04/18/2025
I knelt behind a distraught dog at 4 o’clock in the morning with my gloved hand inside of her, trying desperately to get hold of a puppy that had been stuck for over half an hour and I was sure was now dead. Birthing fluid covered my clothes and clung to my beard as I worked to save mom and the rest of the litter. My breeding mentor, who had been kind enough to accept my middle-of-the-night phone call, spoke up over speakerphone: “Remember this whenever someone asks you for a discount.”
Well-bred Working Line German Shepherds are expensive, and those of us who do it right are unapologetic about charging for our work. People have an intuition that breeding dogs is a lot of work—and there are plenty of articles out there breaking down the various costs—but I’m going to quickly walk you through our entire process, from sourcing breeding stock to sending a litter home. There is stress, there is drama, there is cost, and there is gratification. One thing there is not is a discount.
Bi***es
A breeding kennel doesn’t exist without females, and kennels hold on to their prized females above all else, making good ones hard to find. Adding to the difficulty of sourcing a breeding-quality female GSD is the fact that the best kennels are in Europe. That means North American breeders need to develop relationships with European breeders and brokers—and trust them enough to wire them money and hope to get a dog in return. Depending on the age, quality, and training of the female, this can cost anywhere from $7,000 to $20,000+ with shipping. To get the dog, the breeder then needs to hire a customs broker to clear the dog at the airport. All this without knowing whether the animal you’re getting will even possess the qualities you were told it would.
Studs
Now we have a female, but that’s only half the equation. Very simply put, to produce the best dogs, you must breed the best dogs to one another. The most effective way to do this is to own the best females you can acquire and breed them to the best males on earth. Sometimes those males are owned by the kennel itself, but most of the time they are not. The breeder must develop relationships with the owners of these males and, in a best-case scenario, pay a stud fee to breed the dogs live. This usually involves hours of driving in each direction and sometimes a hotel stay. If the male is not within easy mating distance, the breeder must pay the owner a collection fee, cover the owner’s vet fees for semen collection, rent a shipping container, and pay to have the fresh or frozen semen couriered in. The breeder then needs to source a local vet with a reproductive specialty, ensure they have the resources to store frozen semen, and pay a monthly storage fee.
Maintenance
At this point we’ve sourced our breeding stock, but the magic doesn’t happen right away. While we wait for our females to come into season, they need to eat the best food to support fertility, get regular medical care, genetic testing, and hip and elbow x-rays. But health isn’t the only thing—we also need to prove the female’s ability to work; that she has the nerve and temperament we’re looking for. Unless we’ve paid the big bucks for a female who’s already obtained a title and proven her working ability (and watched a ton of video—because a title on paper can mean nothing), we need to do that work ourselves. That involves years of consistent daily training. It means finding and driving—often hours—to a decoy or club for bitework. It means acquiring all the skills necessary to allow that dog to express her genetic potential on the field or in her work. Puppies happen once a year. Care and maintenance happen every day.
The Countdown Begins
The clock starts when we see the first drop of blood. About a week into the heat cycle, the daily progesterone blood tests begin. Most breeding kennels are rural, which means a trip to the vet and back can take half a day or more. Blood is drawn every day or two until results indicate the female is ready, and she is then taken to the reproductive vet for insemination.
Pregnancy and Delivery
A dog’s gestation period is roughly 63 days, give or take. The first 60 pass in a flash; the final three seem to last forever. We spend those days taking the mother’s temperature at regular intervals, trying to predict the onset of labour, over-analyzing every move she makes, wondering if tonight is the night. After weeks of care, a high-quality diet, and regular medical attention, active labour begins—and it’s game time.
It’s rare that mom is so kind as to have her litter at a reasonable hour. 10 a.m. after coffee and breakfast would be ideal but dogs, like many animals, often give birth at night. That’s when breeders are called into action.
The stress and emotion of delivery are hard to describe. The puppies being born will go on to define your kennel. The line between life and death feels razor thin. The life of the dog you’ve poured years into is at risk. It’s the dead of night, and you’re alone.
In that moment, the weight of the world rests on the breeder’s shoulders. A trip to the vet is rarely an option. Not only do distance and time of day often make it impossible, but taking hours-old puppies to a vet’s office risks exposing the litter—and the rest of your kennel—to potentially deadly pathogens. On whelping day, the lives of the mother and her pups are in the breeder’s hands, often literally. When a puppy gets stuck—and eventually one will—it’s on the breeder to pull it out, because failure will kill the mother and the whole litter. When a puppy is dying, it’s on the breeder to decide whether to fight for it or let nature take its course. Every decision is life and death.
Eventually, after 4 to 24 hours or more, whelping ends and everyone gets a bit of rest.
Puppy Rearing
The first few days are spent making sure all the new arrivals are eating and gaining weight. Mom does most of the work, and the breeder focuses on her recovery. At this point, she’s eating 6–8 lbs of food per day (we feed only raw) to produce enough milk. For the first two weeks, this is as close to a break as a breeder gets. But once the puppies are weaned and mom decides she’s done cleaning up after them, things get… sh*tty. No animal on earth produces and distributes poo more widely or more quickly than a puppy. Between early neurological stimulation, sound and water desensitization, regular bathing, and feeding 3–4 times a day, the logistics of managing waste become the breeder’s central focus. Fail, and you bathe them more. No matter what you do, your day revolves around poo.
Sending Puppies Home
After one last trip to the vet for shots and microchips, the pups are ready to go home. People often ask if it’s hard to let them go. It’s not. Home day is the culmination of years of work and it’s a day of celebration. By this point, we’ve screened buyers, we know these dogs are going to good homes, and we’re excited to see them go live out the genetic potential we’ve worked to instill. We’re also excited for sleep.
“Remember this whenever someone asks you for a discount.”
Kneeling there in the whelping box, sweat dripping down my face, something finally shifted and the back legs of the stuck puppy I’d been trying to pull free were suddenly in my hand. Gently but firmly, I eased her over the pelvis and out through the birth canal. As she came out, I cleared the mucus from her mouth and started rubbing her vigorously with a clean cloth, bracing for a stillborn pup. Then she screamed. Somehow, she was alive. The feeling was indescribable.
I do remember that moment—and every moment leading up to it—when someone asks us for a discount. Every single time.
