12 Days of Breeders – 08 – Kim Crawmer of Prancing Pony Farm Maremmas

The 12 Days of Breeders is a series of interviews conducted with members of the Dog Breeder Society who are doing innovative, creative, and inspiring things in their dog breeding business.  In each of these interviews we cover challenges each breeder has encountered, and how they’ve overcome those challenges to find success in their breeding program.  Join me for all twelve of these interviews for inspiration, and countless actionable tips you can use to overcome (or avoid) challenges in your own dog breeding program!  You can check out all of the interviews in this series here.

Kim Crawmer and Prancing Pony Farm Maremmas

Breeding Livestock Guardian Dogs is a whole other world of breeding! Kim talks about the dynamics of breeding farm dogs and how people often think that they should breed them just because they breed other livestock, like sheep or chickens. She dabbles into how she’s been able to increase her price and educate buyers so they understand what they are getting and why her breeding produces a better farm dog. She further dives into how she is using a Facebook group, her website, and her email newsletter to get more attention for her breeding program and sell more dogs. 

Learn more about Kim and Her Prancing Pony Farm Maremmas

Transcript

Julie Swan | 0:24

You guys are in for a treat today. Today we have Kim Crawmer of Prancing Pony Farm. You breed Maremma livestock guardian dogs.

Thanks so much for coming on the show, Kim.

Kim Crawmer | 0:34

Thank you for having me.

Julie Swan | 0:36

All right, so tell us, you breed livestock guardian dogs, but this is not where everything started. Can you tell us, how did you get into breeding?

Kim Crawmer | 0:45

All my life I’ve been an animal fanatic, particularly dogs, but all types of animals. I drove my parents crazy, probably most of my life. We always had, my parents would go get dogs from the dog pound.

So we had lots of different breeds and they would get these dogs. My dad would actually take us dog shopping at the dog pound. Look at all the different dogs, pick one or two to bring home.

And then as soon as they got tired of them, they would take them back or dump them off or get rid of them or whatever. So we had a lot of dogs, but we didn’t really get to keep very many of them very long. The first dog was a boxer.

My dad had when I was a baby, when I was born. And so, yeah, I always loved dogs and always loved farms and farm animals. I don’t know why.

And wanted a farm. And my grandparents had, I’m from Memphis. I’m a city girl, was a city girl.

But my grandparents had a little homestead in Kentucky. So we would go there all the time, summers and weekends, and they had chickens and rabbits and whatever. So that was probably where the bug started.

And I always loved horses and always asked for a horse. And of course the answer was always no. And then when I was 14, oh, and another thing that I forgot, I loved Lady and the Tramp.

That was my favorite movie ever. So when I was 14, my brother came home and told me he found this pet shop and they had some ducks there. It was near Easter and they had ducks.

So I went to the pet shop to see the ducks. And I noticed there was dog hair everywhere. It was actually a grooming shop.

It wasn’t really a pet shop, but they had a few little things. And I asked if they would hire me to sweep up the dog hair. And they said, no, but we need somebody to bathe and brush dogs.

Would you be interested in doing that? And so I was like, of course. So that’s when I started learning how to be a dog groomer.

I started out bathing and brushing. I think I made $15 a day just working on Saturdays. And so I started there and I eventually got trained to be a groomer and everything.

And I also around that time had bought my first Cocker Spaniel, bought it myself, or maybe my parents bought that one for me, I can’t remember, but got my first Cocker Spaniel. And so it just went from there.

Dogs, I started breeding Cockers. My boss that I worked for had horses. She had Arabian horses.

So of course I was in heaven cause she would take me out to see her horses and everything. And I ended up buying my first horse through knowing her and everything. Bought it with my own money.

Basically that was the gateway to everything. My parents couldn’t buy me a horse. I just got a job and bought my own, paid for it, all its care and everything, and just went from there.

So I bred the Cockers for a while until after I was married, I got married when I was 19. We moved to Florida. My husband was in the Navy.

And so did the Cockers and everything, had the horses. We had two Arabian horses that we dragged all over the country. And I always wanted this farm, but because I married a man in the Navy, it got delayed.

I didn’t realize his Navy career was going to be 40 years. He was 10 years into it when we, he’s older than me, 30 years he was in while we were married. So my farm dreams all got put off for quite a while.

So yeah, I didn’t get, we did have a farm in Virginia for a little while and we ended up back here. So I was always going to have a farm. It just got put off for a really long time.

Julie Swan | 4:40

Yeah. And so did you just bred the Cockers for a few years when you were?

Kim Crawmer | 4:45

So I bred them. I even had a litter in Guam. We lived in Guam for a while and I had a litter over there.

And so my oldest son, he was born over there. I probably bred them 15 years or so, 10 to 15. I can’t remember.

At some point it got to where, cause I have six kids and I was homeschooling. So it got to a point where I was too busy. I was also grooming dogs.

I had a grooming business in Guam, which was really fantastic because for a while there were no other groomers on Guam at all. Part of the time there was one, besides me. And then she went back to the States and there was none.

So I had all the business I wanted. And I groomed there, had a grooming business in my home. They encourage home businesses. So I had that, and I bred one litter over there.

And then literally we were leaving the Island and I had people calling me up. Can you groom my dog? Can you groom my dog?

I was like, we’re leaving, we’re going back to the States. So I did it a little bit in my home in Florida too. But as I had more babies and busy with homeschooling and everything, it just got like, I’m lucky to groom my own dogs.

And my Cockers got aged out, and I didn’t have other ones. And just, so I don’t even remember, probably we were in Maryland when I had a kind of phased out of the breeding and the grooming. And I didn’t have a Cocker for a while when our last Cocker died.

I don’t remember how long ago it was, but when our last Cocker Spaniel died, well, it was here in California, but it was probably 10 years ago. I didn’t have one for a long time. And I never had a dog breed.

Like I, as a groomer, I was exposed to a lot of different breeds. I could really learn about different breeds. I could learn, okay, this is a really pretty dog, whatever, but it’s temperament is this way or that way, whatever.

So I learned about a lot of different breeds. I really liked a lot of different breeds, but there was never a breed I wanted to breed. I wanted as a pet, but not enough to breed like Cockers.

Cockers are my first love of dogs. And it wasn’t until many years later, because we had a Yorkie, we had Boxers, we have a Shih Tzu.

So we’ve had different breeds, but I never had an interest in breeding them until I got the Maremmas. And I was like, this is it, this is my new dog.

