Recently there have been quite a few comments on the board regarding prices of puppies and using price as a means of controlling who might be allowed to buy or not buy a puppy.

I have been thinking about this, because I do wonder, if we are honest, nobody really counts the time as paid employment that they spend rearing a good litter. Even feeding the best foods and doing all the health checks, there must be some small profit, to put back into our dogs, perhaps for show fees or what ever. Are we therefore charging ever higher prices, for puppies and therefore encouraging the greedy breeders who churn out endless amounts of puppies.

We have discussed on two threads recently that being able to buy a high priced puppy does not make a good owner. While we all try to find the best owners perhaps we are in a vicious circle of raising prices, searching for owners in what is considered, if the pet products surveys on pet ownership are to be believed,to be a dwindling market.

If we dropped prices instead of raising them would people be less inclined to breed for profit and would it affect the type of good home we could find for the puppies? What do you think? By the way I have not bred a litter since 1993, so have no idea what current prices for every thing needed and puppies are. I do know litter sizes vary and I do know food prices vary.

I think you have some very interesting points.  :)  I'm a dog owner (not a breeder).  My dogs are purely pets, not show dogs.  We've always had rescue dogs in the past, but this time we wanted a dog of a particular breed and we also wanted a puppy, so we bought a dog.  We are reasonably afluent, can comfortably afford to pay vets fees, and we look after our animals properly.  Our home is quite big, we have a reasonable garden, live opposite a park, 5 minutes drive from the beach etc.etc. and I'd say that we are loving, responsible and happy normal people who enjoy having pets as part of our family.  We have 2 dogs and 2 cats.

For us to pay £600 for a puppy just seems to much.  It's not that we can't afford £600 but we would find it hard to justify spending that much on an animal, maybe because we've always rescued before.  We're not concerned about show lines, champions, or anything like that, but are concerned with temperament more than anything.  We've had a pup from what is probably termed a 'back yard breeder' for £350.  He's registered with the KC, kennel is licensed, and in fact I got their details from the kennel club.  This seems a far more reasonable price for us as a family to pay for a pet. 2 friends of mine have also just got puppys (pure coincidence and different breeds), but they've also gone the same route one paying £350 and one paying £275.  All our homes are going to be wonderful loving homes for these dogs.

Hi both Polly & Topsy,

Average prices within each breed are not dictated by whether one pup or a whole litter is destined for a pet home anymore than several within a well bred, even litter are likely to be predominantly show prospects (not show dogs, just pups showing a potential for developing into same ;) )   It costs exactly the same amount of money to raise a rising starlet as it does to raise a family pet - incidentally, although Topsy mentions  >>"We're not concerned about show lines, champions, or anything like that, but are concerned with temperament more than anything"<< every breeder who has the interests of their breed at heart is concerned by every one of those criteria hence a healthy, well bred, well socialised and correctly raised puppy will almost certainly have some very influential dogs in it's pedigree - serious breeders, who are also the most highly respected ones, want to ensure that they produce an entire litter of happy, healthy pups and don't compromise on their care or pre-sale socialising etc.

If you find a breeder who has no "show lines or champions" in their stock, I'd question their motive for breeding - probably only to make money.  They can sell their pups more cheaply than a good breeder for the simple reason that nothing like the same expenditure is involved when the necessary health testing (with good results) of parents isn't done,  the best pre-natal and post-natal care of the bitch isn't done, the top quality diet isn't fed to wean the pups, the veterinary fees are nil because they don't want the added expense of home visits to ensure all is well with dam and litter, etc etc etc.  Put simply, you get what you pay for - why scrimp on a couple of hundred pounds for something which is a living breathing animal that will hopefully spend the next 12-15 years of it's life being your devoted companion? 

You could save it now - but what if all is now quite as good as it should be with regard to screened out hereditary faults - £200 saved today could cost an outlay of several thousand pounds a short while down the line.

