Question Sent Via Email:  Thank you so much for the email. I am interested in the up coming litter however the price is a little bit too much for my parents since the dog will just be a pet and not a breeding or agility competition dog. I love the fact that you take time to find a responsible owner because I am against buying from someone who doesn't take care of their dogs no matter how cute the puppies may be. If we didn't want papers for the puppy would the price change by chance? And would there be a chance of meeting and checking out your facility and dogs (male and female) before purchasing one of the puppies? Also medical records of the dogs?

ANSWER:

Yours is an interesting inquiry, to say the least.  Perhaps you have caught me on a bad day.  However, requests such as yours truly strike a nerve and instead of ignoring your note, I am going to take the time to respond.

It appears that you are seeking the services and goods of a quality breeder, but you want to pay the discounted price of a pup from a less than responsible one.  In fact, in your email you actually spell out a number of the reasons why my puppies are priced they way that they are – yet, it appears, you are not willing to put value on all those qualities that you seek.  TO be completely frank, I find that a bit insulting.

I created a puppy application so that I could screen out folks who I do not feel are suitable homes for one of my puppies.  Instead of using that process, which I request of you in my first response, you wrote another email to me.  Writing responses to inquiry emails is a huge time-hog in my life.  Since I train dogs for a living, you can perhaps imagine how many people want to ask me a myriad of questions (most of which I have already answered on my website, but that the folks want to hear for themselves).  Writing this response to you has cost me the equivalent of around $30 in time (since I bill my time at $40-$60/hour depending upon the work I am doing).  Thirty dollars is, by the way,  a bit over 4% of a $700 puppy.

You state that you would like to come and visit, meet my dogs and view my home.  There’s another 8.5% of the price of a puppy in my time, for a one hour visit.  But, many people are usually late or even fail to show up for such an appointment.  Or, they disrespect our schedule and show up early which means we must quickly end what we were doing.  So, with the second email response and a home visit, we are now over 10% of the cost of one puppy - in time that is required to deal with a potential puppy buyer.

I do not, by the way, permit any visits unless someone has submitted an application that I have approved.  That policy is both for our security (we don’t invite people into our home for whom we do not have an address and telephone number) and to budget time appropriately.  There’s no reason to have someone come and take up time visiting that will not, ultimately, be approved to give one of our baby puppies an excellent home.  I hope you can glean that the task of screening potential puppy buyers (a quality that you admire), does come with a price tag.  Those costs go into the final price of a puppy that we produce.

I pay for a website so that I can provide information to prospective clients and puppy buyers in an effective and efficient manner.  The URL, hosting service and, in particular, website maintenance all require resources.   I post the health screen data for each of my dogs on my website.  If you would like to view the documents on the parents of my upcoming litter, I would ask that you follow the links that I provided in my previous email.  To include those links, I had to take the time to go to my website and copy/paste them into the email that I sent to you.  That may seem like a few seconds of work, and, it was.  But, it was still time that I took to provide the information to you, and now, you are asking for it, again.  So, I have to take additional time to either repost it, or tell you to go back to your last email to find the information about the health screens of my dogs.  Time is money.   I try hard to be efficient with both, so that I can keep operating costs down.  Operating costs directly translate to the cost I have to charge for a puppy or other service that we provide.

I assume you know this but, those health screens that I perform on the dogs that I breed, cost money.  A preliminary hip x-ray at a local vet costs around $125. I often have that screen performed before the dogs are old enough for the final OFA film.  The final OFA x-ray costs around $225.  That does not include the cost of traveling to the vet and back, setting up the appointments, the fuel to get there and any other activities that are required to accomplish that task.  Then, one needs to pay the OFA $35 (plus postage to mail an oversized film) for the evaluation.   While there is no guarantee regarding hip structure, if you want to increase your chances that your puppy won’t be affected by hip dysplasia, then, you would want to understand the disease (educate yourself) and then acquire a puppy out of OFA screened parents.  The OFA website (www.offa.org – to which I provide a direct link where I post my dogs’ OFA status) is a good source of information about the disease.  There you will see the recommendation that a dog with an extended family of relatives that have OFA clearances is a better "bet" than acquiring a pup from parents that are not screened, or where the data on other relatives is not available.  So, I encourage people to visit that site for themselves.  If you type DarnFar in the search box, you’ll be able to see that I put the time and money into screening not only the parents, but other relatives of a litter that I produce. 