Julie Swan | 7:12

What caught your attention about them that made you finally want to breed them?

Kim Crawmer | 7:18

So we bought our farm here. We bought it December, 2015, and we moved in 2016 or moved into 2015, but our animals moved in the beginning in January of 2016. We had two actually, no, it was like four or five, four horses, I think that were being boarded.

We’d always boarded our horses. So we brought our horses back. I had already bought goats that I was planning to bring home.

We went to Disneyland one last little trip before we brought all the animals home. Will never be able to leave the farm again, so let’s go now.

So we brought the horses home in January and we brought the goats and everything. And I knew I needed a livestock guardian dog, because I knew, living here, there’s coyotes. And places where I would board my horses, it was like, if you leave the chickens outside one night and forget to put them in, they’ll be dead the next day.

You won’t have chickens because coyotes will just come and get them. And also I always loved Australian shepherds and I always thought that’s probably the breed I’ll have when I have a farm. But because I always had my horses at boarding stables and most people that own stables have herding dogs.

And I started watching those dogs and I realized that’s not the kind of dog you want to have around goats and chickens and those types of animals. Cause all they do is herd, bite, chase, you know, they’re just being their normal thing, you know, and I didn’t even really know what a livestock guardian dog was, but I started reading and researching and learning, oh, I need a livestock guardian dog, not a herding dog. So I already knew I was going to get one, because I didn’t want my new goats to get eaten, you know?

But I didn’t really know anything about the different breeds. Like I knew what Great Pyrenees were cause we groomed some here and there. So I started researching different types of livestock guardian dogs and what to get and whatever.

And I, I went to Craigslist, not the place you want to get a dog, but the only place I knew of. And I was contacting breeders that were on there and there was one breeder that had Great Pyrenees. And there was one breeder that had Maremmas and I was talking to both of them at the same time.

The Great Pyrenees breeder did breed registered Great Pyrenees. Her dogs were more expensive. And then the Maremma breeder, his dogs were registered but he wasn’t selling the puppies as registered.

He just didn’t want to bother with registration. So he was selling them unregistered, but the parents were registered and they were with the Maremma club, which at the time I didn’t even know what that was. So anyway, I was talking to these two breeders and everything the Great Pyrenees breeder was telling me and the Maremma breeder, he would say, you know, Great Pyrenees have this really bad thing about wandering.

They’re really hard to contain. You know, they, they call them the great wanderees because they’re always escaping and wandering. And then she would say, well, it just takes, you know, six strands barbed wire and a couple of hot wires and you can keep them in, you know, she was like trying to like say, “it’s not that big a deal,” but I’m like, “that’s a lot of work,” you know?

Just everything he was saying was like, Maremmas are the breed you want. So he convinced me that they were the breed. And she actually helped convince me that they also were the breed.

Like he would say, Maremmas haven’t been used as show dogs as much and as pets. So they tend to have more of a working instinct. Whereas we’ve had Great Pyrenees so long as companions and pets and whatever.

And sometimes they don’t have the temperament and she’d say, well, I had this one dog that ate a goat, but you know, the other one’s fine. And I’m like, no, I think I want a Maremma.

Julie Swan | 11:01

Yeah.

Kim Crawmer | 11:02

So yeah. So we bought Olaf. He was our first Maremma.

He was five months old and the breeder brought him here. He had been very well raised with livestock, that breeder raises Angora goats. And so he had a really good puppy socialization with the livestock.

He didn’t get a really good socialization with humans and experiences and all that. So that’s something I learned later. He can be a little quirky, you know, because of that, but he’s a great dog.

So we brought him home, and that getting to see these dogs, we have not long after we added Genevieve our second unregistered Maremma because Olaf needed a partner. I learned later, all livestock guardian dogs need a partner. And really it was just watching the dogs and seeing what they do, a dog that would lay down its life to protect an animal of another species.

There’s just something so admirable about that. And that was what was like, Oh, I think I might want to breed these dogs. And I really had my first litter just as an experiment to see, I figured if I didn’t sell them, I would keep them because I needed more livestock guardian dogs.

But if it worked out, you know, we’d see, it’s wonderful. It was just amazing. I’m still in contact with at least one person from that very first litter.

There’s this dog named Oliver. He’s amazing. He’s just amazing.

That was born in 2017. And it’s just so cool, to see how these dogs, what they do, you know, how the bond with a chicken, a sheep, a goat, whatever.

Julie Swan | 12:45

It is incredible. Their natural instinct is just something so strong. And I think what is hard, you know, they’re independent thinkers.

They need to be able to work by themselves because you’re probably sleeping inside while they’re doing their biggest job. And that’s the idea.

Kim Crawmer | 13:00

Predators are more active at night.

Julie Swan | 13:02

Yeah, exactly. And I think that is a turnoff for some people who are looking at them as companions, because they think, well, I want a dog who needs me, but it’s like, these dogs don’t need you. They like you, but they don’t need you.

Kim Crawmer | 13:14

Right, yeah.  There’s my, I have one Maremma that lives in the house, he’s in the dog bed there.

That’s what he does all day long. He’s just in his dog bed, he likes to be right by the back door. So he can run out in the backyard if something comes.

If my grandkids spend the night, he sleeps right by their bed. He wants to be protecting them, but even the dogs outside during the day. They’re just kind of catnapping.

They’re ready for action. They’re ready to hang out if you come out. But they’re not like, I notice the Cocker Spaniel.

She follows me everywhere I go. The other dogs that we have, we have a Shih Tzu and a Boxer, they will eventually come back to see what you’re doing. Titus will stay in his dog bed.

He hardly ever comes back to the back of the house. He’s like, I know you’re here. I know everything’s safe.

I like being around you, but they’re not clingy and needy. So if somebody wants a dog, that’s not, that’s a friendly and affectionate, but not constantly like you’re not going to get separation anxiety from a Maremma.

Julie Swan | 14:16

Yeah. I just think it’s so incredible what they do and their temperament. They’re just, they’re wonderful.

And I love their face structure. I don’t know. I’ve always liked theirs the most out of the livestock guardian dogs.

So, okay. So you first, and you originally bought unregistered, but you’ve now switched to registered dogs.

Is that right?

Kim Crawmer | 14:35

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Julie Swan | 14:36

So what happened with that switch? What was going through your head?

Kim Crawmer | 14:40

So we bought Olaf first, and then a few months later, we bought Genevieve, and I decided to breed and we had a litter. We had a litter in 2017, 2018 and 2019 from Genny. And then she she ended up with another litter, I think in 2021.