Incidentally being registered with the KC costs all of £12 per puppy - and provides absolutely no warranty whatsoever that any breeder is reliable - the Kennel Club as with any other business advertising would still recommend let the buyer beware!   Regards, Teri :) 

You could save it now - but what if all is not quite as good as it should be with regard to screened out hereditary faults - £200 saved today could cost an outlay of several thousand pounds a short while down the line.

I agree Teri.  I had a lovely retired couple who'd lost their Yorkie that I used to trim.  They asked me about dachsunds and I gave them the details of a club secretary who lived in our town.  They made an appointment for 2 pups to come for training in the parlour and I was surprised to see them arrive with 2 Cavalier puppies!!  They'd spoken to the secretary who'd told them that £600 was the going rate for a mini daxie puppy, but they found these Cavaliers advertised in the local paper, delivered to their door from a puppy farm for £400!  When the man arrived they thought that they looked lovely and so negotiated a price of £700 for 2 puppies, and the man was sooo pleased with himself, having got 2 puppies for only £100 more than the secretary wanted for one mini dachsund!!
As they stood outside the grooming parlour I could see the fleas jumping on them!  One of them was bunny hopping on its hind legs, was obviously undershot even without touching it and the other was bald inside its hind legs.  Neither had any coat for their age, what they did have looked dull and moth eaten.  I asked about worming, insurance, seeing the Dam etc and the owners had no idea what I was talking about.  I refused to have the pups in the parlour before they'd been seen by a Vet.  One pup had both knees repaired - luxating patellas.  Both had fleas, worm burden and scarcoptic mange.  When I saw them in 6 weeks time, the pensioners had paid the Vet over £600 and the work was not finished!

I believe that ALL pups, including the owners who want 'only a pet' should be good representatives of the breed and healthy in body and mind.  I see no reason why a specialist breeder, who devotes time, money and emotion to travel all over the country, learning about their chosen breed, studying pedigrees and stud dogs, doing their very best to breed good puppies, rearing them with the best food, giving them time to be properly socialised etc, should not charge more than a backyard breeder who does nothing more than mate a poor specimen dog and bitch together to produce, at best, mediocre puppies to sell to pet homes.  If people want to buy a cheap puppy and gamble like they do when they buy a lottery ticket, then this is a free country and there are choices for all.  Whilst you get no guarantees with breeding any livestock, my recommendation would be to buy from an experinced specialist breeder to improve your chances of a happy, healthy dog.  After all, if you write the purchase price off over 12 years, the capital outlay is not unreasonable and a small part of the overall cost of keeping a dog for those years.

Hi Val,

It's such a pity that this type of message and more detailed info of what is involved in correctly raising a litter can't be more accessible to the average pet buyer :(   No matter the campaign about "always see a puppy with its mother" -  that really isn't enough.  Some back yard breeders and puppy farmers will have no shortage of potential mothers to show an ill prepared pet owner

I wish there was an easy solution but if this crucial info made just one person a week turn away from the idea that they are being ripped off somehow by paying £100-£200 more for a puppy that should be a happy, healthy, good tempered pet that has been lovingly raised and comes with a lifetime's back-up from the breeder I think it would be easily proven that it was a VERY GOOD return for the initial higher outlay.

We can but dream!  Teri ;)

I do like this chart http://www.dog-play.com/breedercomparison.htm for setting out the point, as of course people think of volume when they think of poor breeders, but in fact it is the lots of poorly bred single litters that do as much damage to the integrity of a breed as the large scale producers do, but on the face of it seem ot the buyers to be nice breeeders breeding family pets.

That list is very explicit and details very well the importance of avoiding backyard breeders, Brainless.  I wonder what more we can do to explain that 'good' and 'backyard breeder' can't fit in the same sentence?

On my breed at least the pupy famed stock is being sold for the dame or more than reputable breeders charge.

The price has been £500 for some years now, and it would seem that the consensus is that the price should go up to £550 shortly.

I tend to work on the basic that a pup should cost twice the rearing cost of the litter, the balance to help offset the costs of keeping the line going.  I justify this on the basis that if I relied on someone else to do the breeding so that I could enjoy the breed then I would keep far fewer dogs, probably two at a time, whereas to establish and maintain my breeding line I need to keep 5 or 6 investing in new blood along with my fellow breeders and comparing and proving the worth of the stock produced.

