[The Kennel] Annoucement about contracts

[TheKennel]

ANNOUCEMENT, please note:

As of today, The Kennel will no longer be officially supporting contracts.  This means that while you may make contracts, we will not take any official action on your behalf if those contracts are broken.  Most especially, we will not help you or sanction you in the repossession of sold, traded or gifted dogs.  In light of this stance, we encourage you to make your contract rules and consequences ones you can enforce yourselves.

There are several reasons why we've come to this decision.  Among them are these points:

1. Attempting to enforce contracts puts us in the position of enforcing rules we didn't make, and may not have seen prior to a dispute.

2. Attempting to enforce contracts puts us in the middle of user disputes where we often don't have full information on exactly what happened.

3. Some contracts are beginning to infringe on the Kennel's own rights of repossession in the event of user misconduct. 

4. We feel that if you care about your dogs so much, you probably shouldn't be trading them away in the first place.  Honestly it makes us feel bad to see that happening. 

5.Dealing with all this contract-enforcing unpleasantness really sours the whole Kennel worker experience.

A note about point 4:  You can restrict litter size to the number you are able to keep yourself with fair accuracy by using an appropriate bed size.  If you don't want to see your pups in outside homes, we encourage you to take this route.

[springacres]

You make a number of good points here.  And upon consideration, I will go remove the part of my kennel contract that talks about repossession.  I can't recall why I put it in there in the first place actually.

[PonyMama]

Would we be able to maybe switch from repossession to bad feedback will be left for breaking the agreement they sign?
Thus we can either request our sold/traded dogs back or they can get bad feedback for breaking rules for an adopted pet?

this would not include hey you left the site or got a ban so I am goign to say you are a bad pet owner, this woudl be for:
you signed my contract saying it would not be overbred and you bred that dog 20 times this year

[TheKennel]

Would we be able to maybe switch from repossession to bad feedback will be left for breaking the agreement they sign?
Thus we can either request our sold/traded dogs back or they can get bad feedback for breaking rules for an adopted pet?

That sounds to me like something you would be able to enforce yourself, I think that would be a great way to deal with the change.

[PonyMama]

Ok just wanted to make sure before I changed it, and I figured it fit along int he new guidelines.  Thanks

*Totters off to change 3 kennel contrats*

[springacres]

PM raises a good point, actually.  Overbreeding is probably the only reason I would have ever exercised the repossession clause.  While I do have a clause written into my contract stating that I would like first dibs on the dog if you ever decide to get rid of it, that's not something that I feel I can punish anyone for not following through on.  (I view it as being something like a health guarantee that a real breeder would offer, or an adoption agreement from a shelter, where if the adopter became for whatever reason unable to take care of the animal, or the animal proved unsuitable, the breeder or shelter would offer to take it back.)

[YourLoveOnly]

@spring: shelters actually require to give them back, you often have to sign a contract that says you are not allowed to rehome.

Hmm, can't say I'm happy with this, but that's probably because I've had a lot of bad luck with people breaking my contract. I guess I will change it to what PM suggested, if you break the rules I will want to take the dog back and if you refuse to give it back I will leave bad feedback.

[Pinkshadow]

I'm glad to see this , as i belive when you have sold something it's not yours to claim anymore

I mean it in the way that i have never in my life seen a dog breeder say "Okay you bought this puppy now but if you sell it , offer it back to me first" and my family have bought alot of dogs in my life

[BabyKittenCandy]

I must say I am rather disappointed to see this, the fact the Kennel was willing to help up-hold contracts that were set out, to me, was one of the things that helped make this a very realistic adoptable, helped make it feel like a real kennel with contracts etc which will now just be rather null and void.

I would have thought that the instances when the Kennel would have had to intervene would have been very few as most members here are old and responsible enough to read the contracts, adhere to them and work out via pm any slight disagreements there may have been before they excalated.

As for limiting the dogs we can keep and not trading them to outside homes, that also takes away from the very real feel of the kennel and would, to me, make the interaction with other kennel practically nothing as people dont often wish to take anything but other dogs/pups.

Just my viewpoint, but definately a bit of a let-down for me

[Taruia]

that was one of the reasons that we allowed contracts in the first place but people hwanting to take dogs back if people are banned or because they didnt offer the dog back because they forgot those things are making contracts very unpleasant for us. yes if you adopt from a real kennel you would have those clauses but honestly we cant please everyone and at this point our mental health and wanting the kennel to be fun are going to outweigh reality.

sorry for the no caps i have no internet at my new house and am typing this from my phone.