Anyway, I was wanting to get it into breeding more and it was really hard to find a Maremma. Just finding one was hard, and they weren’t registered. So it got to this point.

Well, first of all, most of the dogs I was finding in California were coming from the same breeder I bought Olaf from. So I was like, I’m trying to search out the genetics of the dogs that I’m contacting people about, to make sure one, that they’re all, they’re actually Maremmas and two that they’re not related to my dog. Cause I didn’t want to inbreed.

And so I couldn’t tell for sure. Like a lot of people just wouldn’t know. I don’t know.

I got them from Susie Q, you know, they didn’t really know who they got their dog from. They didn’t know really who it was related to or whatever. And then I also kind of had this feeling that Maremmas were kind of getting popular and that some people might be saying it was a Maremma when it really wasn’t.

And I really wanted a Maremma. I did not want a Grand Pyrenees. I did not want, you know, I just wanted a Maremma.

So I started kind of looking at registered dogs just because I would know what I was getting. I didn’t even really know that the Maremma club existed, because they’re not an AKC breed. So you can’t go on AKC Marketplace and find one they’re Maremma Sheep Dog Club of America.

So at some point I found out about the Maremma Club and I was like, I think I need to probably get a registered dog because then I’ll know it’s a Maremma and I’ll know who its parents are and all of that. So I found out about that and started contacting Maremma breeders and there weren’t that many.

Like there’s a lot now, but there were very few back then, and nobody would sell me a dog because I had unregistered dogs. And I was at first just looking for a female.

I had another female. I did end up buying one of Genevieve’s sisters, a younger sister. So I had another female, but I was wanting to kind of expand out more.

And I really, I was considering just getting another female to breed to Olaf. And obviously I didn’t understand at the time, but nobody wanted to take their well-bred registered female Maremma and have me breed it to my unregistered dog. I was very offended by it, but I understand it now as a breeder, cause I’m super picky, you know, about now I get it.

So it was hard and my feelings were hurt, you know, whatever. But I started kind of looking around. There was a breeder in Arizona.

She was like, no, if you get your male dog neutered, I’ll sell you a puppy, but I’m not gonna sell you a puppy, you know, whatever.  And also what I was also trying to do, is I was trying to get my Olaf registered, because he was eligible to be registered.

And I had come in contact with a person who had also bought dogs from that breeder. And she had been able to convince the breeder to register the litter so she could register her dog. And she told me, contact him.

He might do that for you. So I contacted him. He wouldn’t help me.

He wouldn’t reply. He just wouldn’t even bother. And she told me that she had contacted the Maremma Sheepdog Club and they had helped her convince the breeder to register her dog.

So she said, you should contact them and see if they can help you. So that’s what I did. I called the number for the Club.

And I talked to the person who was the secretary of the Club at the time, and told her about my whole story and everything. And in the beginning, they were interested in helping me, but it never panned out. Basically that’s how it went.

It never panned out. I never was able to get him registered, because they couldn’t force it. And if the breeder wasn’t, he just wasn’t interested.

But that person that I talked to, she started talking to me about health testing, and all this stuff that I didn’t really know about. So it kind of sparked interest in that. And it still took me a long time.

I couldn’t get somebody to sell me a dog, whatever. But eventually I got my first Maremma. Eventually I got my first registered Maremma.

And that was like the gateway. Once you have one, then other breeders are like, oh, well maybe we’ll sell her a dog, you know, whatever.

Julie Swan | 19:19

Right, opened the gateway.

Kim Crawmer | 19:21

So I still had unregistered dogs at the time. But once I had that first registered dog, it just went from there. And yeah.

And I think I had my last unregistered litter in 2021, but I had my first registered litter December, 2020. So it was in this little transitional phase where I was kind of breeding both. And eventually my unregistered Maremmas are fantastic livestock guardian dogs.

They absolutely are amazing. And actually that’s the thing that I learned, that really shocked me when I did get into the registered dogs. Not all of those dogs are good livestock guardian dogs. Mainly because some of the breeders are not socializing their puppies with livestock, or their dogs are not even livestock guardian dogs.

Really. They’re just kind of like estate guardians. So they have these beautiful dogs that might be health tested.

They might be very well bred, but they’re not really, they’re not really getting what they need. It takes nature and nuture.

Julie Swan | 20:27

They don’t have the instinct for it. And then they aren’t being raised with livestock.

Kim Crawmer | 20:31

Right. The puppies have critical socialization periods when they really need to be exposed to everything you want them to be exposed to. And if it’s a livestock guardian dog, that’s really important.

They need to be with livestock at a minimum by three to four weeks of age. If you wait until they’re eight or nine weeks of age, it’s kind of too late. And by 12 weeks, it’s definitely too late.

So I’ve got dogs from different breeders, and the breeders who raise their puppies, the way I raise my puppies, those dogs are fantastic livestock guardian dogs. The breeders who raise their dogs on their patios, or by their pool, or whatever, they’re beautiful dogs, and they eventually might become okay livestock guardian dogs, but they’re never really great livestock guardian dogs. So that was what I noticed.

And it was a shock. I was like, doesn’t everybody raise their puppies in a barn?

Julie Swan | 21:23

Apparently, not. No, no.

Kim Crawmer | 21:24

Apparently not.

Julie Swan | 21:26

It’s really an interesting, it’s an interesting world. LGDs as a whole, livestock guardian dogs, are a very different world, right? Because you have a lot of farmers and they’re like, oh, well I breed pigs, I breed sheep, you know, chickens, whatever.

I’ll just breed these dogs too, you know, just another source of income. And it’s different, right? Like why is it different?

Can you elaborate?

Kim Crawmer | 21:54

Yeah, they do. I’ve had people say, well, why wouldn’t I breed my dogs? I’m breeding my goats or sheep or whatever.

And yeah, it’s different. I say very bluntly, it’s different because if your goat or your chicken or your sheep or whatever, if something messes up, doesn’t work out, defects or temperament problems or whatever, you can eat it, you know, or you can send it to the sale and somebody can eat it. We don’t eat dogs here.

You know, it’s, to me, it’s very unethical to breed dogs, if you really don’t know what you’re doing, or have at least a good plan or idea, you know.

Health and temperament and training and socialization and all that stuff is so important for dogs. Dogs are different. The way we have them in our society.

