As we began to realize that Simon's problems did not seem to be going away, we started to do some digging. We started with our own paperwork that we had recieved when we got him. Some of which we'd never even looked at as it turns out. Amongst all the papers we got was an envelope that neither one of us really remember seeing before. Inside the envelope was a folded invoice. It stated "health record" at the top and was on the letterhead of The Hunte Corporation. It included Simon's date of birth, breeder name, sire and dam names, and his immunization records.
The company itself meant nothing to us, but that fact that we did not recognize the name did. It meant that something was amiss. We had Simon's breeder's name and we, of course, knew the name of the company we had gotten him from, and neither of these were The Hunte Corporation. The company we had gotten him from claimed that came directly from a breeder. Why, then, and who, was The Hunte Corporation?
The first thing we did was type their name into the internet. We weren't inspired by what we found. Apparantly they are a puppy distributor or broker who buys the dogs wholesale and then sells them across the country to pet stores and other places. There was also allegations that the dogs they were selling were not altogether healthy. This was unnerving. We were told that Simon came to us directly from a reputable breeder in Missouri, and driven to California in a car with a veterinary technician. The articles about Hunte also claimed that the puppies were delivered in the back of semi-trucks owned by J.B. Hunt. We were quite confused at this point.
We called the company we got Simon from and told them of our findings. They assured us that The Hunte Corporation is "their" network of breeders across the country and that everything we read about them was old and their reputation had been "expunged." As for the puppies being transported in semi-trucks, they assured us that they were like mobile veterinary hospitals inside and that there was a person that traveled in back with the animals who could handle emergencies and the like. We were only partially reassured, but our focus at the time had to be on making sure Simon was healthy, and if not, finding out what we needed to do to get him healthy.
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