[BabyKittenCandy]

I can understand why you have had to say it dear, please dont think I dont or that I dont appreciate the amount of effort you guys put in. Its just sad that people cant be adult enough to work things out better and have the respect for others to stick to the contract they agreed to in the first place and spoil it for those who do.

[YourLoveOnly]

Only reason I wanted pets back from someone who was banned is because I have a lot of uncompleted trades with that person. After reading this I dunno if I even wanna put in the energy to try and get what I was promised or discuss other options, because I also have my mental health to worry about. I repossed some horses recently which was just not worth it, I feel like I had to do it but it took so much energy and broke me down so bad that I am glad it's all over. I really have to ask myself what I find more important and as much as I want what I am owed I just don't think I wanna take the risk of becoming that upset again, I need to avoid stressful situations.

I sort of repossed a pet because someone forgot to offer it back, but that was not because they simply forgot. It was after being reminded several times and still not removing them that I felt like I had to take action. We're all human, I can understand forgetting about something at first, that was not the actual issue.

I understand that if people constantly bug you about contracts it becomes too stressful. I think repossesing was something you could do if the person breaking your rules was unwilling to work something out and continued breaking the rules. I've always felt that people should try to work it out on their own first.

I defenitely understand your decision, so no hard feelings or anything like that

[Kadana Sorano]

mm mixed feelings for me.  On the one hand, I never did agree much with the contracts being able to claim they would repossess animals.  it was just something I felt only The Kennel should be able to do, and only if/when their initial rules were broken.    But, since it was supported by the Kennel, I didn't speak out against it (much).  So in that respect, I'm actually sort of glad yes.

But, on the other hand, it worries me a bit.  I know we all like to think that everyone on here is mature, reasonable and responsible.  But that's just not the case.  I've had a few hmm instances? with some people that prove that.  It wasn't in regard with The Kennel, but it could easily have been. 

So, in a big way I am very happy right now.  I personally think/feel that if someone broke your contract, a temporary or permanent black listing (banning them from interaction with your kennel) is sufficient.  Maybe even maybe your kennels "black list" public, if you feel it will add a bigger deterrent.  But on the other hand, most of my dogs don't have too strict of a contract assigned to them.  So I guess I can see where my opinion may be a minority one.  As for my few "special" dogs, I'll certainly be extra cautious about who I home their offspring with, possibly even going as far as to only home their offspring with trusted friends/family.  but then again, that was something I had been considering doing anyway, all along *shrug*

[Sunchaser]

i just want to say i find it rather sad that you guys went into this with letting us do contracts and now are basicly saying no to contracts. I mean i understand why and what not but to me it doesnt seem like you woudl get that many issues cause we do have a lot of people that are mature and what not and i can understand forgetting things cause hell i do. I no longer have a contract really except to see what happenst ot he dogs cause i just felt it was a waste when you cant follow everything someone does when you have a busy life. And following that a notary office was put into place for the contacts so people can check them out and what not. So why all of a sudden stop what shouldnt have been but a last resort in the first place?

No hard feelings im just cuirious. If i come across as mean i apologize i know my typing can be harsh sometimes and it is not meant to be. I wish you all well and i will still follow the kennel cause i love the art.

[Silvanon]

It is a reversal and we appologize for that.  Although, as you say, reposession always has been a last resort, so we hope in practice that this doesn't affect people very much.  And, to be clear, we're not trying to say no contracts.  We're just saying please make your contract consequences ones you can enforce yourselves (bad feedback, blacklisting, and the like) as we've decided we're not willing to reposess dogs for people.

[springacres]

@spring: shelters actually require to give them back, you often have to sign a contract that says you are not allowed to rehome.

@YLO - true, some of them do require that.

@Silv - I totally understand why you guys are doing this, no hard feelings from me.

[Solistia]

So, I know the notary office was mostly set up for people with contracts for their Kennel, Stable, and other Agency adoptables, but this makes me wonder what you're stand on other contracts in the Notary forum?

Like the contract I have in there right now regarding an adoptable I gave away (for free) with very clear guidelines on some issues, but other than those few things complete freedom is given (and basically instead of paying with some kind of currency, you're paying with following those set guidelines).