Even a livestock guardian dog is still a companion to some degree, because dogs are so bonded with people now, maybe even from the beginning, dogs have always, dogs came into us as scavengers to say, hey, we see what you got and we want it. So we might be friendly with you, you know, so we can have this mutual relationship.

Julie Swan | 23:06

So yeah.

Kim Crawmer | 23:07

Where with other animals, we kind of had to catch them and kind of had to catch the horse and get it to be tame.

Julie Swan | 23:21

They’re not a prey animal at all, dogs are predators, and I think that’s what changes it too. They just need more management. They need a job. They need something to do.

You know, and I, so I think it is, it is different. And I, I do see that a lot. Like you said, Craigslist, I mean, I remember flipping through Craigslist, looking for LGDs back in the day.

And yes, you want something that works. And I think there’s a lot of, cause you probably run into this a lot. So because you have these people who are like, oh, I’ll just breed my two dogs.

I breed everything else in my house. So there becomes a lot of supply in the market. And a lot of those people, they’re like, oh yeah, I’ll sell them for $500 bucks.

No problem. And like, they’ve really reduced the price that these puppies go for. And of course they aren’t health testing.

They’re not registered. They’re maybe raised correctly. Maybe not.

They probably won’t be there to support you later.

Kim Crawmer | 24:13

Oh yeah, that’s big.

Julie Swan | 24:14

Do you find though, that because of that, like the price people are probably coming to you and be like, I just saw these dogs on Craigslist for $500. Yours are so much more. Why should I pay?

Why should I pay that?

Kim Crawmer | 24:25

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a big thing. And even people that are breeding registered dogs and even people that are doing some of the things like health testing, you know, maybe have nice quality dogs.

Even a lot of them, there’s this thing, somebody made a comment, somebody, a breeder had this kind of as their marketing thing. And I kind of took it and went with it, but went the other way. They were like puppies need to be affordable because farmers can’t afford an expensive dog.

And I was like, my thing is you cannot afford an affordable dog, because an affordable dog is going to have health problems, or it’s going to have temperament problems, or it’s going to be neurotic with people or something. You know, most of these breeders, they might be doing some of the part, they might be doing good health testing or whatever, but they’re not doing all the socialization. Or they might be socialization well with livestock, but not with like people. And, you know, all the things we do puppy culture and all that stuff, they’re not doing that stuff.

So their dogs, their puppies might be good with livestock, but scared of people and scared of the car and things like that. Or they might be raising them as companions, really like in their backyard or their patio or whatever, but those puppies never saw a chicken or a goat or anything like that in their life until you brought them home. And then they were like, like I had that with dogs that I got at four months old and I brought them home to my farm.

And they were like, where is my pool? Where is my jacuzzi? What are these weird looking animals that you are trying to get me to be with?

You know, like they don’t understand. So most of the breeders, they’re just doing whatever works for them. And then the owner has to clean up the mess, you know, like, so they sell their dogs for less because it’s a lot of work.

It’s a lot of work to really raise quality dogs in general. And then livestock guardian dogs, livestock guardian dogs to me are different than companion dogs. And I do sell puppies to companion homes sometimes, but I say, I call them not companions just because mostly that’s what they’re going for is working dogs.

They’re different because if you buy a dog that you’re only going to have it as a pet, you just need to acclimate that dog into your life. It just needs to be a good pet, be safe for your kids, be safe with your family, whatever. If you’re buying a livestock guardian dog, it needs to be all those things.

And it also needs to go in with other animals and do its job and not become the predator. You know, like you don’t want it eating your chickens and chasing your sheep or whatever. So it’s a whole different thing.

And a lot of people are breeding those dogs and they’re just not getting some part of the equation, right? So they sell them affordably, because they know their dogs are not worth more money. Cause they’re not putting that into them.

But then those people come to me and they’re like, oh my gosh, I got this stuff. Cause I have a Facebook group that has a couple thousand people on it and that people come to my website and you know, they find me and they come to me with their problems.

Julie Swan | 27:42

Well, tell me what is your Facebook group? What is it for? Is it for, who is it for?

Kim Crawmer | 27:48

It’s for anybody that either has a Maremma or is interested in Maremmas or livestock guardian dogs in general.

Julie Swan | 27:55

It’s like an owner’s group, but it’s not just your owners. It’s people of the breed.

Kim Crawmer | 27:59

Right, anybody. Yeah. Yeah.

Anybody we have, we have members, a lot of members from like Australia and other countries. Maremmas are very popular in Australia and New Zealand. So there’s a lot of members from there.

There’s all over. So it’s mostly owners, but you can have any type of dog, we let anybody join. You don’t even have to have, you know, we let anybody join, but we’re very particular.

Like there’s no bullying, there’s no spamming, there’s no talking about any kind of aversive training. It’s not allowed. There’s no saying my dog’s a jerk, you know, none of that.

I just, it’s a safe space. It’s a safe space, but you know, you can share your cute puppy pictures. You can’t advertise puppies, but you can share cute pictures, you know, whatever, post your questions about training.

It’s a lot of stuff about training and stuff like that.

Julie Swan | 28:56

Because you had a bunch of people coming to you, right. Looking for training tips, cause they did buy the sort of maybe kind of started dog.

Kim Crawmer | 29:05

Yeah. Yeah. So they come like, Oh, my dog’s doing this and that.

And what do I do? And whatever. So that, and I get people, I had a really sad situation where somebody bought two dogs from just a backyard breeder who, you know, affordable puppies.

And one of them is having total hip replacement. Just, it’s just awful. Like she can barely walk, you know, like, and she told me, she said, she knows that she didn’t buy from the right breeder.

You know, she knows that now, she didn’t understand at the time she loves her dog. It won’t be a livestock guardian dog. That’s the thing.

If you get a dog and it ends up with, you know, bad hips or whatever, and you needed it to do a job, it can’t do that job now. I know people who’ve bought these dogs who, I know of one breeder in particular who breeds Maremmas and her first Maremma came from another registered Maremma breeder, Code of Ethics breeder actually, and it ended up with hip dysplasia, which happens, it happens. Like, I could produce puppies with bad hips because hip dysplasia is complicated, it’s genetics and it’s environment. But anyway, she has this dog and he has to come inside every night and rest because he can’t work full time, you know, because it’s too much on his joints.

And she runs a chicken farm, like a big chicken farm. So she had to get other dogs to replace that dog is my point. Like you, if you got a dog and it ended up with problems, now it can’t do what you got it to do.

