SwisshavenReviews of swisshaven.org

Swisshaven and Kimberley Barton/Herring/MacDonald are fraudsters. They take £500 deposit to secure a puppy that is not even born. Some are lucky, or unlucky, enough to get a puppy but many never end up with a puppy or their deposit returned. Ms Barton has 8-10 large breed dogs in a small estate house with a very small garden. They get very little if any exercise or socialising. Mos have temperament and health issues. She says she does all the health testing but this is a lie. She no longer does any eye testing. She claims to send her x rays for hips, elbows and shoulders to USA for scoring but I believe this to be a lie as well. None of her dogs are temperament assessed before breeding. Many of her breeding dogs have hip scores of C or more. She is breeding hips scores of C to C. She does high inbreeding. She lies about all the other UK breeders. She is unhinged.

Horrible nasty breeder who should be stopped. Breeding far too many puppies in such a small home. You won't be allowed into the house to meet the bithces and puppies. All curtains closed and what is she hiding. Her dogs are not socialised and are fearful. I would NEVER recommend. NO STARS

We bought a puppy from Kimberley Barton (MacDonald) in 2016. We were completely naive about pedigrees and had always had pound puppies. As there are so few "breeders" in the UK, I started to make enquiries, which she jumped on. Basically, she told me that she was the best, stay away from other breeders (don't even talk to them) as hers were the only pure pedigrees. Others had bred epilepsy into the breed, lameness, etc, etc, etc. Funnily enough, our puppy had had the deposit paid but they'd never turned up for her. I got the day wrong for collecting her and she wouldn't let us in, with the excuse that someone else was coming. Whilst we adore our girl, she has had multiple health issues - bad skin, prone to lameness, potentially hypothyroidism and gets really aggressive over food. We also bought another puppy a few months later - again she had had the deposit paid but they had never come to collect her. Something that constantly occurs on the Swisshaven page. It's so sad seeing dog after dog being handed back to her, with pathetic excuses such as the owners are moving away, they've had a new baby, etc. Our second pup, we don't think is 100% Swissy, is developing cataracts and is very reactive and anxious. She also wanted our first pup to have 2 litters which I could whelp. And she would have the pick of the litter and sell the rest (whilst we did all the work) and we could keep one! We have since found out that as our dog, the puppies would belong to us and could not be shown as Swisshaven pups. We "co-owned" both dogs (something I would NEVER do again) and this appeared to give her the right to order us around and even ring to shout at our vet! I really do think this women has psychiatric problems and believes a lot of her own lies.

As the title says, please do avoid these dog breeders at all costs! We wanted a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog for our family and reached out to the owner (Kim) in June 2021. We received numerous puppy pictures and to secure a puppy, she requested a £500 deposit. We thought this was a bit excessive (especially as the puppies weren't even born yet), however, as it is quite a rare breed in the UK we put the deposit down (July 2021). She confirmed there was a short waiting list and we would be allocated a puppy by the end of the year (December 2021) providing the pregnancies were successful. No puppies in December, so we were told Spring 2022. More excuses so again no puppies in Spring. We were then told Summer 2022, at which point I said if no puppies available, we would like our deposit back. Surprise, surprise, no puppies in Summer 2022, so I asked for our deposit back to explore other options. 8 weeks now and still no return of deposit (family members dying, no online banking facility, unable to leave the house to go to the bank, etc, etc!) Don't get me wrong, I do believe she breeds Greater Swiss puppies, but clearly has a huge waiting list. She takes the £500 deposits and then uses every excuse under the sun to say that puppies are not available. In summary, please avoid these breeders at all cost unless you want to pay £500 (which you won't get back) for nothing!