Had to share this as it illustrates so well how breeding is not as easy as far too many people think.

The story is about a friend of a friend -but a real person. I won't mention names or locations. This person had a black and white Staffy bitch and decided to make some money, by mating the bitch to a blue dog. Was told ALL the resulting pups would be blue, and they'd be able to sell the puppies for £1200 each. The bitch wasn't KC registered or health tested, am not sure about the dog. I pointed out as soon as I heard about it that unless the bitch carried the blue gene, she would not have any blue pups at all, and even if she DID carry it, it was extremely unlikely all pups would be blue -not to mention sell for anything near the price mentioned.

Over the next few weeks the story unfolded and much as I feel sorry for the puppies (available to anyone, no questions asked), it really does prove a few points. The bitch gave birth to six black and white puppies. The breeder still tried to sell them for £1200, as blue carriers. The price then gradually got dropped as not surprisingly, nobody was prepared to pay that kind of money for black and white non KC registered puppies as those are ten a penny. Currently the price being asked for is £200, the pups have been ready to go for a few weeks, and not all have been sold.

Let's hope the breeder here has learnt a lesson!

poor puppies, as I have two females(one spayed)I always get people who want to mate their male with my dogs as they want blues. and you try to explain that both need to carry the blue gene to get blue. they always know better and then ask about health tests they say yes its up to date with the vets. one person who had 5 blue/brindle puppies. 3 from same litter 2 from another all similar ages and 2 of them males. Asking if I wanted to use their males( the males were only 9mths the most) sad story for my bred unfortunately.
The other one is that a short legged staff or cross.

Nessa

unfortunately there is plenty of money to be made in puppies of other breeds. went to groom a Cavachon the other day and was told she had recently had puppies. She had 8 father a cavalier. Puppies 4 weeks old. deposits paid on all 8. By my calculations 8x£400 is over £3000 profit. :(

Well perhaps the taxman will be interested if he's informed.

Proper breeders have to pay taxes where there's a profit, why shouldn't backyard breeders? ;-)

Totally agree dill

I doubt there would be any tax to pay when the "profit" is offset against the costs of keeping the bitch and pups.

That very much depends on how you are breeding and how often,   and of course,  the sort of food you feed your bitch and pups.

IF the BYB is not paying for breed related health testing,  showing,  excellent quality food,  proper veterinary wormers for bitch and pups,  extra heating - no kidding, I know of one puppy producer who keeps her bitches and pups in brick sheds with no heating.  Time off work to care for the bitch and pups, socialisation, etc.  

Then where exactly, is the outlay?   It's little more than the normal maintenance of a pet bitch.

This is why so many are now deciding to have a litter of pups.   And don't forget, they also don't care about the breed, as long as it has big enough litters and is preferably nice and expensive.

I agree it makes a difference how often you breed and how many dogs you keep, but for tax purposes there are so many things that can be offset against profit.

For example if you buy a bitch puppy and have expectations of breeding with her you can offset all her keeping costs, such as, food, wormers, heating, grooming, showing etc. If you decide not to breed her you can still claim for her because your intended to when you bought her.

For actually breeding a litter, you can offset for everything, including the lifetime upkeep of the bitch, vet costs, health tests, food, wormer, stud fees, petrol taking her for mating, electric to keep the pups warm and clean, soap powder, disinfectant ...and so on....and so on......

I imagine with the cheapest of food, wormer etc over the life of the bitch, in this instance there wouldn't actually be any profit.

Now if the owners were claiming benefits, that would be a whole different scenario 😉

>Now if the owners were claiming benefits, that would be a whole different scenario

How many people in the uk are claiming benefits?      Don't forget, tax credits, child tax credits are both a form of benefits, despite the fact that most people don't think of them as such.   So many of those on an average wage will still be on benefits, for the purposes of deciding whether they pax tax, or have a reduction in benefits when producing a litter of pups ;-)

Add to that, the very high prices some of these 'greeders' charge for their imaginatively named mongrels, and there's even more chance they will have to pay something back ;-)

odd you tell this story because i know of someone planning on doing this... her staff is black and she bought another blue staff and plans on breeding eventhough her bitch is less than 1 year old, had no health tests, is not a member of kc and to be honest is not even a nice dog... quite aggressive. she plans on breeding and selling her *blue* pups for a high amount of cash to anyone. i dread to think of how it may end

> i dread to think of how it may end

Price dropped to negligible to anyone who will hand over money, (people likely to get rid then the novelty wears off, or worse still be used as bait dogs, puppy machines etc), and if even then they don't sell dumped on local rescue centre.  If it's like our dogs home who have a waiting list to accept dogs, then may be left anonymously in a cardboard box outside the door.