And you have vet bills and all that stuff. So this person who had contacted me, she said, luckily she has the money to pay. This dog is going to cost her thousands and thousands of dollars.

Like, I don’t know, $20,000 or something for all the stuff that it needs. She loves her dog. So she’s going to do it, you know, and she can afford it.

But I don’t know what she paid for her dog. We didn’t get into that, but I’m going to guess $500 to $1,000. Did she really save money by getting that affordable dog?

She didn’t. And she knows it. And she’s just coming to me asking for advice.

And she also has some training issues with the dog. But yeah, that’s the type of stuff I hear all the time. And I’m like, you can’t fix the health problems, you know, so that’s really a big one.

You just can’t fix it, you can accommodate for it, you know, but you can’t fix it. But the training stuff, sometimes you can help with the training. I went through the Karen Pryor Academy professional training program.

So, and I take all kinds of, L.E.G.S. Applied Ethology Family Dog Mediation, licensed family dog mediator, taking lots and lots of dog training courses, and dog behavior courses. So I know how to help my clients. I know how to train my dogs.

I know how to help other people. Most breeders have no clue. They haven’t done any of that.

But you can find the best trainer in the world if you have a dog that has issues. But the most important thing is where you got your dog. The most important thing is what happens to that puppy before it’s 12 weeks old, even before it’s eight or nine weeks old, puppies have critical socialization windows starting at about three weeks old.

And it ends about somewhere between 12 and 16 weeks. If your puppy didn’t get livestock socialization, or it didn’t get socialization with people or, you know, positive association with people experiences, all that you can never truly make up for that. You can help it some with some training, but you can’t.

Julie Swan | 32:48

Yeah, I think you pointed it out. Like you can never out train bad breeding.

Kim Crawmer | 32:53

Right?

Julie Swan | 32:54

I think that was such a great thing that you said to me the other day, because it is true that you really can’t. I always found it really interesting when people were like, I’m going to rescue my livestock guardian dog.

I’m like, chances are if it’s in a rescue, it already had problems, or it ate one of their like, that seems like a really bad way to find a way to protect your animals. And I know those dogs need places to go, and I know they need homes, but it was a misunderstanding to me that people did not put together that you know, “oh, any dog will do”.

Kim Crawmer | 33:27

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I get people saying, why don’t you just rescue dogs and train them? I’m not that good of a trainer. There’s no way. I can’t fix the problem somebody else created.

But if I start my puppies properly, then they’re just amazing. And yeah, 30% of livestock guardian dogs fail. That means they wash out, they get dumped off, they get abandoned, they get taken to the dog pound, whatever.

And I can guarantee you that 30% is mostly due to training problems.

Julie Swan | 34:01

Yeah.

Kim Crawmer | 34:01

Those dogs are the ones that are mostly, I mean, some of them dogs that someone sold their farm and doesn’t want the dog anymore or whatever, but that’s unusual. Because they’re going to sell it to another farm or give it to another farm or whatever. Most of the time it’s the dog just didn’t get the proper socialization and didn’t get the proper training and whatever.

And they started, this is what happens. People buy a dog for $500 or a thousand dollars. The dog, didn’t get all the training and stuff as a puppy, the socialization, the breeder provides absolutely no support.

It is like, I got your money. Thank you. Bye.

I don’t ever want to hear from you again. So most people that are buying livestock guardian dogs are first time owners who have no clue. They’re new farmers who are just figuring out farming to begin with.

And now they’re trying to add a dog in with their livestock, and when they have problems, the only place they have to go is Facebook, which is terrible. Like I have a Facebook group, but most of the Facebook groups are just a mess. There’s some good stuff, but there’s so much bad stuff and you’re trying to weed through it and whatever.

So they have problems. And then it gets to a point where they can’t, they just can’t figure it out. And this dog is chasing their animals, maybe killing stuff, whatever.

So they just figure, well, I’m going to cut my losses. I’m going to take this dog and dump it off and I’ll start over with another affordable dog. You know, it’s bad for the dogs.

It’s bad for the people. It’s bad for the livestock. Only person who’s benefiting is that unethical breeder who made a quick buck.

Julie Swan | 35:43

Which we could argue if they just did it right, they could make a lot more money.

Kim Crawmer | 35:47

True. But they don’t want to because it is a lot of work. It’s a lot.

Julie Swan | 35:52

So how do you, how do you have those conversations with people? Do they find you after they’ve had a bad experience? Is that like a lot of people coming to you, where you get them to raise that price, or how does that go?

Kim Crawmer | 36:03

Some of them. Yeah. Some of them are coming to me after that, but, some of them are coming to me and they already have dogs and they’re just looking to add another one, like already have livestock guardian dogs have, or maybe they lost their dog and they need a new one or whatever.

Had a client recently who has, she had two Great Pyrenees and one of them died. I think kind of suddenly he was probably only about seven or eight years old. So she needed a partner for her, her older female who’s about nine, I believe.

But she knew, her dogs were wonderful guardian dogs, but they were just kind of backyard breeder type dog situations. So she, she already kind of knew she was looking to do things differently. I will get that.

We want to do things differently this time kind of thing. So, and she, she bought two puppies. But a lot of my people are first time, first time, never had a livestock guardian dog, had absolutely no clue, maybe new to farming.

Like I get a lot of people who “I’m starting my farm. I don’t even have livestock yet, but we’ll be getting there soon” or whatever. Like I’ve got, I’ve got deposits on puppies for litters in the future that aren’t even born yet, or even bred yet, because they already bought their farm.

They’re planning to bring sheep home or chickens or whatever, in the spring, or they’re working on their fencing or something like that. Those are the best.

Those are the absolute best when they’re planning ahead. They’ve already figured out that they’re going to need protection for their livestock and they’re getting things all in place. The other one you get is, oh crap, something came in and ate a bunch of my animals.

Now I need something today. And I do have always have like some older puppies or older dogs. So I have tried to have dogs available for that. Oh crap situation.

But I much prefer the ones that plan ahead.

Julie Swan | 37:58

They do make better owners most of the time. Yes, absolutely.

Kim Crawmer | 38:02

It helps you to know, and it’s really nice to know. But it’s not like the pet market, you kind of have to go on faith a little bit more, I think, because people do suddenly need a dog. With a pet, you know, they’re thinking about getting a puppy, you know, so you can, I’ll hear breeders say, yeah, I don’t breed a litter till I know that all the puppies are sold or whatever. And I’m like, that just doesn’t work because if somebody needs a dog, like their dog died and they need a dog, you know, so have some dogs available.