The Optigen DNA test for Collie Eye Anomaly (CEA/CH) costs $180 plus a blood draw and shipping of an additional approximately $45.  If a breeder heeds the recommendations for breeding clear and carrier dogs, she can guarantee that your puppy will not be afflicted with the disease, which can cause blindness.   That is why I spend that money on all my dogs.

The health screens for the sire and dam add up to approximately $1220 (not counting the incidental costs to acquire those documents.  Divide that by an average litter of 7 pups and that’s $174/puppy to cover the costs of the health screens on their parents.  That’s about 25% of a $700 puppy.  That can be more if it’s a small litter or less with a larger litter, or if the dog produces a second litter.

As a responsible breeder, I have standards.  If you ask many breeders who sell ‘inexpensive” puppies (like the one you are seeking) why they are breeding dogs, you will hear a whole host of answers, most of which make little sense.  I breed to produce puppies that are, hopefully, better than their parents, that meet the breed standard and are healthy physically and mentally.  I define my standards on my website.  While only 25% of the dogs that end up in Shelters are purebred dogs (per the Human Society of America website), there are still 25% unwanted purebred dogs that will potentially be euthanized and that have ended up outside of the breeder's ultimate care.  My breeding standards and puppy placement methods are designed so that a dog with the DarnFar name is NEVER part of that 25%.  Since I breed purebred dogs, I do give each buyer the papers for their puppy.  However, to date, no one has ever legally bred one of my puppies because I sell them on limited registration (no breeding) with clear information on the contract that defines my requirements for breeding.  So, while it appears that you believe that the value of my puppies is in their registration paperwork that would be quite off target.  The value is in the quality of the puppy you receive, not the paper that displays their parents' names and numbers.

I take breeding and placing puppies very seriously.  If someone cannot see the value in my puppy or in me as a breeder, they are less likely to abide by my contract and bring the dog back to me if they cannot keep it.  While I think that my puppies are very inexpensive for what you get (I have done the math and it costs nearly as much to produce my puppies as I ask for them), folks who are able to realize the value of my puppies are more apt to do whatever it takes to make certain they are well cared for the rest of their lives, as well.  If someone cannot recognize that my puppies are of a higher quality than the $350 pups you can find in a local newspaper ad every week, then, I don’t want to sell a puppy to that person.

I have been training and trialing Border Collies since the mid-1980’s.  I have competed with my dogs, doing the work for which they were originally designed, and won numerous High In Trial awards across three herding venues for over 20 years.  I know this breed and I know the work it is designed to perform.  I am a herding trial judge for the American Herding Breeds Association.  I have knowledge about herding dogs in general and Border Collies, specifically, that far exceeds not only most “backyard” breeders, but many decent breeders.  For that reason, I am able to make informed, educated breeding decisions.  I know the breed.  To get that specialized education, I have had to spend thousands of dollars. One of those expenses is owning and maintaining livestock on which I work the dogs so that I can get a keen sense about each dog’s strengths and weaknesses and their character and temperament.  Another expense is the time required to train the dogs.  It probably takes around 30 hours of training time to get comfortable enough to compete with a dog at the started trial level.  That is if you are good at it.  Bill that at $50/hr and that’s $1500 hours of labor for the sire.  Add the same amount of training on the dam, and that’s $3000 worth of herding training put into the parents of a litter of puppies.  That work helps a breeder to assess her breeding stock to make good breeding decisions.  Divide that by 7 pups and we are talking $428/pup.  That’s 61% of the cost of a $700 puppy. 

