diff --git a/.bzrignore b/.bzrignore
index 853b28a6..fcbf594b 100644
--- a/.bzrignore
+++ b/.bzrignore
@@ -7,3 +7,4 @@ release
 snapshot
 .DS_Store
 build
+special/percona-toolkit/v-c-internal
diff --git a/lib/Percona/Toolkit.pm b/lib/Percona/Toolkit.pm
index cec5f22d..492c2fce 100644
--- a/lib/Percona/Toolkit.pm
+++ b/lib/Percona/Toolkit.pm
@@ -21,6 +21,8 @@
 package Percona::Toolkit;
 our $VERSION = '2.1.8';
 
+sub bzr_repo { q{~percona-toolkit-dev} }
+
 1;
 }
 # ###########################################################################
diff --git a/lib/VersionCheck.pm b/lib/VersionCheck.pm
index 3ccae908..6f735f90 100644
--- a/lib/VersionCheck.pm
+++ b/lib/VersionCheck.pm
@@ -42,6 +42,10 @@ use Sys::Hostname  qw(hostname);
 use File::Basename qw();
 use File::Spec;
 
+use IPC::Cmd qw(can_run);
+use FindBin  qw();
+use Cwd      qw();
+
 eval {
    require Percona::Toolkit;
    require HTTPMicro;
@@ -106,6 +110,36 @@ sub version_check {
          return;
       }
 
+      if ( !$ENV{PERCONA_FORCE_VERSION_CHECK} ) {
+         # Check if we're running from a bzr repo, and that repo is ours.
+         if ( my $bzr = can_run('bzr') ) {
+            my $percona_repo = Percona::Toolkit::bzr_repo();
+            my $info         = `$bzr info 2>/dev/null`;
+            if ( $info && $info =~ /\Q$percona_repo/ ) {
+               PTDEBUG && _d('--version-check disabled by running from a bzr checkout');
+               return;
+            }
+         }
+
+         # Perhaps bzr isn't available, but we're still running from
+         # a bzr repo. Brian occasionally does this when running in
+         # his VMs, since it's usually easier than installing bzr.
+         # So check if $Cwd/.bzrignore or $FindBin::Bin/../.bzrignore
+         # exist, and if they do, check if it has this line:
+         # special/percona-toolkit/v-c-internal
+         for my $dir ( Cwd::cwd(), File::Spec->updir($FindBin::Bin) ) {
+            my $ignore = File::Spec->catfile($dir, '.bzrignore');
+            next unless -r $ignore;
+            open my $fh, '<', $ignore or next;
+            chomp(my $file_contents = do { local $/ = undef; <$fh> });
+            close $fh;
+            if ( $file_contents =~ m{special/percona-toolkit/v-c-internal} ) {
+               PTDEBUG && _d('--version-check disabled by running from a bzr checkout');
+               return;
+            }
+         }
+      }
+
       # Name and ID the instances.  The name is for debugging,
       # and the ID is what the code uses to prevent double-checking.
       foreach my $instance ( @$instances ) {
diff --git a/t/lib/VersionCheck.t b/t/lib/VersionCheck.t
index 8cb4f836..caaaf2fd 100644
--- a/t/lib/VersionCheck.t
+++ b/t/lib/VersionCheck.t
@@ -25,6 +25,8 @@ my $sb  = new Sandbox(basedir => '/tmp', DSNParser => $dp);
 my $master_dbh = $sb->get_dbh_for('master');
 my $slave1_dbh = $sb->get_dbh_for('slave1');
 
+local $ENV{PERCONA_FORCE_VERSION_CHECK} = 1;
+
 sub test_v {
    my (%args) = @_;