Julie Swan | 38:38

And I’ve seen too with the market shift, people don’t, a lot of times they’re afraid to put money down until a dog is like born, and they want to see, and they want to know they can get a certain dog or something. And that I do see that a little bit more in the last year or so.

Kim Crawmer | 38:53

I saw it a lot during COVID and after COVID and all that, but I think it’s starting to shift a little bit. I’m starting to get some more.

Julie Swan | 39:01

Yeah. Well, I never had that before. Nobody cared about waiting.

And then now they were like, well, I’ll just wait till they’re here. And so it has been more work for me on my side, at least with my customers, to get them to understand that, like, you get the best choice in the litter. You get the best option, the most time working and preparation, all this stuff, you know, but it is what it is.

But you’ve done a good job with, with marketing and your Facebook group is awesome. Cause I think you’re really serving a need in the, in the world of this breed. People need to understand them.

And then you’re yeah. But then that’s leading to like good sales for you. Right?

Kim Crawmer | 39:42

Yeah. The Facebook group doesn’t really lead to sales that much. I don’t think it has led to any sales.

Because most of the people on there either already have a dog, or they’re thinking about it, but they’re in the affordable dogs category. It might eventually lead, but it’s really more of a serving a need for people. And I try, I do try.

I’m trying more lately when people have questions, I try to like really quickly write a blog post about it. Or if I already have a blog post, that’s better. Cause then I don’t have to do a lot.

And so here, here’s a link to this. Your answer is here. So they’re going back to my website.

Julie Swan | 40:26

So you’re using the group to propel your SEO and all that.

Kim Crawmer | 40:35

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Cause what I would do is I would find myself answering the same questions over and over to people.

And I have always had this thing of making really long, long posts, lots of stuff. And I would copy and paste it and save it and say, I’ll make this into a blog post later. And now I’m like, no, let me make the blog post real quick.

And then just share a link to the post, or make an FAQ. I started a FAQ on my website. And so I’ll just do an FAQ.

I’ll take their question, put it as the question and then answer it. And then I’ll say, here you go. Here’s your answer.

And I’ll chitchat back and forth with more particular stuff, but I try to at least have some element where I can point it back to my website.

Julie Swan | 41:21

I love that. And then, so how do you get people to get on your list then? So now you’ve got people and you’re getting at least the traffic.

Kim Crawmer | 41:30

Yeah. So I started out as a goat breeder. I wasn’t planning to breed the dogs.

And so for a long time, the focus of my business was goats and I still do breed. I breed mini Nubians and Nigerian dwarfs. So from the very beginning, I had a website, and I always listened to lots of podcasts and books and stuff about marketing, and read blog posts, and all that kind of stuff.

So I knew very early on that website, website, website, website, you know, I knew that that was very important. People put all their stuff into Facebook or, you know, and they’d say, how are you selling goats? Or how are you selling puppies on Facebook?

You know, I can’t sell. And I’m like, I don’t sell on Facebook, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all of that. That’s just for getting people to know you, know who you are, you know, know, like, and trust factor, whatever.

But I always had the website and I would always point people back. If people had a question about like, if they were interested in a puppy or a goat and they had questions or wanted to see what do you have, whatever, I don’t send them pictures. I send them a link to my website.

There they are. They’re all there. You know, you can go there.

So that helps the more you’re sending that out, the more people are finding you and they’re building your SEO and your ranking and whatever. My old, I have a new website for the Maremmas I recently started on WordPress. Thanks to you.

But my old website is Weebly. It ranks really, really super well, just because I’ve always promoted it and I blog a lot and whatever. So if you do a Google search on Maremmas or mini Nubians or Nigerians, my stuff comes up a lot.

Now I’m trying to get that to my new site. Because I did split the dogs. But the email, I’ve only been doing the email list for about a year and a half. I started in May last year.

I started, you know, hearing about email marketing and just over and over Amy Porterfield, all these different people, email marketing, that’s the thing, that’s the thing. And I was like, I really think this is something I really got to figure this out. So I got the free ConvertKit.

I think it was May 2023 was when I started, and I got the free ConvertKit thing. And then I very quickly went up to paid, because I learned there were things you could do, automations and things to save yourself time. And it just, I haven’t put a ton of effort into it, but I do what I can, same with social media.

I do what I can. And it’s grown to about 650 people just recently. And so I, same thing, you know, I try to do the lead magnets.

I put pop-ups on my website. I posted on my business page. I have my main business page and I have a couple of smaller ones that aren’t really super active.

There’s the Maremma info one. And then I have the groups I post in the groups and whatever. The best thing that I’ve had for getting people on my email list has been a quiz.

I have a quiz through Interact. It’s called, is the Maremma right for you? And that thing has gotten me almost 400 subscribers.

Julie Swan | 44:50

Wow.

Kim Crawmer | 44:50

It’s been amazing. And I have a newer quiz, adopt or shop, that I haven’t done too much with, but it’s converting pretty well already. So the quizzes are the best. And I have a little email sequence that they go through.

So yeah. I’ve run a few paid ads here and there I’ll run a paid ad. If I do a paid ad, I’m not doing a paid ad to try to get people to buy a dog or something like that.

I’m just trying to get them to take my quiz or go to my website or whatever, but I’ll just do like $25 or $30 at a time. I’m not into gambling, so I don’t do like spend $500 on an ad. So it’s mostly, it’s only been organic.

And then, and so, yeah.

Julie Swan | 45:37

How do you do the emails then? So what do you use in your emails? What do you put in your newsletter?

Kim Crawmer | 45:44

So in the beginning, like most people you’re like, okay, I started this email list. Now I don’t know what to do with it. What do I do?

I took a farm marketing course last year. It was a really expensive program. It was a year long program with all kinds of courses and stuff.

And there was a coaching aspect, which I never did my own coaching. I just never got around to it. You could get so many sessions of coaching and I didn’t really do it, but I listened to all.

You could listen to all the other coaching and it really helped me a lot. It helped so much with mindset. Like her big thing was people, if people aren’t buying your dog, there’s this one thing she said one time.

It’s not because they can’t afford it. She would say, they’re not buying your dog because they need a dog, or your goat or whatever. It’s what they get.

It’s the peace of mind. It’s the joy, it’s the whatever, you know, healthy food for their family, whatever. So all that stuff helped a lot.

