In the defense of the Irish we're not all evil puppy farmers! And from the perspective of a buyer trying to find a puppy here is a bit of mind field.
I'm in the Republic and was determined to find an undocked puppy (it's still legal in the ROI) which restricted my search to Northern Ireland. I had originally intended to find a puppy whose parents have been health tested but not many breeders seem to be doing this yet. I contacted a couple of breeders in the kennel club's accredited scheme and had mixed experiences. One person was absolutely lovely, asked all the right questions, offered to take back the pup at any time during its life if my circumstances changed, had had her bitch health tested, etc but had no puppies on the way at the time. The other (a very well known show kennel) was going to be 'having health testing done in the future but not as yet', informed me of a litter arrival, was very vague about whether he could a puppy available to me, and also wouldn't let them go until they were 10 weeks old, oh and it wouldn't be vaccinated but if I wanted to have that arranged in advance then we could come to an agreement over it (!), he promised to send photos which never arrived, failed to respond to a couple of polite e-mails from me asking for updates on how the puppies were doing which left me thinking that he had found other buyers and couldn't be bothered letting me know.
I contacted another well known shower and breeder who gave me several recs only one of which was in the North and she just happened to have one puppy left from a recent litter. A near three hour drive later and I met my future puppy (and his mum, and an aunt and half sister!) No health checks, no microchip, no vaccinations but from decent Irish lines. So much for all my careful research! And that other breeder? The day I found my pup he finally sent me a e-mail updating me on his puppies! Over three weeks after my last e-mail to him! Too late by far.
All in all a frustrating experience. If you're in Ireland, whether north or south, and were set fast on a health checked, non-docked puppy, looking overseas might be your only option. I have yet to find a breeder here who is hip scoring, and testing for both PRA and FN.
As Jane S says with any potential buyer you need to vet carefully and use your own judgement. I spent ages researching what breed I wanted and had narrowed it down to either a cocker or a Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen - now as there are very few breeders of PBGVs in Ireland I would have been quite prepared to travel to the UK to find one.