You might say that you don’t care if the parents of your new Border Collie puppy can herd livestock.  I would respond that herding is what defines a Border Collie.  They are synonymous terms.  You don’t need to ever herd with your pet Border Collie to take advantage of the breeding decisions that are based on creating an exceptional herding dog.  It is, in fact, the breeding for high quality herding work that makes Border Collies so exceptional in many other venues, including Search & Rescue, competitive obedience and agility, and absolutely amazing pets for the right individuals.  Herding requires intelligence, agility, work ethic, proper temperament, excellent structure, endurance and a strong devotion and willingness to work with a human partner.  You may use those traits how you see fit.  But, they don’t come in a Cockapoo.  If you want the awesome qualities of a well bred Border Collie, you need to acquire a well bred Border Collie.

Other routine expenses of producing a puppy include microchipping, vaccinating and routinely worming (at your vet’s office those expenses would exceed another 10% of a $700 puppy).  Additionally, there is feeding (mother and puppies) and keeping the puppies clean and warm (laundering blankets on a daily schedule when they are under 4 weeks and providing fresh cedar bedding once they are older. 

As a professional dog trainer, I have learned to detect a dog that had little early socialization.  Sometimes, the effects are permanent, regardless of what we do to rehabilitate the dog.  The cost in time to socialize a litter of puppies is invaluable and you do not get that “service” from all breeders, especially those that produce less expensive pups.

Because I am dedicated to placing my puppies in the best homes possible, I do spend quite a bit of time, with some folks, once the puppies are placed.  I receive questions on housebreaking and behavior and I take the time to get back to everyone as quickly as possible.  That follow-up for puppy buyers utilizes resources that I could put towards other ventures.  But, I consider it to be my highest priority.  We are talking about a puppy’s life – a puppy that I bred.  I consider every puppy I produce a lifelong responsibility. 

For that reason, I also must reserve resources to be willing and able to take back a puppy, at any age, at any time.  Last year I was contacted about a 5 year old dog.  I am still angry that the woman did not contact me earlier, as the contract specifies.  She had completely messed up the dog, socially and psychologically, by seeking assistance from bad trainers and failing to ask for our intervention sooner.  We immediately took him back and worked him out of his terribly fearful condition.  Then, we re-homed him (which, by the way, also has a cost associated with it in screening time, vaccinating and worming the dog while he was in our care).   Had we billed the owner at the rate that we charge normal clients for our rehabilitation services, resolving the dog’s issues would have cost over $1600.  Then, of course, we had to support the new owners through their adoption of the dog by inviting them to one of our training Workshops with the dog and spending time in follow up phone calls. 

I would not breed dogs if I could not, immediately, take back a puppy that I produced because it lost it home for any reason, including because the owner disregarded the contract and messed up the dog for five years before letting me know there was an issue.  That sort of situation does not only cost money, but there is an emotional price tag associated with that to which I cannot assign a value.  If you love dogs and you encounter them in such a sorry state, you would understand.

So, I ask you; which of those criteria would you like me to somehow “take out” of the puppy I would sell to you so that you can get a high quality puppy for a discount rate?  Do you want me to somehow take away the best chance for your puppy to have good hips?  Do you want me to breed puppies without reviewing their DNA status for the heritable eye disease, CEA, so that you won't know if your puppy could go blind when it turns five years old?  Do you want me to ignore temperament and character or the dog's structure or intelligence?  Do you want to be left hanging when you have an important question about your new puppy's behavior?  

The price of a puppy is not defined by the registration papers, which cost me around $11/puppy to acquire from the registry.  At under 2% of the the price of a $700 pup, it is a very small price, in the scheme of things.  The papers do not define quality.  In fact, most of my puppy buyers don't ever send them in to the registry since most of the folks who purchase my puppies do not breed or show their dogs.  They know the quality of the puppy is defined by all the other things that I do.  Those are the sorts of buyers I seek for my puppies.

If you would like to read more about the following topics, here are some links:

My breeding standards

How to research breeders

My view on Health Guarantees

How to acquire a puppy

 © 2011  Tammie Rogers - all rights reserved.   For permission to reprint email Tammie.