Dear Peoplesclaim.com,
I am in receipt of the claim made against me by Jana Love (1115 Madison St NE, Salem, OR 97301, 541-580-5159) dated 3-19-2018. The claim is basically the same as the claim that this individual asserted against me earlier this month with the better business bureau (BBB). Attached below, please see my response to the BBB, which remains unchanged and is a matter of public record.
I sincerely appreciate the role that organizations such as yours or the BBB serve to mediate good faith solutions. Sadly, good faith efforts are not always successful. Please note that our legal assistance is already established. No additional outside fee-for-service offers of assistance are desired please.
Sincerely yours,
Gigi/Rainforest Coastal Labs LLC
_________________________
3-7-2018
Better Business Bureau
211 N. Broadway, Suite 2060
St. Louis, MO 63102
Re: ID 12715452
Dear Dispute Resolution Department,
I would like to express my appreciation for your time and the important role that the BBB plays in finding a solution to disputes between individuals, or in this case, between two small businesses. This is the first complaint that has ever been filed against us and follows a failed “across-the-country” breeding attempt between two dogs; the female Labrador retriever, Faith (owned by the party filing the complaint), and my experienced and well-titled breeding male, Brownwaterdogs Raising Cain. While I remain optimistic and open-minded, I am doubtful that you will be able to find a mutually acceptable solution, as the complainant has discarded or disregarded the written agreement of services that she acknowledges having received ahead of the breeding, and then engaged in threatening behaviors-- hostile and harassing repetitive texting, name calling, and ongoing threats to harm my reputation. Despite this, I have exchanged several emails looking for a solution, including going beyond that stipulated in the written agreement. We are happy to provide documents and correspondence to the BBB staff on request, so that they can see that we have acted professionally and in good faith, and have exhausted reasonable efforts to find a solution. For the record, the lengthy written customer’s statement of the problem provided to us terminates abruptly in the middle of a sentence.
Like the other party, I have a small women-owned business and understand the financial pressures on small businesses. I am truly sorry that this breeding was not successful. However, across-the-country artificial inseminations (AI) are understood by all to be inherently risky, with success rates that are cited in veterinary literature typically ~65- 85%. The standard dog breeding practice is that the female either; i) comes to the male for 2 or 3 natural breedings on subsequent days (likely with higher success rates), or ii) assumes the risk of a lower pregnancy rate and the financial cost of collecting and shipping fresh stabilized or frozen sperm and the AI procedure. Following a successful breeding of dogs of this caliber, the owner of the stud male receives a modest total payment, in this case of $800, while the owner of female may collect sales of around $14,000-18,000. This “reward discrepancy” explains why the financial risks of a failed pregnancy fall on the female party. We received one payment of $400 from the complainant as a deposit on sperm for this breeding. The written agreement of the services that we provide stipulates that our responsibility in the event of a failed liter is solely to provide sperm for a second breeding attempt. This is common to many other canine breeding agreements. Common sense also dictates that nobody would offer to provide stud services for the modest fee of $800 if they were also asked to assume responsibility for paying any of the female’s expenses should the breeding be one of the 15-35% of AIs that do not end in successful pregnancy. In order to optimize outcomes from our breeding services to our clients, for collection and shipped sperm we utilize one of two excellent veterinary groups; the Theriogenology repro group at the University of Missouri Veterinary School and an experienced Veterinary practice in St. Louis- both having many years of experience in collection, analysis, processing and shipping of fresh chilled or frozen sperm.
The BBB complaint provided seems to revolve around one general area- the quality of the collection and sperm provided. Concerns included; the lack of a “teaser” in-heat female at the time of collection (which can increase the collection), concerns about the sperm number or volume, and assertions of concealment or fraud on the part of the vet specialist in not providing a machine sperm count. The complaint further cites Dr. Boillat having to make multiple sperm collections. This is wrong and shows that Jana is ignorant of the fact that a sperm ejaculate from a single collection consists of different fractions-- with one fraction containing nearly all the sperm. The Synbiotics form that was provided from the collecting vet shows that the second fraction was assessed for overall appearance, had excellent quality, was fast and had 90-95% motility, and that the visual assessment of sperm quantity (performed on a calibrated chamber slide) was adequate. Even the industry-standard Symbiotics paperwork indicates that a machine count is “optional”. Many/most specialists in the field consider the visual assessment of quality, morphology and quantity to be more important and informative than a machine count. The collection notes indicate that extra “Fresh Express” stabilizing buffer was added and that 8.5 milliliters (ml) of the sperm in the stabilizing buffer was shipped (by overnight air). The records further instructed, “if 8.5 ml is to large for insemination, centrifuge at low speed and decant to smaller volume.” The receiving vet’s analysis of the shipped sperm in the buffer noted it to be “good concentration.” Their notes also indicate that excess insemination material refluxed back out of the cervix during the transcervial insemination (TCI). These unbiased veterinary records completely refute all the complainant’s concerns about the quality, count/concentration, volume and lack of an available teaser bitch at the time of collection. It is widely known that a single collection results in enough spermatozoa that can be frozen and used for upwards of 5- 10 successful breedings. Failures more commonly result from mistiming the female’s ovulation and breeding/insemination or other health issues beyond the control or responsibility of the stud dog owner. Despite false assertions made by the complainant, there are no statements in either of the DVM’s collection or insemination medical records that contemporaneously raised any concern regarding the sperm at the time of the collection and shipping, or receipt, analysis and artificial insemination.
There were however red flags in the record that potentially could indicate a problem with the female; i) the timing of the AI based on the progesterone measurements, ii) the fact that the female was on antibiotics, iii) the choice of AI technique (the vet had discussed a surgical AI, but a TCI was performed), iv) DVM notation of a vaginal discharge. While these factors don’t require further discussion in this correspondence, they are raised to remind the BBB staff that there are many potential factors that could underlie this failed breeding attempt.
In summary, much of what is asserted in the lengthy rambling complaint is simply wrong, misinformed or misleading. I will certainly abide by our written agreement that provides an additional sperm collection for a repeat breeding attempt. I would be willing to instead refund her deposit of $400, with assurances that the complainant could put this dispute to rest without further issues, threats or propagation of incomplete or misleading information. However I have recently learned of other professionals that experienced similar problems after providing breeding services to the complainant and then watched as she propagated negative social media commentary in an attempt to damage their reputation. Based on my horrible experience, I would seriously caution anyone about doing business with this disreputable individual.
Sincerely yours,
Gigi Strauss