As you know, my newest addition, Rumor was imported from Serbia. Since my decision, I have had tons of questions on the process and my reasons for going this route. I thought it might be helpful for people that are thinking about it to start a thread.
My experience was wonderful all and all. Of course it did have a few kinks along the way.
Let's start from the beginning.
How did I decide to import?
Obviously I was in the market for a pup. I had a few road blocks from the start. First I have an intact male. Apparently some sort of red flag to breeders. Drake is a good boy, most people are surprised to learn he is intact. I saw no reason to neuter him just to satisfy a breeder.
Another stumbling block was I am not really interested in showing. That's a huge deal to a lot of breeders. Don't misunderstand, I get it, it's just not for me. Yes, I do play around in a couple of venues just for fun. I am just not in a place I can make the commitment to finish a dog in AKC. Sending my dog to a handler, traveling all over on weekends, spending hours on end at a dog show, I just can't do it. That would be a requirement if I wanted to leave the pup intact until she at least matured. Based on my research it is important to do that.
I came close on a couple of pups. The breeder was willing to work with me on everything but the name. One girl was just beautiful and I love her drive and temperament. She was already named and I just hated both the regiustered name and call name. The breeder wasn't willing to let me name her. May sound silly, but I couldn't live with a name I hated.
I decided to open my search parameters and look at importing. I was actually looking for a pup that was part NA and part Euro, my favorite because you can get the best of both worlds. Not easy to find so I took the leap to all Euro. My husband actually found our breeder because the dam caught his eye. The sire was bordering on what I don't like about Euros. I talked to the breeder and she explained what she was looking for in the litter. I liked what she said.
We talked a lot before deciding to go with her. I asked tons of questions and I got my answers.
Some of the challenges were first, the language barrier. That was tough at times but we quickly learned how to communicate. Another thing was things are done differently in Europe. I learned different isn't wrong, just different.
Overall the hardest part was wiring the money. Some of the things that go in in today's world like fraud and terrorism made that harder than it needed to be. The payments were half as a deposit and the other half when the pup was shipped. As far as the price of the pup, in the end with shipping and the travel we did to pick her up, I paid just under what a pup would cost me here.
When it came time for shipping,, the scary part for me, it went perfect! I called the cargo place before her flight landed and they gave me a time to be there. We walked in and her paperwork was ready. It actually got there before her. We took care of it and were told to go outside and she should be pulling up in a jeep. She was! So in less than 10 minutes we were done. We hung around a bit because I wanted to clean out her crate and walk her a bit. It couldn't have gone smoother.
I am thrilled with my girl and would do it again in a heart beat.
I walked away with a beautiful girl that has a great pedigree. I don't have to put any titles on her unless I want to and I don't have to spay her by a certain date or at all if I don't want to. I couldn't be happier.
I tried to keep this as short as possible, umm...didn't work, I'm sure I left out some details so if you have a question I didn't cover ask away.
Anybody else that has imported should feel free to add their experience also.