Determining price of puppies

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As a reputable breeder, I get asked quite often:

While I realize that a Papillon puppy is a significant investment, it may help to know some of the factors that go into the cost of a well-bred papillon.

Contrary to popular belief, breeding.... if done correctly, is not a profitable venture. We don't set our price on what we have monetarily put into each individual puppy, or the cost of the breeding stock themselves, but what it costs us to run our breeding program as a whole. While we would love to have enough puppies for every request, a great deal goes into the selection of our breeding stock. Our primary focus is to breed show quality puppies that we can campaign in the breed ring. We breed first of all for ourselves, to improve the breed, and have dogs to show and prospective upcoming breeding stock.  Knowing that, helps you to know that even a pet quality puppy has been carefully bred and screened.

Breeding Papillons or any small breed, where the average litter size is 1 to 3 puppies, has a significant impact on the cost. We have to consider many different things like:

The dogs we purchase, the average show or breeding papillon which are bought from the best breeders are costly. The cost if importing dogs from overseas is usually very expensive and the cost of shipping alone can cost upwards of $3,000.00 and then we still have to buy the puppy and hope it passes all the genetic clearances as well as be a good example of the breed. If it doesn’t pass we have a great deal of money tied up in one dog that we now have to spay. If we place that dog in a pet home, we take a significant loss. Any time we buy a dog or keep a puppy from a litter we are hoping that it will potentially replace one of our breeding dogs, however, genetics do not care about our intentions.

Genetic testing is an integral part of our breeding program. The more informed we are about the gene code on our dogs and their ancestors, the more responsibly we can breed. We have our dogs hearts checked by a board certified canine cardiologist, have their patellas certified by the Orthepedic Foundation for Animals and all dogs have their eyes checked for genetic defects and cataracts by a ophthalmologist, then certified by the Canine Eye Registry Foundation. Having said all that, genetic testing is expensive, but critical to providing you with a puppy whose parents have been screened for known problems within the breed.

Finally, we have to consider all the medical costs in our breeding program, C-sections for a mom that has complications during delivery, vitamins and minerals to insure healthy dog and puppies, vaccinations, deworming, puppy vet checks, whelping boxes and supplies, emergency supplies and many more things that could come up. We cover these charges overall rather than apply them to the sale of one puppy.

We make it our responsibility to know what lines carry certain genetic tendencies and strive to do the very best we can to avoid problems. We also have to reflect on the day to day cost of grooming supplies, toys, high quality food, crates, crate pads, heating and air conditioning.