Okefeild Acres (Elkland, Missouri)

Okefeild Acres is Top Notch, they are a class act from start to finish. We got a puppy Micky Doodle from them about a year and a half ago, and he is so healthy, smart, and affectionate. They go the extra mile to make sure they are genetically healthy, but also they start the obedience training before you pick your puppy up. Lauren is amazing to work with, she calls you and will text as well with answers to your questions. We are going to get another puppy from them this August and we are so excited! It has been a very fun process with her, she knew we wanted a colorful puppy and stayed in touch with us throughout the year with updates. Abbey is Micky Doodles mom, and she is the mother of this puppy as well. So she really went out of her way to help us find another addition to our family. I do not post a lot, but I had to give them a wonderful review, because they are the Best! In a world where customer service and quality are rare they have it!!!!

We have never been so happy with a pet! Okefeild Acres surpassed our expectations. We got Lucy, a full size teddy bear Goldendoodle, in December 2020 from Janet and Lauren. The experience was excellent and the puppy is the cutest, smartest and friendliest dog we have ever had. We highly recommend Okefeild Acres, they are the best! From the day we got her at 8 weeks she slept through the night 7 hours and had only one day of accidents in the house, and that was our fault. She is now 12 weeks and is completely potty trained (she rings her bell to go outside), sits, goes down, stays for 5-10 seconds before we tell her to come. She walks really well on a leash and is not afraid of very much. She loves people and other dogs, she thinks everyone wants to say hi to her or play! She recently went on her first camping trip to the beach and did fantastic, she loved the water! She has brought so much joy to our family and we are so thankful to have found Okefeild Acres. We can’t wait to share how Lucy progresses with them.

We picked up our mini goldendoodle puppy at the end of March 2023. This is the sweetest and smartest pup. More importantly, he is a healthy little guy and came to us with excellent records and partially trained. He was exposed to many experiences, such as sounds and car rides and it really is apparent in his behavior. Janet and her staff were professional and always a pleasure to interact with. I can’t say enough positive things about Okefeild Acres!

I would be wary about adopting from Okefeild. We put down a deposit to adopt a puppy in Fall 2020 and agreed with Janet that we would pick up the puppy from the farm in Missouri and fly our puppy back to California ourselves. We even marked on our application that our closest airport was St. Louis (where I’m originally from.) Then, five weeks before we were set to pick up the puppy (and after falling in love with the litter from pictures), we were contacted by one of Janet’s employees telling us they would be delivering the puppy directly to CA, and that it would cost us an additional $800. When we said no, we’d prefer to pick up directly and see Okefeild Acres ourselves, Janet then contacted us, became quite abrasive and told us we either pay the additional $800 or she would cancel the deposit. She kept saying they’d already rented a van and made travel arrangements (which we’d never agreed to or were made aware of).

She claimed the airlines wouldn’t let us fly with the puppy due to COVID, which was not true, and seemed very against us visiting the farm. We told her we’d think about it, but really wanted to see the farm ourselves and also didn’t like the thought of being forced into paying an additional $800 when we were already paying $3,000 for the puppy. Within five minutes after we got off the phone, Janet texted saying she’d cancelled the deposit. We were on our honeymoon at the time which she could have cared less about, we were devastated.

We did get our deposit back, but it always seemed
off that Janet was so against us visiting Okefeild and set on the puppy being delivered directly.

Since the ordeal, we’ve adopted a puppy from a reputable breeder in Illinois and were indeed able to fly back with him without issues. We wanted to post this to make others aware of our experience. Feel free to reach out to me if you want more details or have any questions.

Update/Reply to Janet on Original Post-

Janet,
While I appreciate you asking your vet, we were never short of professional opinions. Over the last 6 weeks we consulted 3 different vets. And every single one said a big possibility is diet. After over $500 in vet bills and countless hours of cleaning up diarrhea in her kennel, we did change her diet and within 24 hours, everything improved. Now, 1 week later, we have had no issues.
So to update you, it was 100% her diet. Not the medicine, not the boarding facility, not anything but her diet.
So I would happily take an updated health guarantee with the diet requirement removed. I would also expect an apology to myself and my wife for how “stern” you were on changing/altering everything BUT the diet, when that ended up costing us hundreds of more dollars and hours of our time, but most importantly kept our dog sick for even longer. I believe those two things are the least you could do.

While we were initially very impressed by Janet and the team at Okefield Acres, we have recently discovered that the “required Life’s Abundance diet” is directly beneficial to Janet. She is a field representative for Life’s Abundance, and although she doesn’t disclose this information, she gains a profit for every time we order this expensive food and their treats. In other words, when purchasing a puppy from Okefield Acres, you not only pay Janet initially for the puppy, but if you want to keep the health warranty, you continue to pay her indirectly every time you order more product from Life’s Abundance. Our dog from Janet developed horrible digestion issues about 5 weeks ago and a local vet recommended the possibility of changing her diet. We have desperately tried to follow Janet’s strict contract believing that she had our dog’s best interest at heart, so we consulted her as well to try to find a solution for our sick puppy. She tried to blame any and every possible cause BESIDES the diet after we have already had extensive testing to rule out other causes. After consulting three veterinarians, we are still battling the digestion issues and all three believe it is due to a diet allergy, which will force us to break Janet’s contract. We thought it was strange to have a diet requirement for the entire life of the dog (and so did the vets), but again tried to give Janet the benefit of the doubt and abide by her rules. We are incredibly disappointed to find out the deceitfulness that she exhibits as a business owner. We paid a tremendous amount of money for our dog and should have been given full honesty from the beginning.
While I love the dog we received from Okefield Acres, Janet should have been transparent about the multi-level-marketing she was requiring all customers to comply with in order to keep the health guarantee. I believe the actions were unethical and misleading as it is hard to differentiate whether the motive is personal financial gain or what is best for the dog. When you see a breeder who requires you to sign a lifetime contract to keep a dog on a particular food— BUYER BEWARE!!! We will not be purchasing another dog from Okefield Acres ever again and would not recommend to anyone.

Update since originally wrote review…we have given Janet chance after chance to make this right before posting our feelings. To this day, she will not admit that she was wrong in this situation and has failed to really address any of our concerns. It is a huge disappointment because we have continually tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but at this point, we are tired of hoping for something to change. We ultimately switched our puppy’s food a few days ago after having her on multiple medications over the past 5 weeks, and we have almost immediately seen a difference for the better. We have always only wanted the best for our dog and after taking the advice of several vets to change her food, this is the first time we actually have a sign of hope for some improvement. We are out time, energy, and hundreds of dollars over this issue in an attempt to AVOID changing her food because of Janet, and I only wish we had done it way sooner.