I think that's about right Brainless.  Any profit that I make from a litter goes into my dog account to be reinvested back into my dogs.  Just take the cost of the dog papers for instance, read to keep up to date with what's going on, the latest on whelping and weaning, any new/better products to help, where and when the next Champ show is.  There goes another £100 a year that puppy producers wouldn't bother to spend!  Even if my dogs are out of coat, I still travel to many shows 'just to watch' and see what lines produce what quality and temperament.
Most of the people who come to me for puppies realise that a real breeder puts more into their puppies that a puppy producer which is why they are prepared to got on a waiting list and wait!  The sin of it is that the puppy producer, using either own or a convenient dog round the corner, not health testing (it's not a hobby but a duty as far as I'm concerned, to load 8 puppies into the car at 6AM and drive to the Opthalmologist for a 7.15AM appointment!! ;) ) probably make more money out of their second rate way of producing puppies.  I would put puppy farmers and one-off litters produced for the pet market in the same catagory from this point of view.  The general public wouldn't begin to understand that and just think that serious breeders, custodians of their breed, are greedy, money grabbing and asking unreasonable amount for their puppies. :(
Hopefully Teri by explaining more on forums like this we may help to educate families who are looking or may be looking in the future to add a companion to their families! :)

I agree that the puppy farmers are awful, and that practice should not be allowed especially when they are breeding pups that are unhealthy, and where the mother is treated awfully :(  It's a horrible practice.

But the 'backyard breeders' are not always so bad, and it's them that I don't really object to for breeding dogs as family pets at a lower cost than the show breeder.  With our puppy, having read everything recently on here and elsewhere, I'd say he came from a pretty good backyard breeder. There are some sh ch on his pedigree but from grandparents backwards.  We saw him with his mother who had a beautiful temperament, both with the puppies, with me and with my children, and they were all kept in really rather nice conditions.  Our pup is confident, vet says he seems v.healthy, he'd been socialised before we had him with children, adults of differing ages, horses, other dogs, and other country noises.  I accept that healthwise, longterm, we can't know for certain if he'll be healthy or not, but we all take that risk with any creature that we bring into our homes, including having our own children... and if something goes wrong, we look after them and do whatever is necessary to make them better.  We personally also always insure our pets.

We can but dream!
Keep dreaming Teri! ;)  Each family that we steer in the right direction, saving them emotional upset and Vets' fees is worth the time and effort! :)

But they can so harm no matter their good intentions if they know nothing about the health and requiremetns of the breed standards.  In your case with the dogs only a little way removed from recognised decent breeding they may have got lucky off the back of the good breeders behind their dogs, but they did nothing to better the breed if they did not health test or ensure the dogs met the breed standard.

In the same way anyone that breeds Champions in ther first litter is in fact reaping the rewards of the good foundations laid down by the breeders behind their dogs.  they really can't take any credit until the6y have bred a few generations on and produced good stock.

Also these breeders very rarely charge much less than the average for the breed from good breeders, ad you must rember their expenses will have been a lot less.

>I accept that healthwise, longterm, we can't know for certain if he'll be healthy or not, but we all take that risk >with any creature that we bring into our homes, including having our own children... and if something goes wrong, >we look after them and do whatever is necessary to make them better.  We personally also always insure our >pets.

Quite frankly Topsy, you are playing russian roulette, and so is anybody else who buys from a back yard breeder. These people do NOT do the health testing, that is WHY their prices are lower, and they do not have the knowledge needed to carefully plan a litter from the best possible parents. Yes any animal can get sick, but why LOWER the odds? And don't forget, there isn't ALWAYS something you CAN do to make them better.There are many problems that can crop up which are incurable. Take Cavaliers as an example (as in the couple mentioned in this thread from a puppy farm) -there you can be almost certain that by the age of 5 or so they will have very serious heart problems indeed if not from a breeder that has researched their lines VERY carefully, (may even die from it aged 5 or 6) and that really is the least of the problems the breed could have. Insurance won't matter in a case like that, because it will NOT cover the cost for life long medication.

