I'd really appreciate hearing from Old English Sheepdog owners and breeders on here. The champdogs price chart finishes in 2023 and I'm getting some really varied prices for OES pups.

Would love to know what people would expect from a £3500 pup that's 5 months old, and a 2 month old pup that's £1250.
Would you expect full health checks on both parents for those prices?

Any advice appreciated. Trying not to be taken advantage of as haven't bought a pup in 12 years.

Thanks

I don't know about OES particularly, but I do know that £3500 is a very high price for a 5 month pup. I can only assume that it was a potential show dog that the breeder has run on and it hasn't developed as expected, and is being sold as a show pup but not a good fit for them. If it's being sold as a pet then it's very expensive; I know it's cost money to rear but older pups are usually no more costly than the usual 8 week pups because they are, let's face it, less 'desirable' having lost the 'cute puppy' factor and, unless the breeder has been very conscientious in training and socialisation, potentially has bad habits that, at that age, can be very hard to overcome. You need to ask lots and lots of questions about how it's been reared - in the house so it's fully house-trained? Is it used to going into towns and is used to walking in crowds and traffic? If it hasn't been off the breeder's premises much then it's at a big disadvantage and fear of these unknown experiences can be a permanent part of its nature.

I assume the younger pup is kennel club registered, and from health tested parents? Regularly wormed, microchipped and possibly had its first vaccination?

I don't know about OES puppy prices specifically but whatever the breed £3500 for a 5 month puppy is surely excessive unless the dog is able to be shown (good enough) in which case why are the breeders not keeping the puppy themselves?  I'd say £1250 is probably ok for an 8 week puppy.  Certainly my breed commands that kind of price.

Personally I'd swerve the older puppy and especially at that price!!  JMO.

These were my thoughts. I've asked loads of questions. Apparently it was a small litter of 4. She's keeping 2 and has sold one. He's not being sold as a show dog.
He's chipped, wormed and nearly house trained. Not registered yet... she says she wanted the new owner to pick the name. Is it unusual to not register the pups? I've seen mum and dad's health profiles on kc and they look good.

>Is it unusual to not register the pups?

Yes, definitely unusual. This can be a deceptive ploy by unscrupulous breeders (NOT saying that this is one, but you need to be careful) when the litter can't be registered for some reason (endorsements on one or both parents, bitch too old or too young, litters too close together and so on) so they say that the registration documents will follow but they never do. This is especially suspicious if they're keeping two pups themselves and haven't registered the litter. I would walk away from the older one - there are multiple alarm bells ringing.

How about the health tests for the younger one's parents? Is that one registered?

Thanks so much for the advice.
These are the parents health profiles.

https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/search/dog-profile/?dogId=80fe3141-6654-ed11-9562-0022481b5839

https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/search/dog-profile/?dogId=cde35aa6-636c-eb11-a812-000d3a8723e5

>These are the parents health profiles.

Neither parent has any health tests recorded (at the very least you'd need hip scores) and there's no record of the litter being registered.

I thought I could see the inbreeding info and hip scored being -10 for dad. So confused! New to this health stuff. Thanks for helping

On the pages for both dog and bitch it says "Notice: Our records indicate that this dog does not have any health results recorded on our system. Please consult The Kennel Club's health standard for details on the recommended tests and contact the owner to confirm if these have been obtained." A dog which had been tested would have a page like the dog's sire.

Hips are scored in a range from 0 (perfect) to 106 (cripplingly dreadful). The average score for the Old English Sheepdog is 13, so ideally both parents would have been x-rayed and scored no higher. This isn't a litter that I would recommend, I'm afraid.

I have just looked at OES puppies on 'that' website and am shocked to see how many (the majority)  puppies are from an OES mix.  And not cheap either.

nearly house trained at 5 months?  either bad training or the dog is very thick.  no reason shouldn't be fully housetrained at that age and started other basic training.
together with the other points I would avoid that breeder and the price is insane