We bought a gorgeous Chocolate Labrador puppy from a Kennel club registered breeder at Christmas to complete our family. Theres my wife and two daughters and I. We thought a holiday this year or adding a dog to the family.

We drove the 250 miles to pick our little one up on the 28th december. She was a stunning chocolate labrador. We decided to name her harper.

Things were going great after the first month Harper was growing and developing well. Settling right into the family. The girls loved having her around. She had her own little personality now.

After 3 months she again was growing fast and her progress was amazing. We were keeping the breeder updated on her and all was well!

After 4 months though harper starting to become lame at night and first thing in the morning. At first we thought she might have growing pains or maybe had hurt herself.

we decided after 2 weeks there was still no change. We took Harper to her vet they supplied us with a course of metacam after another 2 weeks we took her back. They decided to take x-rays of both elbows as my wife had been reading up on elbow dysplasia and thought Harper might have the that.

To our relief the xray came back normal to them but they would send them onto the national vets.

We were not expecting them to find anything but they did find something. 2 weeks later we were attending east Neuk clinc for animals at fife. They confirmed Harper had the worse case of elbow dysplasia they have seen in a young dog.

Harper is now 6months old today and she has just came home today from major surgery spending 4 nights away from us. They have managed to re-move bone from both elbows and tried to re-aline them. She is on road to recovery. They hopefully reckon this will help Harper until shes 5-6 years old. Unfortunally this wont help her arthrits but we can manage this by exerise and looking after her weight.

The breeder has now not showing any interest in her progress and has stopped replying to our emails.

The total treatment and vet bills have totalled £12000 Which although we were covered by her KC insurance we‘ve had pay 10% of this. We were putting away money to take the girls and Harper on a UK summer holiday but now this just isn’t affordable for us.

Thank you for taking time out to read our story and appreciate any help!!!