So will this only affect Kennel contracts? What about contracts for other adoptables and other instances that require contracts?
(I'm just worried that perhaps issues like with the Kennel will happen with other things, and make you decide not provide any recourse for people who have been wronged by others voiding their contracts, because they have no fear of repercussion )

[TheKennel]

Even though the same people run TheKennel as run Secundi, they are entirely separate.

Incomplete trades and adoptable shop issues are considered separate of our opinions about our individual adoptable shops. I think the Notary forum is a great idea to put your agreements out in the open for everyone to see just in case of disputes - there aren't PMs to dig up or screenshots to worry about. That's the biggest problem we have as admins with incomplete trades - differing information from both sides. Hence the public dispute forums, we want it all out in the open so it's fair for everyone.

I - Garney - run all of my shops differently. I allowed kennel contracts because it was the real world feel of it. But it has gotten out of hand. Instead of trying to deal with it person to person, people are leaping to reclaiming pets. We created the feedback forum long before the notary forum, when we first made the forum in fact, it was built in. We wanted people to really check up on others before trading with them (and yes I'm notoriously bad for not using it myself, slap my wrist please).

TheKennel has only ever forcefully rehomed dogs twice that I recall, once for an unwarranted paypal chargeback, and once for non-payment of USD. It just felt as if people were swaying in a direction that infringed upon our rights as artists, and my rights as creator of the shop. Nobody is the bad guy here, no one situation caused it, but it was sliding down a slippery slope towards situations where people were basically acting as if they owned the final and total rights to a dog that they bred (though we created, lined, shaded, colored and coded it).

Nobody was there yet and maybe no one would ever go that far, but we saw the potential for that, and I really didn't like that. I had to take three days off Secundi just because of the stress and I can't afford to do that. I don't -want- to do that.

This is only for TheKennel, and only because we as a team felt we were being put in an awful spot. I don't understand why but people get crazy over this adoptable unlike any other of ours and it creates unique challenges. It's not a bad thing, it's just different. If I had known that people were so serious about us rehoming dogs I would have put a stop to it before it started, but sadly I didn't see it coming.

And it isn't to say that we won't rehome dogs if a user IS banned from our adoptable or breaks another of our rules. Our rules as a shop are a perfectly fine reason and acceptable in a contract. We're speaking of user created rules, things that require us workers to have different positions when working with two or more different people. If one person has rules in their contract that directly go against the other person... where does that leave us? I really didn't want to find that out.

This announcement applies to what is actually a very small number of cases, we just didn't want to see it get any bigger. And it does follow what we expected at the outset - people attempt to handle disagreements with one another in a mature fashion. If it escalates, yes of course we'll help, we're not trying to say that...

I think I stopped making sense somewhere *shuts up* Garney needs coffeeeee

[Solistia]

*pats Garney*
Well, it certainly is reassuring for me, as an artist, that contracts like mine will be upheld on secundi by secundi staff :3
I just got worried when I saw The Kennel (which was a big part of the whole contracts thing, and secundi itself) feel the need to separate themselves from user made contracts (I figured I was worrying for nothing, but it's certainly much better to know for sure XD)
Thank you Garney! (for all the hard work you've put into this and will continue to do in the future~<3<3)

[TheKennel]

~Garney not in the kennel account~

For myself personally, I have my head so far into my other adoptables all the time, the darn dogs get away from me.

I for one would NEVER consider a FaeKind contract - they aren't animals to me, they have personalities and intelligence. Gidgets and fishes I wouldn't consider contracts because... they're fish and gidgets.

My own personal kennels have never had any sort of contracts or agreements. You get a puppy from me and it's yours, I trusted people to follow TheKennel rules and they were enough for me.

I'd like to spend more time running the shops instead of trying to enforce a bunch of rules, so I've been brainstorming ways to streamline all my adopties, the kennel more than any of the others because it torments me the most @_@

~/Garney back into kennel account~

[Ryuukokoro]

Ryuu would very much approve of streamlining adoptables so Garneys (and other staffers) can devote more time to running them and having fun. ^_^ *cheers all staffers on*

[Ember]

I, personally, am quite happy to see this. I think it was getting out of hand where I would look at someone's contracts and was like "What? Reposess? I thought only The Kennel could do that." I don't mind following other kennels' suggestions, but to me that's all I'd really like them to be. I have my own 'rules' for my kennel dogs and I let buyers know about them when they buy a dog from me but I never planned to enforce them. If I didn't want a dog to be treated in a way that I would object to then I shouldn't have sold them in the first place. That's just my two cents. That and The Kennel staff are amazing and totally deserve not to have to worry about this kind of stuff. <3

[indigowulf]

Now that the possibility of breeding mutts has been removed, I think one of the major reasons for people even having the contract for kennel is moot now. Overbreeding and reselling are the only things left for most I think, and those can be covered with feedback easily enough. I do think most people will still choose to honor contracts/agreements asking them to offer it back if they plan to sell it. To me that still reflects real life. Ive rehomed kittens/puppies with that verbal agreement when I was younger.