Your dog may stay healthy for a year or 5, but the chances of it getting ill somewhere down the line is so much higher when you buy from a back yard breeder- how well the puppies were kept at the time makes no difference.  It may not seem like it matters a lot when you have a young healthy dog, but once it gets to say 8 or 9 and it is suddenly at the very END of its life, where others of the same breed from responsible show breeders may still have years to go, THEN it matters an awful lot. For instance, try explaining to children why your dog suddenly is so ill it will need to be put to sleep, depsite not actually being really classified as OLD yet. THAT is one of the worst experiences there is in life.

Marianne

Marianne

Some of what you say to me sounds as though you think I have never had a dog before, but that is not true.  I have had to explain to children why their beloved dog was going to be pts ... and he was a mongrel of spaniel type aged 12 when he died.  The dog before him, a Heinz 57 type was also 12 when he died, and the collie cross before him was actually 18 when he died.  It really doesn't matter to children whether their pet is 6 or 16 when it dies ... their loss is dreadful.

Every breeder breeds for

temprement
health
and
conformation

Normaly in that order (maybe health and temprement swaped round!)

You could breed a healthy good temperd dog but not have any conformation and end up with the dog looking nothing like it's breed! 

SOmething that costs nothing but time is research.  I don't even breed aussies (only show) but I no in the furture after uni and I'm in a job I would be interested in breeding them and I'm researching that now....(it's min 6 years till I can get a dog of my own let alone breed)  A good breeder will research lines and research the breed to which lines to avoid.

Anybody can put a champion to a champion but you may not get a single show quality dog out of that litter!

Any decent breeder will not breed for profit however may make a profit! 

I see where you're coming from Polly, but if people don't understand the difference in the quality, health and temperament between the pups produced by a specialist, knowledgable breeder and a puppy farmer/backyard breeder, then there doesn't seem to be any point.  I'm happy with my familes who are pleased to wait for a quality puppy, and appreciate what I put into them. :)

I paid £650 for my puppy and didn't think about the price because I felt re-assured that the breeder was reputable, the pups were healthy and both the parents had a good nature. There were some going for about £300 and but when I spoke with that breeder, I just didn't have the same vibe. I hope to spend at least the next 10 years with her, so good breeding can bring in higher prices as to cover their costs and to make a little for their efforts. A colleague of mine spent £1500 on her puppy (a bulldog).

To me £600 for a puppy isn't that much.  Not when you consider the years of companionship and joy the puppy will hopefully bring.  Even though mine are purely pets I would still rather buy from a show breeder than a back yard breeder.  I just feel the puppy would have had a better start in life.  Everyone chooses their own priorities when it comes to money.  While I would happily pay out for a quality puppy, I would think hard about spending hundreds on a holiday.  I don't think I could justify that even if I had someone dependable to look after the dogs.  Each to their own. 

What made me consider this was the fact that I know a puppy farmer who sells lots puppies, every year, it is her policy to ring reputable breeders and after making lots of enquiries, then puts up the price of the puppies to match reputable breeders, so she is making a hefty profit!

Now like you guys I know it does cost a lot to rear a quality litter with all the health tests done, and I warn people off buying from a "backyard breeder" too, but I do wonder whether price increases are something we should consider, everytime we put up the price of puppies, so do puppy farmers and backyard breeders, so do the insurance companies, the food manufacturers etc... So we spend more and we charge more, so the puppy farmer rubs their hands in glee thinking "more money how nice!" And then they get their friends in on this money making gravy train.

As to health testing, I know another such irresponsible breeder who does the health tests prior to breeding, she advertises they have been done, but does not tell potential owners that the sire and/or dam failed their health tests. She is only claiming in her ads they are tested, not that they have passed, so she cannot be touched by the trading standards. I've heard of one who sells her puppies by weight! Can you imagine that????

