In the last few episodes, we’ve been discussing setting up your future for success, capitalizing on your heyday, and creating a retirement that can support you whether or not you want that to involve puppies. If nothing else, having that retirement to provide for you outside of puppy sales means that breeding will always be a choice and not a necessity, changing how it all feels. Yet, what if you’re in the middle ground, wondering if you should be putting money towards your future or if you should invest in your facilities and business. It’s a great question, and one that’s very common.
I want to go through three scenarios and talk through the decision.
You’re Just Ramping Up
You might be in your first 2-3 years with litters and you’re finding that you love it, it’s growing, but it feels like you’re running around with your head cut off keeping up with things. Sometimes you’ll be further along in your breeding years, but are making the shift to more full-time.
I remember in the beginning I was raising my puppies in my master bathroom. I was using my garden tub as a whelping box, and essentially it was really wearing my husband out at the time. He was tired of puppies, dogs, and the smell. When I had a second litter at the same time, I was struggling with where to put the second litter. I could put them in their weird corner of my bathroom, I tried a large wire crate, and I sort of fudged it for a while, making it work. The idea of spending $400 on a whelping box back then seemed really high to me, and I hesitated to invest like that.
Then I began keeping more and more females and, as you may recall, I had had a major burst of litters, having 7 litters born in 8 weeks. It was a nightmare; they were in old Tarter feed troughs. I was struggling with all sorts of issues. One mom brought her puppies a sparrow to eat when they were 3 weeks old! They were swimming in my giardia-infested pond, infecting their puppies! I struggled to stay on top of cleaning, and I was beyond overwhelmed. I had some outdoor pens for them, but they were for adults, not puppies.
I think back and I look at all the money I had made before that in dogs and, while my price was low, I still made some income. I should have taken some of that income and invested it back into my dogs. Du-uh, right? Seems like a no-brainer, but I was on my own trying to figure all this out.
I could’ve upgraded a shed or a room in my home and made a much safer, cleaner place for my puppies. I could’ve prevented my mama dogs from going in that nasty pond. I could’ve invested in a whelping box and made cleaning much easier. I didn’t really know what I needed, and I didn’t have a plan.
What I missed out on was the ability to scale my program correctly. At the time I was all about having more puppies, but I had no way to do it right. I had lost pups to giardia, I had lost puppies to moms having fights and stepping on them, and it was hardly the presentation I wanted to give to prospective buyers.
Had I invested in my facilities, I could’ve saved more time and invested that in my marketing and website, or even in spending time with the family cooking more. I would’ve lost fewer puppies, had bigger litters because my mom’s were healthier—for a while there, while the giardia was bad, I averaged only 5 puppies per litter. Now I’m around 6-11 on average. It would’ve allowed me to raise my price because I offered a better puppy.
When you’re in a spot like this, investing in facilities makes the most sense, without a doubt. You need to bring up the quality of your facilities so that you can actually manage taking care of the dogs you’re producing.
Imagine for a second, that the facility upgrade was $10,000. If I were able to raise my price $500 on my pups, that’s the $10,000 in only 20 puppies. I certainly was producing more than that. By investing in facilities while in a stage like this, you’re ensuring that your breeding business is sustainable, as in something you can do for a while without it taxing your life and throwing you out of balance or causing undue stress on the family.
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YOU’VE GOT IT DOWN, BUT IT COULD BE BETTER
But what if your facilities are working, but you know they could be better? Should you invest?
There’s a good chance you’re cringing a little hearing my story and all my missteps with my breeding program. That’s good, too! It means you’re probably well past that stage. A lot of times breeders are in the window where they are “managing”–puppies are healthy, you are liking the quality and consistency you have–but maybe it still feels a little like it’s taking over your life. Sure you’re still getting your kids to practice, getting dinner made. But you haven’t had much opportunity to grab coffee with a friend, take a trip for the weekend with your spouse, or maybe it simply feels like you never really get to step away from breeding, since the pups are in your home and there’s a lot of management with letting dogs in and out, and honestly, it’s okay if you want to have a full break from dogs for a little bit of time in the evening!