And it helped me really persevere when things were rough and animals weren’t selling or whatever. I’m like, no, my dogs are worth it. I’m not dropping the price.

I’m going to stick to it, you know? And so that helped. And she had stuff about email marketing.

So that’s where I first really kind of, and also I did StoryBrand. So I learned stuff from there. So I kind of built from there.

And so in the beginning, it was just maybe once a month, maybe a couple of times a month. And I’ve finally grown it to where I do it every week. And I just kind of, it just depends on what’s going on.

I would like to have it planned out ahead, but I just never get that far. So I’m usually just kind of like, whatever’s going on that week. I’m just more of a friendly conversational, Hey, it’s really hot.

How’s it there? You know, cause I hate hot weather, like the weather finally changed or whatever. And I’ll tell whatever’s happening.

I try to have a blog post as much as I can, a new post or maybe an old post that I can link to. I’ll tell whatever story, a couple of weeks ago, this guy ran off the road and barreled through our property, our front yard, you know, it’s not fenced or anything. And he barreled through, he took out a light pole that we have these decorative light poles with horses jumping on them, hit a tree and hit one of my pasture fences.

It was insane. It’s a wonder he wasn’t killed. It’s a wonder nobody was in my front yard.

Nobody was killed or whatever. Anyway. So I told that story and I made a little video cause I had been out there videotaping and I was filming and I took pictures.

I was out in my pasture cause he hit my pasture fence where my puppies are at the front. And so I’m out in the pasture, like videotaping the dogs barking at this truck that just like landed, right. It broke the top rail.

We have pipe fencing with horse mesh on it and it broke the top rail. So the dogs are like, what the heck? So I made this little quick little video that I posted on Instagram and YouTube.

And I shared that video and told that little story. This crazy thing that happened this week, we had a farm crash. That’s what I called it, a farm crash.

So I just put stuff like that.

Julie Swan | 48:59

Yeah. So you’re kind of like updates, right? Updates and blog posts articles.

Kim Crawmer | 49:03

Yeah. Yeah. And once in a while I’ll post, you know, we got goats for sale or we got puppies or whatever. I’m trying to get better about that.

I learned a lot from some stuff. I listened to some of your courses like recently, the one with Tori, which I had listened to, but I went back through it again and I was like, oh man, yeah, I need to really pay attention to this. So I’m just trying to get more, but I don’t do a lot of selling.

I’m just mostly, everyone has a link to my puppy page and a link to my goat stuff and my training. I do training consultations too for livestock, guardian dogs. So there’s links there.

They know they can get it, but it’s mostly just, you know, sharing training tips or information or just conversational or whatever. Sometimes if there’s like a podcast I listened to that I think is really good, I might share a link to that. I’m going to share yours.

Definitely the breeder, not just this one, but I find all the breeder ones really fascinating. So people should learn what ethical breeding is, no matter what type of dog, even if it’s not, you know, but I get, I also always invite people to reply back. I always say, you know, sometimes it’s a particular thing.

Like I might ask a question, what did your dog do? Or what did this or that, but it’s always just, Hey, if you have anything you want to say, if you have a question, a training question, a general question, whatever, just reply back. And they do, they do a lot.

I love it. You know, it’s like, it’s this deeper connection you can get that you don’t get on social media. And I have so many, and I save them all like, and I save them and I’ll maybe use them later if there’s a thing, but they reply back and people tell me, Oh, thank you so much for sending me the emails.

I just love getting them or whatever. I get people who are saying one day, I’m going to get one of your dogs. You know, I’ve got this guy, he’s like a retired military.

And one day he wants a Maremma. He’s not in a position where he can have one now, but he’s like, when I do, I’m gonna get one from you, you know, whatever. I, some of my old puppy clients will reply.

I have this client named Dave in Texas. I absolutely love Dave. His wife is Susan.

They bought two, they have 55 acres in Texas. They bought two of my puppies almost two years ago. There’ll be two in January.

And he was getting coyotes coming onto his property. He has free range chickens and he has, he had around 300 chickens. He had lost half of his flock because in broad daylight, coyotes were coming on and grabbing those birds and taking them off.

I’m talking to him on the phone and he’s out there with a shotgun trying to get those coyotes away. And he called me, you know, he contacted me about, you know, he’s, he told me that he had been watching the movie Oddball. I don’t know if you know, there’s this Disney movie called Oddball and it’s about Maremma sheepdogs.

There is a true story. There’s a true thing in Australia. It’s called the, I can’t remember the exact name of, but it’s the Maremma Project.

There was a, there’s this little island, in I think New Zealand. Anyway, they have these little penguins and they were almost decimated by foxes. It was down to like 12 or something because the foxes, you know, it was real low tide and the foxes could come onto the island and they were eating the penguins and taking them, like they were almost extinct.

And this chicken farmer in New Zealand or Austria, I think it’s New Zealand or I don’t know. Anyway, this chicken farmer somehow got the idea that we should use Maremmas to guard, you know, they should use Maremmas to guard the penguins. And they did.

And they brought them back from extinction. They completely, I don’t know how many there are now, but there’s probably maybe 300 or something like that. And it’s just amazing.

This happened like a decade or more ago. I think the original dogs recently died or one of them did or something. So anyway, Disney made a movie about it called Oddball.

It’s adorable, cute movie, you know, movies, they’re not completely factual, but it’s, it’s cute and it’s really good. And a lot of rescue people don’t like that movie because they said when that movie came out, everybody wanted a Maremma, just like everybody wanted a Cocker Spaniel with Lady and the Tramp or whatever. But I think it’s great.

I think it’s, you know, whatever. So anyway, he saw that movie and he said to Susan, we got to get some of those dogs. That’s what we need.

That’s what we need. So he did. They contacted me and, you know, it’s a whole process of talking to people, and answering questions and all that.

And they got those two dogs. Their names are Bear and Chief and they were nine months old when they went to their farm. And now they’re almost two, there’ll be two in January and they’re unbelievable.

He sends me videos and pictures all the time. He tells me these funny stories and sends me, and the dogs. I was even amazed at my own puppies because very quickly he had those nine or 10 month old puppies out and he bought new birds to replace, you know, the birds he lost.

So he’s got these puppies out in about 300 chickens and they’re just sitting there like, just like chilling with the chickens, you know, unbelievable. And he has cows and they hang out with the cows. He’s got this one cow, his first cow named Pearl.