I mentioned food manufacturers, earlier, I'm sure this does not happen these days but a few years ago there were some food companies who asked all breeders signing up for their breeders club discount scheme that they should breed a minimum amount of litters from their bitches per year. So you can see why I was wondering how to best curb the excesses of the puppy farmer.

As to backyard breeders I don't think they should be confused with people taking a one off litter from a bitch to maintain a line they have always had, many of these people do not show or work their dogs, but their dogs may well be proven in other ways. I for example do not enjoy hanging around shows, waiting to go in the ring, I enjoy watching the breed judging. I do judge, and I do steward at both open and championship shows which I do enjoy. When I am at a show as a steward or judge I always like to stay to the end to see how things finish. I prefer working my dogs, but again I do not field trail them or do working tests any more. If anybody asked me are my dogs good workers my reply is "come shooting and see for yourself". So my pedigrees do not have a lot of red names on them, but the type of dog I have suits me and my needs and those of many people who come back time and again to ask for pups.

Hi Polly,

>I do wonder whether price increases are something we should consider, everytime we put up the price of puppies, so do puppy farmers and backyard breeders, so do the insurance companies, the food manufacturers etc...

Capping puppy prices at a sensible level certainly has its merits for some breeds - Bulldogs immediately spring to mind but there are others of course.  However the cost of breeding and raising a litter continues to increase too ;)  Vet prices are ever increasing so consequently all of the health tests become more expensive as does pre and post natal care, food prices rise so feeding a quality diet before during and after whelping becomes more expensive, the costs of all the equipment (particularly for first time breeders who are starting from scratch) is ever increasing, advertising any pups not pre-booked is an additional cost which seems to climb at frightening rates, everything down to the extra heating bills, laundry, electricity - there's probably more that's not immediately sprung to mind :rolleyes:

In my own breed prices haven't varied too much over the last few years and are generally about £50-£100 more down South where everything (including all the services above) is usually more expensive anyway.  Basically, I don't think good breeders should need to feel in any way responsible for bad ones ;)   Regards, Teri :)  

Hi Polly,

I think you have raised a very good point and an interesting line of debate. By increasing the price of an item (a dog, in this case), then you are placing that item in a 'niche' and as a bit of a status symbol. In this society of consummerism, we are frequently judged by how much things cost.

If breeders raise prices of the pups, then the puppy farmers will most definitely profit from this. If the experts put that breed in that high status category, then the puppy farmers will charge the same if not more. We all know that your normal pet person rarely knows what to look for in a good dog, not to mention in a good breeder.

I remember speaking to a couple of my friends and them asking me how much I paid for my puppy. Anyway, the conversation went on to 'brag' on how much they paid for theirs (more than I paid for mine) and it seemed that somehow that made their dogs better. The interesting thing is that both their dogs had faults in them and therefore were 'pet' quality, whereas mine was from very good and proven lines. They are different breeds - mine is a FCR and theirs are Rhodesian Ridgebacks (both with faulty ridges). I paid the top end of the average, but that to me was more than fair, as the breeder spends a considerable amount of time working and proving her dogs' worth. Whilst having this converstation, I remember thinking how proud I was of our FCR breeders that have not fallen into the 'breed for profit' club and how much they love the breed. FCR prices, in my opinion, are fair and thankfully the breed is not that common (but this doesn't make them have higher prices, thankfully), which does not create a huge demand, thus avoiding puppy farming. Demand creates supply, and puppy farmers are great at supply!

Demand will also make pet stores want to sell those breeds. These puppies are sold for high prices and are provided by puppy farmers mainly. People think they are getting great quality because the pups are expensive, but they don't realise that there is a lot of profit exchanging hands and as a result they are getting the worst product!

Then you get backyard breeders (doesn't seem a nice name), which I guess tend to be breed owners that would like to have a litter. There are those that love the breed and know a huge deal and breed every so often. Then there are those that "wouldn't it just be nice for her to have a litter, before we get her spayed" :-( I wouldn't mind having a pup from the former (as long as it all matched up and they really knew what they were doing), but wouldn't touch one from the latter.

I think, as with most things, it's down to educating the public.

Cheers,
Patty (who doesn't know much about breeding, per se)