[Carlingtonian]

My spouse and I are close to adopting a dog from a person who is moving overseas. We've met and love the dog, who seems very healthy for his age (about 8 years). However, we haven't yet seen vet records. The owner has suggested that she might, before we welcome the dog into our home in a week or so, call her vet to transfer the ownership of the dog to us.

I'm sort of uncomfortable with that. The owner (a young woman) seems very honest and upstanding, and I doubt she would lie about the dog's health, because 1. if you're going to lie, you'd say the dog is a lot younger than 8 years, and 2. if the dog had some horrible life-threatening problem, there's no guarantee the new owners wouldn't take the dog to a shelter. (Though I don't think we'd have the heart.)

I would prefer to just call her vet and have them fax us the health records. But is that what's normally done? We've suggested to her that the vet might be more accommodating if she makes the request--but she's stalled on doing it. (Then again, she is moving in a couple of weeks.) She's also said that vets normally transfer records from one vet to the next--like human doctors--but then, we might not choose our new vet for a while. I can't seem to get the name of the vet from her (though she has some job where she can't check e-mail during the day).

What's normal here? What do vets normally do to transfer records when a dog is adopted from one owner to the next?

Thanks very much for any thoughts.

[phonelady61]

something sounds fishy here as far as the vet records go I usually can go to my vet and pay them per sheet for the records and get the whole shebang there at the vets . Im sorry but she really should have produced these at the time you met her and the dog . I would insist that she get the records now or you wont trust her anymore and will take the dog to your vet and if anything is wrong you will expect her to pay the bill the whole bill . Give this to her in letter form and have it notarizied always always cover your butt with something like this . Good luck to you .

[Carlingtonian]

Phonelady61, thanks for the thoughts. Well, she finally came through; the vet faxed the records over today. No surprises, save for some grade 3 dental disease from almost a year ago, which I'm sure she's addressed. I'm sure this girl was just harried, given her big move and whatnot.