Hello all! My name's Lauren and I'm a lurker.. I've been reading and reading and reading (not just about Dobermans but about four other breeds of dogs that could be potential family members) and have finally decided the Doberman. I've been watching several breeder websites here in Florida for a while and have found two that I really like and one that is hopefully going to be producing a litter for adoption in late February, early March.

Here is her website: http://www.kinetic-unity.com/index.html

Amy seems very nice, very knowledgable, and she is the Editor of one of the breed specific Doberman magazines. They've been breeding dogs for a while (two different breeds, to my knowledge) and seem to be very responsible, they want to pair up the right dogs to make the right puppies. I'm very impressed with her and she seems to have all the signs of a Master Breeder -- I was just hoping that perhaps someone had heard of her, or had one of her darlings in their home? To me she sounds great, but I wouldn't be a responsible Doberman parent if I didn't look into my potential breeder.

She doesn't have any pricing on her website and that was one of the things I liked about her, she doesn't seem to be someone who's out to just make some cash, she seems to really want to make the breed better and that's really what I want.

Any thoughts?

On a side note - though it may be a sad subject and one that you all may not want to touch - I chose Dobermans because they seem to be a (relatively) healthy breed in comparison to many other breeds that were on my list. Most of the things I've read seems like the majority of Doberman owners lose thier dogs to cancer. Is this really the case?

Have you lost one of your Doberman darlings? If so, did you get them from a reputable breeder? How old were they whey they passed away? How did they pass away (ie, old age, cancer, heart defect, accident)? And do you have any Doberman Pinschers with health issues? If so, did you get them from a reputable breeder? How are you dealing with their issues now? Does it affect their quality of life?

Sorry if this seems very personal, but I didn't see anyone else mentioning it on the board and I think it's something really important for people who may be looking into the Doberman breed.

The reason I ask if you bought from a reputable breeder is because I don't want to 'skew' my 'data'. Comparing apples to oranges and all that, if apples go bad more quickly than oranges do, I don't want to simply ask 'Does fruit go bad?' because I could get lots of answers about apples when I really only want to know about oranges, and now I have the wrong idea about oranges -- I hope that doesn't offend anyone. I just don't want to be told horror stories from people who rescued their Dobermans from a puppy mill or from a box on the side of the road and then be under the impression that is what the dogs from a reputable breeder are going to be like.

Can anyone help me?

Thank you in advance!

Lauren