I had a pair of Merrell shoes that lasted me about 8 years with no issues. My new puppy was the shoes demise, but I still wore them with the tops chewed up a bit. So when I was in the market for a new pair of snow boots, and heard that Merrell had a lifetime of the shoe warrenty (excluding puppies chewing on them) I decided to pay the extra and get good quality. I have only had my Merrell GRIP FALCON PERFORMANCE FOOT WEAR FOR 2 WINTERS. the material has ripped and the nylon zipper is cheap and started unraveling so that I cannot zip up the boot past the top of my ankle. So I go on line to see what the warrenty says... and it looks like they no longer stand by the MERRELL name. Or maybe like LL Bean there were too many customers taking advantage of the returns. If that's the case, they should stop using cheaper materials in making their shoes, or know the price down to meet the cheap materials they are now using. Did this company get bought out?