I paid X amount of money for a stud fee a year ago for a very nice dog well known in my breed ect ect ect.now im thinking about having my girl speyed,no reason what so ever accept that ive seen a lovely puppy whom i could purchase(hate that saying) instead of having a home bred baby which i might add ive been waiting 3 years for now!
im happy to wait dont get me wrong i just REALLY want to get out there and start showing.Jazz my new standard puppy is unfortunatley not showable which has upset me but we love her and shes a bouncy gorgeous pup so who cares...

so my question...where do i stand having already paid a stud fee?my girl was mated last season and missed and yes its a good 11 months for her next season so im in a dialema here...do you think its fair to ask for a refund or is that something stud dog owners do?
i know i did..ive refunded the whole stud fee after they decided NOT to re mate...
what do you think??

Unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned, we pay for the service not puppies. 
In my breed a free mating is often agree if no pups are produced from the first mating, but I wouldn't expect any refund if I decided not to mate my bitch again.  The stud dog owner had given their time for the mating and if the dog had done his job.... 
Sorry. :(

yep makes sense...i kinda gathered that anyhoo but thought it worth trying lol

I totally agree with West Coast there is no more to add !

Yep same as Westcoast here.

Did you have a written contract with the stud dog owner? If not, I suppose they are quite within their rights to keep the fee. Personally as a stud dog owner I wouldn't do that, in fact I don't like to take payment until confirmation of pregnancy or birth of puppies (or even sale of puppies depending on the bitch owner).
You could contact them and ask what the position would be if you weren't to take up the repeat mating - was one definitely offered if the first mating wasn't productive?

Sorry, I agree with the others, you paid for a mating and got it, and it's a courtesy to allow you a free return, you definitely can't expect a refund I'm afraid. :-)

I would let them know - courtesy if they offered a free remate, and they might offer a refund.  If they did not offer it I probably would not ask.

My bitch failed twice to get pregnant with 2 different studs owned by a breeder, she let me use my other bitch and I got pups, no way would I have asked for my money back and I didn't ask for the fee to be transferred, I turned up with the money for the third trip but she refused to take it, fees are not horrendously high in my breed and vary from stud owners, I have been quoted £175 for an unproven to £350 for a champ but there are those charging £500+ so I have heard.

As has been said you are paying for the knowledge,expertise and time of the stud owner, getting pups is a bonus.

You got nothing to loose to ask! In my breed stud fees go +£1000 and in all honesty if person is to keep that keep that kind of money for a "service" i think it is a bit mean & greedy. I would not personally dream of doing so myself if i had males! And would be put off using a stud that the owner demanded such payment for the service ad sadly bitche missing is quite common in the breed., most in my breed only ask stud fee once bitch is confirmed pregnant, few i know have waived the fee if only one or two puppies...
we seem quite nice and relaxed and fair bunch it seems!

> fees are not horrendously high in my breed

In my breed they are the price of a puppy, so most stud dog owners don't take a fee unelss there are pups.

In my breed it varies £200 - £250 for a really super dog.  So huge difference all round, dependent on breed.

I have just been to Holland to use a dog and the stud fee was 200 euro on the day handling fee and 100 euros at 8 weeks for every live puppy. No free returns just a flat handling fee and then a fee for the pups depending on numbers. In my mind this is a great way to deal with stud fees and fair all round. Stud fees for my breed in the UK are often in 4 figures and offer free returns but no difference in fees even if the litter results in a singleton or  14 pups !!
Aileen

I offered this type of stud fee to the last person who used one of my boys at stud. She decided that she'd rather just pay a flat fee, whether she had 2 or 12 pups.

Having said that, I don't charge a fee until pregnancy is confirmed (at the earliest). I'm a soft touch and recently didn't charge a fee at all when the person who'd used my boy had awful problems and only ended up with one live puppy and in the past have only charged a part fee for a small litter. I must say, however, that no one has ever offered me a larger fee when they've ended up with a large litter!

I do feel that having a handling fee payable at the mating and then an agreed amount per puppy does feel fairer all round.

I must say, however, that no one has ever offered me a larger fee when they've ended up with a large litter!

If there was a magic wand that could decide numbers, I'd happily pay double stud fee to ensure I never had more than 4 pups! That to me would be worth so much.

> I must say, however, that no one has ever offered me a larger fee when they've ended up with a large litter!

but it is the bitch that determines numbers both with the number of eggs produced and the number she can carry. the stud owner provides millions of sperm. the bitch actually only uses  a few of them.

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know why there is the massive variation in stud fees between breeds. I always thought it was price of a pup, till I got my working cockers, and was shocked to see even for a superb dog who, rare for the breed, had had all health tests done inc hipscores, meant a stud fee of only £250-£300.

For working cockers (in this area) that is the price of a pup.

A stud fee will often be more like half the price of a pup at least until the quality of the offspring (in maturity) has been proved. That said, I remember, many years ago when the price of a nice quality dal pup was about £350, the stud fee for the breed CC record holder was only £250. Othe stud dog owners weren't all as reasonable.

Never seen them priced that low before. Here they sell for £600, and that's what I paid for mine. 