[WillowDragon]

Actually, this has come at a time where I am pretty much getting rid of my contracts.

The only thing I ever really wanted was to have a chance to get a dog bred by me back if the owner was selling it... but this has happened a few times, and it does nothing but upset me, so i'm scrapping it.

I am content to let the general rules of The Kennel run my personal Kennels.

W xx

[YourLoveOnly]

Okay, I am getting less and less pleased with this rule. I have had people starting to break my contract because they know I cannot take action against it anymore, I could never reposses them so they continue to break rules.

I understand that in the future you won't deal with these users anymore and I certainly will be doing that, I will be very careful about rehoming from now on. But at the time I rehomed those pets I could not have known this would happen, otherwise I may not have rehomed them with certain people. But when I rehomed them I was under the impression I could get them back when my rules were broken. When this new rule was enforced there was no way to do that anymore. I do not want to see my carefully bred pets abused and not be able to do anything about it. I can understand why you guys made this new rule, but I am very very upset that people are not breaking contracts on purpose and I can't do anything about it. I am especially protective of my Samoyed and Afghan lines and I want those to stay protected too. Not that this post will likely help me, I know you guys won't change this ruling, but I felt I needed to say this anyway. Mostly to warn other users.

It just really sucks that even if we now keep very good track of pets, we can't do anything about it if the rules are being abused. I think if someone said "I will do this and that' and they then decide to turn around and break that rule because they know they can't lose that pet anymore is just very very wrong.

[Tribe]

Firstly id like to say sorry to those wh oppesse me and this rule.

But im going to post this here as well as i did in my thread.

This new rule, has finally allowed me to take a stance against contracts. I find it incredibly silly that i cant do with a dog as i please because the old owner says this or that. I understand that you can become attached, however these are virtual animals and geting all huffy over the situation is just senseless. I mean i know you may have put real money into the adoptable, however its something on the internet thats to be taken as so.

I will no longer be signing contracts, and any contracts that i may have signed in the past (i honestly only remember two users) i will no be upholding silly rules against trading the dog in the future for something else. I will make sure the dog goes to a good home only, and it will not damage the lines of the dogs it came from however i will be doing with them as i please as far as trading/selling goes.

Im well within the rules of the kennel i believe so i see no reason to why i should be bullied into giving a dog back to someone.

[YourLoveOnly]

No you are not. You are within the rules to not sign anymore contracts. But you have signed some in the past and it is not okay to just break the rules you previously agreed to because you think you can get away with it now. People trusted you with their pets. If you didn't agree with the contracts you shouldn't have bought those pets in the first place, there are plenty of people who did not use contracts or only the standard no inbreeding/overbreeding/crossbreeding, you could have chosen to only do business with those people.

I am sure TheKennel never intented people to break already signed contracts, I doubt that is something they meant to encourage by enforcing this rule. They simply don't want to get involved in plenty of disputes and become superstressed because of broken rules. I know they will not take any action, but I still don't think it is right of you to disrespect already signed contract because you think the rules are "silly". You knew what you agreed to, if you didn't want those rules then you shouldn't have gotten those pets!

[Tribe]

Thus far i have not broken any contracts that i believe. I know i havnt for that matter, like i said if i decide to trade dogs ive previously signed contracts on im totally fine with upholding that. But im not going to give a dog back because you say i dont want it when i still do.

[YourLoveOnly]

Like I said my mistake, I thought you only wanted to keep your pitties and sammies. We are fine for now then

[Tribe]

no no..just breeding those two. I adore the lines and want many many many of them living in my kennel XD

[Zephyr]

Woot! I think this is a good thing. Because personally, despite the attachment, I've seen a lot of stupidly draconian contracts. IMHO, once you trade something away....it's not yours anymore, and pretending you have control over someone else's adoptable pets is ludicrous. If you want that much power, don't trade it! Or start your own adoptable if you must.

Just my two cents XD