My story begins back in 1998, when we were looking for a new Dane to call our own. We interviewed many breeders, and after a lot of searching, found one that we thought we could trust, and was reputable. She offered us many names of past champions she had breed, however, being that they were all shown in Mexico and/or Canada, and we were not that sophisticated to check those registries, we took her at her word. She showed us pictures of her dogs, and what beautiful creatures they were. We knew that our next family member would come from her. We put a deposit up with her, for the pick male from her next litter, from one of her Mexican Champions (it had always been my intention to show a Dane, so paying for a show pup was not an issue with us), 1/3 of purchase price of the dog. I forwarded that money order to her on June 12, 1998. We waited for almost a year, as there were many reasons for litters not being produced. AI’s didn’t take because of faulting handling at the vets, the bitch wouldn’t stand for the male in live breeding, but finally in March 1999 she contacted us, telling us that the litter would be here in less than 30 days. We were so excited!!! We began to prepare for our new baby to come into our home!! April 15, 1999 we received an email from the breeder, the litter was finally here. 3 blue males to pick from and she forwarded pictures. None looked like show prospects to me, but I figured they were newly born; they still needed time to grow. Finally, after 4 weeks, we were allowed to go visit the babies, see them in person, and pick which male we wanted. Gladys said, due to illness that could be brought into her kennel, she didn’t want to meet us at her home, that she would meet us at the mall about 30 minutes from her house. This should have been the first red flag, but we were excited about our new baby, and agreed to meet her there. Gladys pulled 3 blue Dane puppies from a cardboard box in her back seat, handing them to Rick and I, and asked which we wanted, because she had 4 other people interested in the males. I looked the pups over, and non were show quality. All had large white spots on their chests, and white feet. I asked her if these pups, with the large amounts of white they had on them would be considered show quality, and she looked at me as though she was offended. She said if I planned to show to dog in Mexico, yes, he was marked properly to show. Gladys knew the whole time, I had no intentions of showing the dog in Mexico, only in the US, and I told her again. She finally took from the back of her car a female (we wanted a male), that had but one small white patch on her chest. She told us that although she normally doesn’t do this, and sells her females for almost double what she sells her males for, that she would sell us this girl for the originally agreed upon price. Rick and I looked at each other, as we both really preferred a male, but the little girl was so small, and so cute, we were thinking with our hearts, and not our minds, as we would soon discover. Time passed, and finally came the time to pick Trinka up……….again, Gladys wouldn’t let us come to her house, said she had another litter on the ground, and she was worried what we would bring into her kennels (in hind sight, a woman that rarely breeds sure has had a lot of pups in this brief time frame), she met us with her, again at the mall. We were both shocked at the creature she brought out of the car and handed to us. This tiny little girl, who was barely more than skin and bones. I couldn’t believe this was a Dane puppy. She had balding spots on her rear legs and belly, that I would later find out were the result of her lying in urine for long periods of time. Gladys handed us the papers, and asked for her money. Rick asked her what was wrong with the pup, why was she so skinny, and she said, normal, she had just wormed her, happens to all puppies, don’t worry. Much against our better judgment (again, thinking with our hearts and not our heads), we packed her up in the car with us for the ride home. We got her home, and hoping that she would come around, put some food and water out for her. She didn’t act like a normal 8 week old pup, she just wanted to sleep and every once in a while would vomit. We let her sleep in bed with us that night, and took her to the vet in the morning, and found out that she had parvo. Our vet kept her for some time, giving fluids and trying to work her through this, only to loose her in the long run. I contacted Gladys the day after we brought her home to tell her what the vet found, and she acted very concerned, asked us to please keep her updated. I again contacted Gladys after Trinka passed, and it was like a whole different person. She refused to talk to me, said it was our fault the dog caught parvo and she was NOT reimbursing any money to us. We paid 3k for a dog that we had in our possession for less than 24 hours, and an additional 1K in vet bills in an attempt to save her, and this woman was blowing us off as if it were not her responsibility. We contacted our attorney, who said while we could go after the money in court, getting the judgment would be hard, because it seems that Gladys Erdman was dead! And had been for some time now, and even while she was alive, she didn’t run a kennel named Aztec Danes. Even though we had a contract, the address on the contract was a nursing home that Ms Erdman resided in before her death, so actually locating the woman who sold us this poor sick dog would be next to impossible. We have since found other people who have been scammed by “Gladys Erdman/Aztec Danes”, and we tell everyone we run across to beware of her. We have found people who have purchased dogs who were to be show quality that are anything but show quality, she has sold dogs who have mange, and much more serious health defects. Most of the dogs who have survived, cannot be registered through AKC, because while she states the parents are AKC registered, they are not, therefore, their offspring cannot be registered, and Canada, through a lot of work by myself and others scammed by “Gladys Erdman” has recently pulled the registration of any pups bred by her, and we are steadfastly working with the Mexican registry to have those registrations pulled as well.
