You ever place a puppy in a home and almost instantly regret it? I’ve done it. You ever place a dog in a home that seemed perfect—only to find out months later they were nothing like they seemed? I’ve done that, also. You ever have to clean up a mess that a bad buyer made? Yup. I’ve done that, too.
We work with imperfect things: live animals, the general public, and, well, we’re human ourselves. For you to perfectly place every one of your puppies would probably defy the laws of physics, or something like that. Plain and simple, it’s unlikely you’ll be perfect. Yet, when these things happen, we can’t simply ignore them., Wwe have to assess them and see where we went wrong, if at all.
A breeder recently contacted me and she had sold a breeding dog to a woman who was looking for a breeding prospect. The woman checked all the boxes, she was familiar with the breed, she knew about health testing, they had hatched a plan together of how to get this woman started with her program the right way. Well, fast forward two years and the woman calls with all sorts of problems and complications, without seeming to register where she was going wrong. She bred the female without health testing her, which wouldn’t have been such a problem because the breeder whom she bought her from had all clear dogs., Bbut then she went and found another stud who wasn’t health- tested and didn’t think to check anything with his bloodlines.
It made a turn for the worst when there was some quality of food issues and the mama dog wasn’t getting the nutrients she needed, and the puppies came out small, some stillborn, some sick. There were lots of vet visits, lots of calling the original breeder, acting like this was somehow normal or not her fault, and then acting like she had it all together at the same time.
My breeder friend tried to get all the puppies at that moment, tried to get her dog back, along with the pups, to give them the best care, but the lady refused. Since she purchased the dog, it was her legal property, and the original breeder’s hands were tied.
Finally, 6 months later, with two surviving puppies that didn’t have homes, the woman finally agreed to give the two pups and the mama dog back to the original breeder,. fFinally coming to the realization that breeding wasn’t for her.
The breeder took possession of the dogs and worked to make sure they were healthy, assess their personalities, and find them homes in the right families.
I could tell, in talking with her, that she felt like she screwed up when she sold the woman the breeding female in the beginning. Many of you might be thinking that right now, but is it true? Did she screw up?
I know this breeder, and, like you, she wouldn’t have sold the dog to the woman if she had known this would happen. She did her due diligence, asked the right questions, and sold her the dog. There was no way that she could’ve known the woman would do things this way,. Iit wasn’t what they discussed. She was lied to.
Which brings us to our first point to discuss.
PEOPLE OFTEN TELL US WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR
People want to make good first impressions, which extends to them working with us as breeders. They want to put their best foot forward. As such, people often tell us what we want to hear. They tell us how they’ll walk the dog for two hours every day, and, seriously, no one does that. They might tell us that they don’t have other dogs at home, but they have three. They might work all day at the office, but tell us they work from home when they only do that one day a week.
They might hear horror stories about how breeders only sell to people who check certain boxes, so they worry they’ll be rejected and they lie. In a way, it’s a bit of human nature.
Some people do this regardless;, that’s their personality type. Others have the best intentions, but they don’t have the habits to back it up. While others are simply worried they have to have the right answers to be approved.
In the case of my breeder friend, this woman told her what she wanted to hear, she was smart enough to know what a breeder wanted to hear, and whether or not her intentions were that, she didn’t follow through. We may never know why.
Sometimes we just have to chalk this up to buyers being people with their own stories and fears. However, we do have to ask ourselves one question: was there something I said, or that my marketing says, that encouraged her to do what she did? For example, sometimes we write our puppy applications with questions like “Do you rent or own?” These questions imply that we might not sell a dog to someone who rents, so they may be inclined to lie and check “‘own.”’ Your intention may be to confirm they have permission from the landlord, but that isn’t clear with the question.
Sometimes we write stuff on our websites like, “Here’s an ideal family for one of our puppies.” And while your intention was to help people see if they’re the right fit for one of your dogs, what it really is, is a great summary of what people may conclude you want to hear; they may give you that information near verbatim.
This is why we want to subtly pitch the ideal buyers through microstories, imagery, and branding, rather than blatantly write it out.
So if you’ve been given exactly what you want to hear, but then find out that’s not at all what happened, you should check your marketing and processes to see if you’ve encouraged it.
