i am a breeder in uk and was just wondering what other breeders views/policies are of keeping sold puppies after 8 weeks until they can be collected.a fellow breeder of mine charges £5 per day from buyers if they wish to collect them at nine or ten weeks.she also gets the pups vaccinated and adds them to the buyers total cost.ive kept pups for ten weeks for people without charging them extra and got their jabs done after 8 weeks.whats your views.

We only let our puppies go home at under 10 weeks (and then only at no younger than 8 weeks!) to people I knew or who had had Bassets before.   In truth, we never had any 'stickers' so no, we made no extra charge, either for boarding, or vaccinating.   We had one puppy who we'd kept back until her dam's sister whelped her litter and then eventally made the decision the first puppy wasn't as good as the second litter was overall, so advertised her for sale, as an older puppy (so costing less than she would have at 10 weeks) by which time obviously she'd had her puppy vaccinations.   She went off, but the home didn't work out for a number of reasons, so we took her back.   And yes, at that point we charged a boarding fee (just a few pounds per day) up to the time a new home was found - which wasn't for more than a week!!  

With respect, I think this person is pushing it to be charging £5 on top of her normal puppy prices.   But I suppose, again, if the market will stand this, so be it.   Personally I'd rather hang onto the puppy until the new owners were ale to take it, if that happened.

With my last litter I kept one sold one till he was 10 weeks old, only charging for his vaccinations; I had another two back at separate times within a month for holiday boarding but they provided their own food and I didn't charge extra for two reasons. Firstly I'm not insured nor licenced to board dogs, and secondly just knowing they were safe and not with more strangers (who I hadn't vetted) or in a boarding kennel was reward enough.

In my last litter I kept one pup to 10 weeks, one to 11 weeks and one to 4 ½ months (the last was going abroad). I only charged for extra vet fees eg. vaccination and passport. I lead trained them all and took them out and about, one was entered into a fun dog show for the experience and travelled across the country with us to meet friends, etc -it's just what you have to do as to me the best homes are far more important than which potential buyer can collect their puppy first. If the home is great and they have a genuine reason for not collecting at 8 weeks, I don't want to penalise them.

I too am keeping a puppy here till 16 weeks this time as it will need its pet passport before travelling to its new home. The new owners are good friends and I will only charge for the jabs and pet passport, possibly a donation towards food but doubtful as one more mouth to feed is not a huge expense. However I will have them sign a PS on my usual contract to say that vet fees for "Non-breeder negligence covering accidents and illness" will be met by the new owners and I will take payment at 8 weeks. Like Marianne I will socialize the pup as much as possible. That is a big part of agreeing to keep a pup on longer and also the most "Time expensive" part, but you must remember if you agreed to keep the pup longer you MUST put the time in just as if the pup was your own.
Aileen

Again I'm struck by the kindness & generosity of members, when we choose our youngest many years ago arranged with his breeder that he'd stay with her an extra week so we could have a weekend away picking him up on the way home (don't go on holiday & it would have been our 2nd weekend away in ten years) she was absolutely fine with this. Phoned some days before hand to see how they both were & to confirm a time the following Monday to be told she had never agreed to the extra week & if we wanted the pup to pick him up on Saturday, denied that she'd ever known our plans. So cancelled our weekend, lost the deposit & then a day or so latter got a call to say she'd be away showing at the weekend & Otto was to be collected on the Monday!! LOL, talk about a sign of what was to come!!

My breed are normally homed from at over 7 weeks of age, as they are very forward, and really start to need more individual attention by then. 

The breed club code of ethics states homing not under 7 weeks and in practice most of our good breeders allow pups to leave at around 8 weeks, with only a few days less to allow for weekend collection, as it is rare for pups to sell locally.

So with that background I consider up to 10 weeks to be normal homing age, as I certainly don't want all pups leaving at once. 

There is so much to go over with new owners and time needed with people travelling long distances, that it is impractical to have more than two pups leave at a time.

So any puppies booked but unable to be collected until after 10 weeks I charge £25 a week for keeping them longer, and if vaccinations are to be done then these are charged for.

Obviously unsold pups over that age are simply sold at normal price, and the extra costs absorbed.

I've kept pups past the usual 8 weeks on request of the new owner, I only charged extra for the vaccinations but I did ask them to pay for the pup at the 8 week point to show commitment and each time they have been more than happy to do so.

Mine don't go until 12 weeks but if one needs to be here longer I don't charge any more.

Only 2 litters, but I've never charged any more aside from the vaccinations, and any other vet related fees that wouldn't have been incurred had they gone.  One buyer lived in a flat, so asked if I could keep the pup till their jabs were done, so they were safe to take them outside.  I only asked for the cost of the jabs.  A couple have been an extra few weeks due to holiday timing, either when they could take the time off to settle pup in, or to get past a family holiday where too many people would be around.  All have offered to pay extra to cover food etc, but I've never taken it. 

If the shoe were on the other foot, I would happily pay extra for pup to stay, and be pleasantly surprised if they didn't.

It's about the perfect home.  I don't mind waiting provided they have the right home at the end of it.

I was asked to keep a puppy as the new owners were going away. When I asked for them to pay for her at 8 weeks they refused saying that then they would be paying for something they didn't have! Needless to say they didn't get the pup and I was grateful I'd found out what sort of people they were