starplott
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: SW Missouri
Posts: 1405 |
I am glad you are thankful, as most people are not. They want the same or more service and requirements with rediculous expectarions for free (or cheap) as a higher priced pup.
A good case in point was not too long ago a friend sold a 900 puppy (not a hound) with all the quarantees for $300 on contract they would get a basic obedience title (about $100 out of pocket). What a nightmare! Months later she was called a crook and everything else. Nothing weong w pup. They just did not want to put the effort in to get CD title. That is the equiv to getting a $300 puppy from a top breeder for $100 on condition you will get the hunt test. They ended up happy as they went back and paid outright and voided all parts of the contract in its entirety (dumb).
What gets me about high priced pups is not so much the price, I have 2 breeds that fetch well over 1200 a puppy. I don't charge that much for the same quality under same contract, with same guarantees and health certs. You can buy inferior dogs w no work drive from questionable parents for 650 from somebody's back yard.
What gets me is the people that pay $300 stud fee and want 500+ for a dirty kennel puppy with no written contracts for guaranteeing the pup, no heath tests for genetic defects on parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and others for several generations. No socialization, cheap vaccines, and little to no worming. From unproven reproducers that have no titles, etc.
So basically, they want more money for a 200 puppy with no extra benefit or effort being put into a pup.
Health tests, titles, decent food, time spent socializing, decent vaccines, services that go with backing up guarantees and supporting a buyer are all expensive. Easy to get 5000 into a dog before breeding. Stud fees for what I have are 950-1500 (not counting travel, vet, AI, raising a litter, etc).
I will NOT pay more than 350 for a well bred coonhound unless the breeders have stepped up and done their part to health cert their breeding stock, show me the added benefit of putting quality into raising the pups to maximize a good start (atta boy high pro being raised in a barn doesn't work), and guarantees what they breed. Outside of that, they are just taking $ they have not earned or deserve. I expect puppy sellers to be very selective where their pups go and not sell to anybody with cash. I surely don't want part of buying a pup from a breeder that contributes to the pound population. I definitely don't want such in my breeding program. Why pay the high price when I can pick the same thing up at the shelter? The more I pay for a pup the more expectations I have for breeder and pup.
Having been a hound hunter over 20 years and being part of other venues of breeding/competing dogs for 30...there is not ONE coonhound breeder out there breeding $1000 quality pups. They might have popularity of noted reproducers, but they don't have that plus generations of documented health certs, etc. Part might be there, but what goes into a 1000 puppy is not all there. When breeders step up and show me 1000 puppies, I don't have an issue paying the price. But I am not going to pay 1000 price for a 300 valued puppy.
My expectations of a 1000 a pup litter is far higher than what coonhound breeders are willing to put forth. Therefore, I pay 1000 for my other breeds gladly who come w solid guarantees and documented health certs back to the 1980's, and from heavily titled working dogs who are still able to compete and work in their double digits as commonplace. That to me is worth 1000 for a pup.
__________________
It ain't the bark, it ain't the growl, it's the bite that hurts!
Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged
|
01-22-2012 10:36 AM
