Hi there, just wondering how you all would deal with customers who make constant demands for pictures and updates. I post heaps of new pics every week and even keep an online journal so that everyone can follow the puppies' progress but every so often I get someone who always demands more. Emails every few days asking for more pictures than what I have already put online... most recently asking for pictures of their puppy to be emailed to them since the last pictures I put up online all look like girls (and theirs is the only boy). I don't mind answering lots of questions and keeping up the pictures, I know how excited people are but I just don't have the time to email individual pictures every few days. The puppies keep me busy enough! :) Would love some advice on how to handle this without being rude or hurting anyone's feelings. Thanks. :)

I'd just tell them that I'm too busy looking after the puppies to keep taking & e-mailing pics. I think they are lucky having pictures once a week. I think they are being very unreasonable, so if they are hurt - tough!

Customers ?

It's only eight weeks & the time you give to your new puppy people now will pay off as they'll be more than likely to keep in touch which personally if i were a breeder i would want.

Equally, the extra time given to the prospective (it's not cut and dried yet, remember) puppy owners is time not spent caring for and socialising the puppies ... ;)

Luckily when I had my last litter we didn't have email, so this problem didn't arise!
:)

I don't consider my puppy people to be customers.   But I do email them updated photos at least twice a week, or when anything significant happens, with the same brief few words copied and pasted to each family individually.  It takes me no more than 10 minutes each time and I am grateful that they are so interested in their new family member. If they weren't then they wouldn't be getting a puppy! :)

I do send emails and updates every week and I love doing that. The issue is when weekly isn't enough for some people and that is where I need some advice. I also hate the term "customers" but use it for want of a better word since I am providing a service and they have expectations of me as the service provider. :)

I think once a week is plenty. With my last couple of litters I updated the website weekly and sent jpgs of all the new photos to the prospective puppy owners as well with a chatty newsletter so they had something a little more personal. How about collecting a file of pics and putting them on a disc for each family as part of the package when they collect their puppy, then maybe they wouldn't keep pestering.

A couple of years ago a local family booked a puppy and wanted to come and visit in the 3 weeks before they took her home. Fine, great, come whenever you like, just give me a bell first so I can make sure I'm around. Oh oh; it turned out they wanted to visit pretty much e_v_e_r_y day!!! What a nightmare! Now I tactfully limit it to once or twice a week, and try to group people together as well.

Blimey, I thought I was being really cheeky with my first dogs to ring twice in the 8 weeks between finding they existed (at 2 weeks) and picking them up at 10 weeks! With my new puppy I phoned every 2 weeks as the breeder was deciding between me and another person, and I wanted to give the impression of being keen without being mad and desperate! :-D I was given a few photos with my puppy, and with the first two I happened to get hold of a picture of one boy at a few days old, and never got anything of the other one. Just politely point out they are lucky to be getting this individual service, and would they rather you took a picture or fed their puppy??

Oh dear... you just KNOW this is the only puppy in the litter you're going to get back at 6 months old, don't you? *sigh*

Just don't reply to their e-mails for a few days. Tell them you're never online much when you have puppies as you're too busy playing with your cute babies while you still have them.

Hi Dog gone it just thought i would let you know what i did with my last litter. I sent a few photos via e-mail but explained to the new prospective owners that the puppies took up a lot of my time, luckily they were really understanding i took lots and lots of photos of each puppy and also of the five of them with their mum. Then one night i sat at my computer with all the photos that i had of the puppies on my computer and arranged them into 5 files each named with the new pups names. The night before the pups went i copied each file onto a CD and that was the last thing that went into my puppy pack, i have had comments from each new owner saying what a lovely suprise it was to get the CD. I had taken photos daily so there were lots of photos to put on CD each CD had a nice photo of their pup so when they looked at the whole litter they would be able to see which one was theirs.

Hi, I was delighted to have the puppy owners visiting every week, but like others tried to arrange it so they all visited at the same time. I also emailed them every couple of days, it only took a few moments as I cheated and copied one email just changing the puppies name :)  I updated my website and emailed puppy pics once or twice a week and think this is really enough. Like the last poster I gave each owner a cd away with them with every pic I had taken since birth of all the litter plus some of their parents. The new owners seemed delighted with this and are reciprocating now with twice weekly emails and pics of the puppies in their new homes - which is fabulous :)