The Price of a Puppy

Serious breeders, require money to provide quality puppies for quality families!  Being a good, responsible breeder takes a lot of money, time, and effort. Many private breeders are uneducated, and are not well-read on the type of breed they are breeding. They do not provide any type of documentation to their customer such as shot records, health certificates or deworming dates; they don't provide copies of a pedigree; they don't feed their dogs quality food; much less spend any quality time with the litter they had their dam produce.   If a breeder does not have much invested, they don't need to ask for much in return from the pups they created. Some private breeders just breed one time or for "fun". 

If breeding is taken seriously, the fact is that this type of work is hard; most people would turn their nose at it. There aren't too many people out there who wish to scoop dog poop for a living, or clean up loose, runny stools with worms in them (which most breeders do, but won't admit to!). A good breeder has to know their trade in order to be effective in their work. A good breeder has to have tools (that don't come cheap or free) in order to perform their job well.  A hard working breeder has expensive over-head. Breeders use a lot of water and a lot of electricity.  They have heating pads for their litters; heating lamps; air cleaners; humidifiers, air conditioning and heat; it is quite possible to have all of this running at the same time.  Kennels have many lights that stay on all through the night, every single day of the month. Breeders have to provide quality food for their animals and in order to provide a quality puppy; they can not feed their dogs food bought from the grocery store.  Gas prices have gone up and shopping for kennel supplies is time consuming as well as expensive.   You would be surprised at how many paper towels, baby wipes, trash bags, sponges, gloves and other essentials a breeder can go through in a single day!  Dogs need to be bathed and they do require shampoos, clippers and grooming supplies. So, when you want to compare apples to oranges, just keep in mind that there is a lot of work that goes into providing a very nice, quality and healthy pet to those who seek them.  Prices will vary, as I said, depending on how much time and investment a breeder has with their dogs and pups.  As a customer, you should not let price get in the way of owning a quality pet!