If you’re in this spot, then I recommend investing in facilities. However, chances are you aren’t just going to buy a few things here and there. You’re probably going to need to consider adding a room to the home, converting a garage, or building a separate facility outside.
Another situation can arise at this point in your program: you’re at a place where you are deciding if you want to make breeding your full-time thing. For a lot of breeders raising puppies in their home, it’s only feasible if they have one, maybe two, litters at a time. If you’re here and you’re thinking that you have a nice steady flow of buyers and you could definitely sell more puppies, then it’s worth considering investing in a larger facility.
When you’re in this fork in the road, sometimes you need to consider more land as well. If you’re renting or you are in a subdivision or a city that has unfavorable laws for breeders, this is the ideal time to move and set up shop at a more accommodating location. To give you an example, where I live, I’m in the county, there are no requirements to license my dogs, I’m allowed to do animal husbandry where I live, and I have a bit more room to do things, no HOA to follow. Yet, if I moved 5 miles and into town, I would lose these benefits, as I would be inside the city limits. There are many things I don’t have to worry about simply because of my location.
It can be hard to think about moving. But sometimes, when weighing out the options, upgrading a room, while working with limited land or trying to stay under the radar because of city limits on the number of dogs, well it’s sometimes easier to move!
Deciding between a larger facility and upgrading a room or the current home you have should also be weighed out in costs. Depending on your housing market, sometimes it’s considerably cheaper to sell your home and buy one that’s more conducive to your needs, rather than do the remodeling or additions that would be required. An interesting thing that I see sometimes is that a home on four acres might be purchased for $200,000; but if you wanted to buy the land and then put a home on it, then the land would be $40,000 and the house would easily be around $250,000 – $300,000 to build simply because of the cost of building materials and labor. So you would be better off buying the existing home–you’d get more for your money. Just the same, buying a property that has a building or home that won’t work for you, will inflate the price you pay simply because you’re paying for things you won’t use.
If you’re considering increasing the size of your program, the number of litters or dogs you’re producing–or maybe you just want a better, more professional appearance for buyers–then investing in facilities will facilitate you producing more puppies, potentially improving your process, and increasing your price. Because of the long-term gains in both finances and lifestyle balance, which will certainly help the dogs have better care, I know that investing in facilities is the answer. Instead of investing in external endeavors for retirement, now is the time to invest in your business, improve your facilities, and then invest in retirement with the increased profit next time.
FACILITIES WON’T CHANGE PRODUCTION OR MARGIN
Yet, what if things are working and, even if you could sell more puppies, you wouldn’t want to? If your program wouldn’t really change from an increase in puppies, you won’t be raising your price, and you aren’t needing to make adjustments for your buyers to feel you’re more professional, then it probably isn’t worth it to spend the extra money on facilities. It won’t give you many gains and will steal profit that could otherwise be used to invest in your future.
If you are doing well, but it feels like a lot, like you can’t get a break from breeding, then it may be worth it to invest in facilities for a peace-of-mind sort of perspective. People often underrate the importance of peace-of-mind. It really is important. When you don’t have it, it saps all the little things that make life enjoyable, like relaxing in the evening, enjoying time with family without being preoccupied with dogs, and it, unfortunately, can sap your creativity.
If investing in facilities will make this easier, then do it. However, it might make sense for your dogs, for you to hire a house cleaning lady. That might be the facility upgrade you’re looking for.
IN SUMMARY
In summary, the answer to the question of whether or not you should invest in your facilities is: will the investment provide you additional income through producing more dogs, provide you income because you can increase your price, save you money, or save your sanity? If you’re answering yes to any of those questions, then usually investing in your facilities is the right answer.
However, if you have found that nothing will really change if you upgraded facilities, things are already working well and you don’t plan on investing more, then I would suggest that you look to put that money towards building your financial future. Even if you aren’t sure yet what to do, simply putting it aside and letting it accumulate while you figure it out will be beneficial.
In the next episode, I’ll discuss some suggestions for how to plan out that larger facility if you’re in a place to do it.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Honest Dog Breeder Podcast, with me, your host, Julie Swan. It’s going to be fun whether you’re investing in the future or if you’re investing in your facilities! I can’t wait to see you in the next episode!
