In August 2007 our family purchased a springer spaniel from a supposedely "reputable" breeder. Almost immediately we noticed some very strange aggressive behavior. This behavior was very alarming because it would happen for no apparent reason. Many times when my children were gently petting him he would bite them. We signed him up immediately for "puppy school, " and even the trainer noticed behavior that she had never witnessed before. I did keep in close contact with Debbie. Her response was always "you're just not tough enough." The tougher we got the more ferocious he got. Since we never had owned a springer we were relying on her as our expert. She made it sound like we weren't doing what we should be doing. She did agree to take the puppy back in the first few months that we had him, but because she kept making us feel as though we were doing something wrong, we wanted to make it work. After almost 2 years of unprovoked attacks we realized we couldn't take anymore chances. We had him medically evaluated and found there was nothing wrong with him aside from a "screw loose." My vet thought that he probably had springer rage but couldn't be sure. I personally believe there was too much inbreeding and that is why he became aggressive. The last straw was when my husband, who adored this dog, was very gently brushing him. He started chewing on his fingers and my husband said "no bite!" Our dog, Calvin turned around and attacked his arm so badly that had he not been wearing 2 sweatshirts he would have needed plastic surgury. We had to put our dog down. It totally broke our hearts. Debbie's response in all of this was "good luck to you!" She had known all along that this dog was not quite stable . She never offered us another puppy or a portion of our money back . We paid $1, 000 for him. I have heard from other breeders that say her dogs aren't known for having the best of temperaments. I wish I had known this prior to putting all the time, effort and love into a puppy only to have him have to be put down because he was mentally unstable. I would tell someone to stay away from her as a breeder . If she really was a compassionate, caring breeder she would have offered to give us a portion of our money back or offered us another puppy. ( I wouldn't have taken it though)