Hi.  I'm fairly new to breeding.
I have so far had one litter  back in Oct 2019.
I own both parents. Both are KC registered and had all health tests specific to the breed.
The pups had the addition of a Hearing and Eye test at 6 weeks. As my stud is a Merle.
All pups were registered with restrictions.

I charged then £900 per pup. Which was about £100 more than I paid for my dogs a couple of years earlier.

But now with this ridiculous pricing going on I'm unsure what to do.
I'm expecting my bitch in season soon and was intending on breeding her again with my boy.

I've even spoken to my vet about it. He said that I should raise the price as otherwise some nasty piece of work will buy a decent dog for a snip and resell it for double. I hadn't thought of that. (He didn't use those actual words that's just me).

So what I would like to know from other breeders what would you say was the right sort of price.
As I would be horrified if any of my hard work and wonderful dog went to just anyone.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi Dewie.

It is a very difficult situation we are in at the moment. For me I would (and have) stuck to breed averages from pre-covid and then vetted new owners throughly so that I minimise the risk of my pups being sold on for a profit as much as possible.

My vetting process is a questionnaire to start with that potential owners have to fill in before being added to the waiting list if they are deemed initially suitable. I then speak to people via video call (if face to face not possible like now) and have numerous messages going back and forth between these as well.

There is always a risk that someone will do something with your pup that you don’t like, no matter how strict you are with your vetting process, even before covid price hiking. For me I would rather not price out people who could be fabulous homes. Plus my conscience won’t let me hike prices by 100%+. That’s just me. All of my pups go to people on my waiting list so they have all been waiting a good six months at least by the time they could potentially get a pup from me as I’m not planning on breeding very often. Once a year if that. This does mean that I have plenty of time to get to know people though which makes it easier than dealing with direct replies to adverts once the pups are on the ground.

Hope that helps.

I paid £900 for my bitch in 2016 and £1200 for my import last year (exclusive of transport). Think we have a similar breed based on what you’ve said, I’m planning my first litter for end of this year and I’m going to charge £1750 for puppies I have to publicly advertise based on non tested pups in the breed selling for around £1500-2000. I’ve tested my girl well above the breed club requirements and I’ll also be doing BVA eye tests on pups at 8 weeks, hearing not required for me. I would charge £1500 if these crazy prices have dropped by then and anyone referred from the stud will also be offered £1500 regardless, which is the price the stud owner has always priced hers at even pre Covid.

And I’ll add that between me keeping at least one, one going back to Europe to my girl’s breeder and at least two interested at this stage by the stud I’m hoping it will be only a couple if not less of publicly available. I think they’ll go really quickly based on the constant breeder requests on my breed Facebook group. Usually available pups are gone the day they are advertised.

I'd charge what you did before with a cost of living increase, maybe up to £1200 to cover additional costs due to covid and Brexit.

Thanks Masajackrussell,

Very helpful. However I don't have such a large waiting list, i do have 2 people waiting.
So I need to get an easy way of sifting out the bad apples.
I saw on here somewhere but of course cant find it again that some of you track the phone numbers and addresses. How do you do that?

No I couldn't live with myself if I was to rip people off.

Thanks again

Thanks

Very helpful.

> I saw on here somewhere but of course cant find it again that some of you track the phone numbers and addresses. How do you do that?

I have a spreadsheet that I record all enquires on but I’m a bit of a nerd like that. Love a spreadsheet

Others just use a good old fashion notepad and pen!

Just thought if you mean finding out more about people then google and Facebook is your friend. If you have their address look it up on google maps too.

Dewie:> I saw on here somewhere but of course cant find it again that some of you track the phone numbers and addresses. How do you do that?<br />

Hiya:  every puppy you sell will have been microchipped and added to one of the UK Microchip Databases. As the Breeder you are responsible for transferring ownership
details to that database so all that vetting you have done pre sale will be relevant to this responsibility.

You can then go back onto the site at anytime in the future and check if previous owners have made any changes over time.  Hope this helps

Hi Hoggie,

Thanks but that's not what I meant.

Yes the microchip is my responsibility.

It was a way of checking the prospective owners were giving a kosha address.
The post said something about a lady asking for a pup, but when this person checked out the adress she found the address to be selling 2 other breeds from that house.

Dewie

> The post said something about a lady asking for a pup, but when this person checked out the adress she found the address to be selling 2 other breeds from that house.

That's a general google search that will bring that sort of info most likely. Works well with mobile numbers as people put them on adverts.

Fb and generally googling peoples names can also bring stuff up that nay be useful

Also just checked on my microchip site. Once the chip has been transferred i can no longer see where its is.

> Also just checked on my microchip site. Once the chip has been transferred i can no longer see where its is.

Neither can I. Only info I can get when I put a chip number in anywhere is the company it is registered with - then get told to phone to find out who the registered keeper is.

Dewie:  > It was a way of checking the prospective owners were giving a kosha address> <br />Thanks but that's not what I meant

Oops apologies! The Official Govt Electoral Role can provide details of who is where and confirm info you are given re home address etc.
It also gives a history of previous addresses & current address if you have some detail of where they have lived.

Cool Thanks

If things relax a bit consider doing home checks, even if it means someone else you trust doing it for you if you don't live near.
There is no way I would say yes to anyone without meeting them 1st, so a socially distanced walk might be I if things continue like this for a while but you really want to meet everyone in the home and current restrictions aren't allowing that right now.
Let's hope things change come spring and summer