10/07/2017
Let’s discuss cost of puppies
I see people who don’t want to pay more than $500 for their dogs. They end up with dogs from back yard breeders and gamble on health and temperament of the dogs. So let’s take a look at what it costs to bring a litter of responsibly bred puppies to the ground.
So this figure will wildly vary from what part of the United States, and also what the dog is titled in, and how much is invested. But here’s a rough idea.
Female (bought at 8 weeks) $2,000:
OFA hips & Elbows $250-$400
OFA DM test $65
Training to title ranging pretty widely in America. Let’s say to a BH and IPO1;
-$100 membership per year for 2 years with organization to obtain title so $200 for 2 years
-$250 membership to local IPO club
-$384 annual cost of gas everytime you attend training at a club say 23 miles away 2x a week
-$50 to actually get a BH (let’s say you get at your club trial and don’t travel for the title)
-$100 to actually get an IPO1 (let’s say you don’t travel again for it)
-not including doing a breed survey or showing which would add $100-$200 to this as well not including potential travel.
This isn’t including your personal time training your own dog which could be 364 hours or more every year. Let’s say you “pay yourself $3,650” ($10/hr) for training your dog.
So we are at around $7,099 for our female to pass health testing (if she passed!) to be titled (if she passed!) our time and investment, not including her vet bills up until this point and food. That’s on the cheap end.
Or you could buy a titled female for $5,000-15,000 with passing health tests, titled IPO1
You could go through the same process with a male. You could pay to get your male to the same spot at $7,000 or pay another $5,000-$20,000 for a titled proven accomplished male.
Ok so we are at a range of
$10,000-$40,000 invested into having two proven adult dogs that we can breed together. If we raised these two male and female ourselves, we may have bought by pedigree and parents and hoped, but there’s still a chance this male we have doesn’t compliment our female. We might still have to pay to use an outside stud, because we’re not in this just to make puppies, we need to match the right temperaments, nerves, drives, structure, health, to produce the best we can.
Now the puppies hit the ground without requiring a C-section (congrats!)
You paid $120 for x-rays to have a count for the safety of your female. She’s been eating double the food for the last 4 weeks. But let’s focus on the puppies food for this calculation.
Let’s say you have 7 puppies in the litter. Let’s say you feed a really affordable raw option. Your puppies cost you roughly spend $400 on their food till the day they go home.
Depending on your method of vaccinations you spend about $245 on vaccines if you go to your vet to administer them (which if you’re not familiar with vaccines you should)
You spend about $35 in dewormer
You spend about $75 to run a f***l through the lab before puppies go to make sure they’re clear of parasites.
This is if your puppies don’t get sick, or anything pops up. Everything goes smoothly.
Puppies cost about $875 in cash out of your pocket until the day they go home.
This isn’t including:
-your intense time cleaning everyday
-socializing and playing and interacting and preparing your puppies
-your extra bills for heating when they’re young, extra loads of laundry for all the cleaning.
So let’s say you spend about 4 hours a day to be modest cleaning, playing, setting up games for them, moving them and feeding them. So for your time in 4 weeks you cost yourself $2,240. You can’t work a normalish job while doing this and your time is worth something.
Ok so let’s look at how much this litter costs without the parents
$3,115
If I were to charge $500 per puppy and have 7 puppies, that’s $3,500 from puppies. So I would “make $385”
If I were to charge $1,500 for 7 puppies that’s $10,500 so I would “make $7,385”
Now let’s say at a bare minimum we are $10,000 invested in our sire and dam for the litter.
Now we’re -$2,615
Let’s say we’re invested $30,000 for some really nice dogs!
Now we’re -$22,615
Ok ok those numbers kinda suck. Do we get $10,000 in our pocket when that litter sells? Sure! But when you do the math, that isn’t as nice. There’s a lot of hard work in there that we’re paying out of our pocket to work more to have a nice well bred litter.
Ok so let’s look at the second litter... $3,115 again for the litter until everyone goes home. Let’s say another 7 puppies.
Let’s say we’re the full $30,000 invested we’re still -$22,615
-$3,115 for the litter itself so were
-$25,730
7 puppies we charge $1,500 we make $10,500 again.
We are still -$15,230
This is not including the cost to register a litter of puppies, the cost to buy microchips, the cost for maintaining your vehicle for traveling, the cost for travel and hotels if you travel farther for training, attend a seminar because you need to learn more with your dogs, the potential loss from a C-section, singleton puppy, a breeding doesn't take and you don't get a litter, you offer a discount to repeat buyers or military/police, you donate a puppy as a service dog, etc. There are a LOT more costs that could be added to an average breeding. These figures are extremely modest!
I won’t do anymore math.... I think this illustrates my point.
But imagine some back yard breeder pays $500 for their male and female, no knowledge of the breed, they hardly invest anything in the puppies but a bag of Kibble from the grocery store for $20.
Sell the litter of 12 puppies out of their poorly bred dogs for $500 each that’s $6,000 in their pocket and they hardly invested more than $1,000....
So I would like to know how anyone in their right mind thinks a responsible breeder is “greedy” when they charge $1,200-$2,500 for their puppies.
