Things that factor in the cost of a well bred puppy:
1. Health testing: Breeding parents-$1,000-2000 per parent dog.
2. Parental bloodlines: Breeding dogs cost more than pet dogs, and quality breeding dogs can be expected to cost $5,000-$10,000 each. .
3. Monies lost: Loss of time with costs for puppies bought or raised for breeding that don’t end up being breeding quality and retired without breeding.
4. Generals: Cleaning and care adds to mutiple hours out of each and every day along with cost for cleaning equipment and supplies.
5. Breeding expenses (other): Lost opportunity costs for failed breedings/pregnancies.
6. Time for whelping: Whelping and post-whelping socialization, training, and enrichment: Whelping can take 12-24+ hours of stressful, unscheduled, uninterrupted time which several people may need to be involved.
7. Daily care: A new litter can easily take many hours per day. Well done socialization, training, and enrichment can take 4-6 hours per day, depending on the size of the litter. Factor all of this in for months, with no days off. Assuming a very inexpensive professional hourly rate of $40/hr (well below what a professional dog trainer charges trainers routinely charge up to $125-150 per hour), you are looking at a care and training cost of a minimum of $1600 per puppy on top of all of those other hard costs. More if you value a breeder’s time at a higher rate or more if a breeder has outside people involved with the program.
8. Emergencies: As one example, emergency c-sections are costing around $3,500-$5000. There are many other emergency costs that could occur as well.
9. Nutrition and feeding: Quality food and supplements cost more. There’s a huge
difference between feeding premium food and quality supplements or inferior products.
10. Cost of supporting breeding dogs: Throughout the non-breeding season is very expensive, the time taken to discuss and communicate with each and every person who inquires can be lengthy. With need of the potential buyer and the home for our dogs, several hours or more can easily be spent without a sale. That can add up to many hours of time out of the month and year.
11. Preventative healtcare: Dew claw removal, deworming series starting within days after birth, puppy vaccination series, broad spectrum parasite program etc.. This alone can well be worth $500 or more per puppy plus the time it takes for each dog.
12. Lifetime breeder support: This at times is could be priceless.
13. Business expenses: Including but not limited to cost for additional use of utilities, capital improvements that need to be made to keep the puppies safe and healthy, licensing and permitting, insurance, accounting and bookkeeping, marketing and advertising, equipment and supplies, food, veterinary care, continuing education, professional organization dues, bank fees, maintenance and repairs, kennel help and care, legal expenses, office supplies, equipment, and more.
14. Adopter education: Working to help new owners find the right fit: Spending as much time as needed to educate puppy parents in the understanding, care and training of their dogs to help ensure happy, long relationships with their puppy.
15. Breeder experience: A truly experienced breeder will produce much healthier pups, better for trainability, and temperament and overall demeanor. That experience comes from years of time, efforts and costs.
16. Buyer demand for quality: Most all times you get what you pay for from the overall experience of the breeder. It’s not possible to breed well bred dogs on a limited budget or time allowance and costs continue to rise. A smart puppy-parent won’t consider buying on a small budget price unless they are well prepared for the potential higher expenses down the road and with consideration of the high risk for other issues.