SOMETIMES PEOPLE LIE TO THEMSELVES
Sometimes people lie to themselves and you and your dog are just collateral damage. A simple example is when a 5-year-old kid says, “If you buy me this puppy, I swear I will feed it and walk it every day, clean up all the poop;, you won’t have to do anything!” And while they mean the very best, the chances that little boy will have perfect follow through is probably pretty slim.
People do this all the time, even as adults. We make a new year’s resolution and then we stick it out for 3 weeks, and then it falls away. We tell ourselves no more dessert, then we’re invited to a wedding and they have your favorite wedding cake; how can you say no? It also happens with my pups sometimes:, I intend to take photos every weekend, and then we’re busy all day with kids’ activities, and then it’s Sunday night and I realized I never did the photos and now it’s too dark outside!
It happens. No one is perfect. We have good intentions, but sometimes our follow- through fails.
I had a buyer recently who checked all the boxes:, this was his 3rd GSP, he’d raised two others from puppies. He loved the breed, super familiar, and his family was onboard. He had the funds, money wasn’t a problem, they had a good vet, and asked all the right questions. He even was interested in getting a second retired mom. I was super satisfied with the buyer and he even paid early.
Then the tone started to change. I try and check in with my buyers a few times the few days after the pups go home. His messages back carried a tone that implied the dog was a burden. She was being a puppy, wanting to engage with them, and they didn’t want to spend the time with her, so they ended up locking her in a crate quite frequently. They didn’t take the time to interact with her, and when they finally did, she was overly energetic, as would be expected, and she was then labeled as “crazy” and “so much more work than we’ve experienced.”
The irony was that she was the easiest and most people-oriented puppy in the litter. She wasn’t pushy,; rather, she was really gentle in her approach.
What became clear was that it had been a long time since they had raised a puppy. In those 12 years or so, a lot had changed:, he was older, his kids were older, his wife didn’t want to raise a puppy, and his work was more demanding. The idea of another dog like the one they lost was what they were seeking, but in their mind the puppy wasn’t a puppy, it was an adult dog.
I knew it was best for them to surrender her back to me since she wasn’t getting what she needed, and they were building resentment for the work she required. When he said, “I don’t know if I can do this,.” I seized the opportunity and told him that it would be nearly a year before she was even slightly close to what he was looking for, and that it is okay if he decided this wasn’t what he wanted to do with the next year of his life.”
It was like a flood gate opened and he could speak freely about how it was so much more work than he realized, yet simultaneously, he also tried to place the blame on the dog, which never goes over well with me., Bbut I am good at biting my tongue. I just knew I needed to get her back. When he said he didn’t really want to put the work in, I told him it was fine, it wasn’t for everyone, and moved the conversation to getting her back. We picked a time a few days away, and the night before he cancelled on me,. … wWhich was frustrating. I knew this wouldn’t get better, but at the time, it is his possession by law and I have to respect it. Those clauses of taking the dog for insufficient care rarely hold up in court without blatant abuse—which certainly wasn’t happening here. So I asked, how could I convince him to surrender her?
He kept saying that he needed to do what was best for her. Instead of committing to her, he tried to say he wasn’t the right home, and, while yes, that was true, it wasn’t because of the dog, she was exactly as described and definitely a puppy. Regardless, you work with what you have. When he said that, I knew that I needed to jump onboard with him and get a little firm. I told him that she deserved someone who was committed to her, that he had to be all in or it wasn’t fair to her. I explained to him how if he was going to surrender her, he needed to do it by the time she was 16 weeks old. If he waited longer, it would affect her ability to transition to the new home. I knew he needed a deadline to commit., Iit was almost as though it felt I couldn’t take her back after the 16 weeks, although, of course, I would. It marked it in his mind as a commitment date.
Well, as things go, he called the very day she turned 16 weeks old and told me he couldn’t do it and that he wanted to give her back. Since it was a text message, I did a little happy dance, and then I coordinated pick- up for the next day. Shortly after getting her back, I realized she was just as perfect as I remembered, and so I contacted a family I knew would be a good fit and rehomed her there a bit later.
In his case, he needed a way to get out of it while saving face., Iit had to be the dog’s fault, not his, and while I’ll never put my dogs down, I can agree that she wasn’t the right fit.