For the large breeds, which generally have larger litters, a stud fee seems to be around the price of a puppy, so that would be approximately an eighth of the "value" of a litter. I wonder if it works out to be the same sort of proportion in smaller breeds which tend to have smaller litters? Just curious :)

And I do know that it is the bitch that determines litter size :) My comment was rather tongue in cheek about not being offered a larger stud fee for a bigger than average litter but like I said, I seem to be a soft touch and don't take a fee if there is no litter and only take a part fee if there is a small litter.

What do people feel about a sliding scale stud fee, based on the number of puppies?

Having been in the same breed as you Romside for a number of years, most people I know offer their stud and do not ask for the fee until puppies are actually born! Of course there are always one or two that see the £££ signs and can't wait to get their hands on the cash, but these people are very much in the minority, but even so, most owners of studs would only ever offer a repeat mating next time FOC, I've never heard of anyone who effectively refunds the money paid if no pups
  I agree that you are paying for the service not the puppies

In our breed this varies tremendously. A couple of the bigger kennels where  it is also their business take payment up front and offer a free mating when the bitch misses. I don't think they vary from that. It is usually their price for a puppy which would be more than my price. I have found some of the smaller hobby breeders charge half that even with Champion dogs.
I have mostly used smaller hobby breeders dogs ( not that much choice in our breed anyway ) who kindly say they only charge if there are any puppies. The litter I am expecting now, I did contact someone else first as my bitch would not have another litter because of their age and they would not budge on the free mating. As I would not use the same dog for my youngster ( who will not be bred from for a year ago ) I declined the offer.
The most important thing is that there is no uncertainty about the "contract" you are entering into, then there can be no problems later.
I have never owned an active stud dog but I hope if I did I would put myself in the latter category as we are all in it for the better of our breed when we are showing.

> I wonder if it works out to be the same sort of proportion in smaller breeds which tend to have smaller litters? Just curious :-)
>
>

With my breed an average litter is 1 - 3 pups.  And the stud fee is less than half the price of a pup.  I paid £250 to use a dog from one of the top lines.
 
However, I had someone use one of my boys.  She wanted a bitch puppy to keep.  (When that happens for me, I usually find the bitch has 2 male pups!)  :-)

She got one dead puppy and was devastated.  I really felt for her, and offered her a free service for her bitch at a later date.  Although, if we are strictly honest, this is not compulsory.

I wonder if it works out to be the same sort of proportion in smaller breeds which tend to have smaller litters? Just curious :-)

Most likely not -it's so rare for litters that only have 2 or 3 pups to have more than one (at most) actually being sold. Stud fee price of a pup, and the only pup likely to be sold would be a pet one for less money (in my toy breed anyway) so you pay more for the stud fee than you get in puppy sales. Unless you let the stud owner have a pup instead of fee, which is very common.

That litter I mentioned above there was 3 pups, pick bitch went to the dams breeder, the pick of litter male stayed to be my first show dog and his sister was suppose to be my breeding bitch but never grew bigger than 7lb so too small to be bred from safely and I didn't want to start producing under sized dogs.

The bitch who left me has had 11 pups in 2 litters and some of them are now in the ring.

I prefer to pay the stud fee up front,  it is done and dusted and future money goes towards whelping etc., imagine having out of hours vet bills for a c/section and have 14 live pups you then had to pay a fee for each to the stud owner.

Have responded to similar threads as this in the past and have recently had a bad experience having allowed my boy to be used at stud .However...I have to agree with Noora . I do not charge a stud fee until the puppies have been' on the ground' for two weeks. I have come to the conclusion that the fairest modus operandi is to charge a handling fee and a fixed price per viable puppy born. This is no reflection what so ever of the quality ( lack of !) of my boys and I insist that bitches are fully health screened including temperament . But.. to charge an enormous sum of money with no guarantees of result reflects badly on the world of dog breeding. We risk being regarded as mercenary and unscrupulous. I  know of many 'top'breeders whose dogs are used so frequently  at stud that there is a grave risk to the gene pool in the breed .I could go on but risk deviating from this thread.

I have show type cockers and have paid £350 - £500 stud fees, always paid at time of first mating and given a contract to say free mating next season same bitch/dog should there be no pups.

I wouldn't dream of asking for a refund, the dog has done his duty, which is what you are paying for.

I paid above the average for the stud.im not 'just' wanting a refund lol,,it was just a question really...
Ive decided to try once more with her as matt said ive waited so long and as shes due soon anyway i cant get her speyed this close to the season so may as well give her another try and if it fails it just wasnt meant to be

the main reason for asking was because when i had one lady use my male at stud she only had a singlton(very small litter for that breed) and he died..i had a litter myself at the time and all this lady wanted was a male pup for herself so i gave her a puppy of mine! she paid me £500 stud fee and my pups were at £650 (we're goig back here i will never have another litter of this breed)...i felt so awful as her bitch needed c section and i couldnt bare to see her go though all that with nothing at the end....his name is neo and hes gorgeous i just wondered about others ideas and their ways really...

thanks its been interesting