and it never will.

Making a claim

We ask for two things: a written diagnosis from your vet saying the condition is hereditary or congenital, and proof the dog has been spayed or neutered. The second one isn’t us being difficult. It keeps a condition we’re trying to breed out from getting passed on. Send us both and we’ll take it from there.

What we ask of you

There’s a little on your end too. To keep the guarantee valid:

  • The first vet visit, within 72 hours of pickup.
  • Routine care kept up: vaccines, parasite prevention, and regular checkups.
  • An eye on the back. Go easy on jumps and stairs, especially while your puppy is still growing.
  • Spay or neuter. Our puppies go home as companions on a spay/neuter agreement with limited registration. If you’re hoping to breed, that’s a separate conversation. Breeding rights and full registration are available to the right home, worked out with us before your puppy goes home, not after.

We will always take one of ours back

This one has nothing to do with the guarantee. If you ever reach a point where you can’t keep your M & C Bassets dog, whether that’s a year from now or ten, we want it back before it ends up in a shelter or passed around online. No judgment, no questions. The dog came from us, and it always has a home here.

Your rights, and the agreement that governs

This guarantee adds to whatever rights your state already gives you as a buyer. It doesn’t take those away, and nothing here is meant to. We’re breeders, not lawyers, so if you want to know exactly how the law works where you live, ask one. The real terms live in the written agreement you sign with us before your puppy goes home. If anything here and that agreement ever don’t match, the signed agreement is the one that counts.