He was a buyer who failed to be honest about himself with the work he was willing to put in, and this happens a lot. I would say it happens a lot more since Covid. People aren’t as willing to invest time into things as they were before. I don’t know if it’s the dopamine hit that comes with everything on demand, or the chaos that seems to be abound in our world, where it feels like the slightest addition of chaos could collapse everything, but it does happen more frequently these days. You’ll also notice this with buyers who have more money than time, the ones who are used to paying for convenience. They will always take care of the dog with food and veterinary care, but sometimes they aren’t able to put the work into integrating the dog into the family. For them, they’ll take the loss on the purchase to get out of the stress of the puppy.
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SOMETIMES BUYERS MAKE MISTAKES
Lastly, sometimes buyers simply make mistakes. Many years ago a local buyer had purchased a female from me, and a year later she got a male–, same breeding, just different litters. Well, when he was about 10 months old, I got a call from the husband and the wife back to back,– the dogs had tied (Jules, is this the correct word? I’m not sure I understand it)and they didn’t know what to do. I told them that they had to wait so they didn’t cause injury, however the damage was done. She was bred, and they didn’t want to spay., Tthey felt they would be aborting babies and didn’t agree with that.
So their two dogs who were brother and sister had a litter.
The family raised the litter and I sold the puppies for them. After confirming their health, I explained them to potential buyers, that they were an oops litter, but healthy, and that they would not be sold with breeding rights. They were discounted in price, and people really loved them. We got lucky not to have any issues.
They had no interest in being breeders, so they deferred to me. I helped, of course, no questions asked.
Were they bad owners? No, not at all, quite the opposite., Tthey really adored their dogs and took good care of them. This was just a mistake, and it’s one that can happen.
Imagine if I had a clause in my contract that they had to pay me $10,000 if they bred their dog because it was sold on a limited contract. Would they owe me $10,000 for what happened? Would they owe $20,000 because each of their dogs were involved in breeding? If I had had that in my contract, they would’ve never called me. I wouldn’t have known, nor would I have been able to help them, nor support the buyers of the puppies. (Jules, what an intelligent, experienced insight. Phew. Nice.)
It’s important to check our contracts to confirm that we aren’t encouraging buyers to ghost us when they really need us. Just the same, I never looked at them as bad buyers., Tthey were great owners who made a mistake. Now I recommend these pairings that the older dog is spayed or neutered by the time the younger one is about 8 months old to prevent problems.
DOES IT MAKE YOU A BAD BREEDER?
In most instances none of these situations make you a bad breeder., Wwe never know the whole situation, and in trying to get the whole situation, we can often sound like an interrogator and can ruin the relationship we build with our buyers. When these things happen, what determines if you’re a good breeder or not is how you deal with it. Do you work to remedy the situation, doing what’s best for the dog and owner? Do you work to make it right, given the current circumstance? This is what my breeder friend did with the two pups and mama dog that needed a home. She’s a great breeder because she took them back and took it on, taking responsibility for the well-being of those dogs.
Next, do you reflect on these situations and ask yourself what role you played in the process and what you could do better next time? Did you encourage them to lie about their situation? How could you change your approach in marketing and conversation to prevent this in the future? Is there a gap in your conversation that you need to address? Maybe you need to go over puppies and how they are a pain in the butt a lot of the time in the beginning, as they explore the world with their razor teeth and don’t always have their bladder awareness come online for a few weeks, which means accidents.
Every situation we go through is an experience to learn from and be better. This is why, as you do this longer and longer, reflecting on situations, you get better and better. Remember these moments make us better and allow us to be the sought- after, experienced breeder they’re seeking; we don’t get to become that experienced breeder by everything going perfect all the time.
So if you’ve been through these things, I’m sorry., Tthey’re frustrating and irritating, but know you’ll get through it. If you’re looking for a supportive community who gets it and can help you, become a member of the Dog Breeder Society. We discuss these situations on live calls, in discussion boards, and in our masterclasses, on better taking care of our puppy buyers. I’d love to meet you on the inside.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Honest Dog Breeder, with me, your host, Julie Swan. I appreciate you taking time out of your day to let me come along on your journey. I can’t wait to see you in the next episode!