And Pearl, in the beginning, he would put the dogs in an old converted chicken coop, you know, until they kind of got used to where they were. And Pearl would come over to the gate every morning, like, where’s my dogs? I want them to come out and play.

So now they run loose and whatever. And they’re fantastic guardians. And so he almost always will email me back when they get the email, you know, and then he’ll tell me some crazy story.

He told me on Thanksgiving, his dogs found a deer head that somebody, because hunting season people throw their, you know, I was just dying. So it’s like this connection you get with people, you know, and it’s just really cool. I mean, he’s a lot about, a lot of Dave’s stories, Dave’s dogs, I say Dave’s dogs stories.

He had a video of them out in the pond. Like he said, this is a Loch Ness Monster in the pond in August when it’s really hot. But it’s just fun.

It’s fun. Not every person wants to send you stuff and talk to you and whatever all the time, because people are busy. I respect that.

I’m fine with that. But I do have a lot of clients who do. I hear from them a lot.

And I just, I love it. I always say it’s like, you’re being invited into the family when you get a dog from me. If you don’t want to be super participated, that’s fine.

That’s, you know, but if you do, I love it. I love videos. I love updates.

I love all that stuff.

Julie Swan | 55:57

It’s so fun, isn’t it? It’s so nice. It’s just nice to see what your dogs are doing, what they were intended to do.

And they’re bringing joy to people’s lives and helping them, whether that’s peace of mind, they can sleep without worrying about their animals. I mean, it’s beautiful.

Kim Crawmer | 56:10

Right. Yeah. And you feel like you still know them like that dog, Oliver, he was from my first litter and I have his sister because I kept a puppy from the second litter.

So they’re full siblings and Polar. She is my best livestock guardian dog. I did everything right with her.

She had the parents who were great dogs, but she got a better socialization even than they did. And she’s just wonderful. Like you could put her with baby chicks and she is perfect.

And so whenever I see any pictures or videos of Oliver, he looks so much like Polar and he acts like Polar and his mannerisms and all. And I just think I see there’s videos they’ve sent me or pictures or whatever. And I just love it.

I watched them over and over because I’m like, I just love this dog and I’ve never seen him since he left my farm. I’ve seen them. They’ve come back to visit because they live near me and they’ve come back to visit puppies and stuff like that.

But I’ve never seen Oliver since then. But I feel like I still know him. I still feel like he’s just and I’ve seen their girls.

They got they got Oliver when their girls were little and they live on five acres and it’s kind of off the highway. So people driving by, you know, whatever. And they got the dog to protect their chickens, but also to protect their children.

And they have one special needs daughter, and they were just worried that random strangers might pull up, and they can’t see the whole property from the house and whatever. So they were she told me she came to me and she’s like, we’ve never bought a dog from a breeder ever. We didn’t believe in that.

We believed in adopting. She brought her mother with her and her mother was like, why are you buying a dog? You should not buy a dog from a breeder.

You should be adopting a dog. But she was like, I need this dog to protect my chickens and to protect my children. And I’m not going to trust just any random dog.

And I hear from her sometimes or I run into her. For a while, her daughter did ballet with my some of my granddaughters. They’ve grown up now.

Her kids are older now, but she would say, we just love that dog. I’d ask her kids, how’s Oliver? Oh, he’s wonderful.

We just love him, you know? So I’m like, I just love that. Just, you know, it’s really cool.

Julie Swan | 58:14

So rewarding. It makes it all worth it. It makes it all worth it.

Kim Crawmer | 58:17

That’s what you do it for. That’s why you do it. It’s why you do it.

And I know people, breeders and also trainers, because I train, you know, because in the training world who get into animals, they’ll say they get into animals breeding or training or whatever, because they don’t like people. You can’t do that. If you’re working with dogs, at least you have to also like people, because dogs come with owners.

I know people who got out of breeding because they really love dogs. They really love breeding or training or whatever, but they realized they had to work with clients. and it didn’t work for them for their personality, and not that all people are easy to work with, but they’re still, they’re just like dogs. They’re all different.

You know, you have to learn to be understanding and accommodating.

Julie Swan | 59:09

It’s very different. I mean, people are, people are just a different animal to work with. Exactly.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. If you had advice you wanted to give to new breeders, other breeders, what is something that you just think you’d love to share?

Kim Crawmer | 59:30

Well, is it breeders or breeders of livestock guardian dogs. For breeders of livestock guardian dogs, I would say, do not get into this if you don’t think you’re also a trainer. Because you are. When you’re raising pets, because my puppies don’t leave at eight weeks old, their minimum age they leave at is 12 weeks old.

And most, a lot of them are older than that. Five months to, you know, three months to a year old is probably somewhere in that range. Sometimes I have older.

So you are a trainer. If you can’t be a trainer, you shouldn’t be training those dogs. If you can’t coach, I think this is true of any breeder, you need to be able to coach and advise your clients, but especially of livestock guardian dogs, because, you know, a lot of breeders of companion dogs will say, take your puppy to a trainer, you know, which is really great if they’re sending them to a good resource for training. But training with livestock is a whole different thing, and they need a lot of support and a lot of help.

And if you can’t provide that, if you can’t start your puppies properly, and you can’t provide that support to your client, I feel like it’s unethical to be breeding. I don’t know that people mean to be that, but it’s just, they need help. Less dogs would be in bad situations, and less owners would struggle if we were doing right.

Julie Swan | (1:00:49

And I don’t think it’s perfect too, like it’s a learning curve, you’re going to get better as a breeder, you won’t be perfect in the beginning, but I think you need to believe you’ll get there to where you can support your owners. I agree with you.

Kim Crawmer | 1:01:00

Yeah. Yeah. And so I don’t sell puppies with breeding rights unless, like I require them to do health tests.

I sell all my puppies for the same price. I don’t charge extra for breeding rights, but I sell them on limited registration. Luckily with the Maremma Club, we can do limited registration, but we can change it later if we want to.

So they go on limited registration. The owner has to, you know, test the dog like hips, hips at a minimum. And then now I’ve recently added elbows and DNA testing.

And then they have to take the Karen Pryor Academy Dog Trainer Foundations course or some equivalent higher. Like I have, I’ve sold a few puppies to people who are already dog trainers. I’ve sold a puppy to someone who’s a Karen Pryor professional.

She didn’t need to take foundations because she already did all of it, but they have to take the training. Cause I feel like you have to at least kind of have a basics, before you need to be breeding those dogs that you’re going to have to train and support. And then now I’ve recently also changed it to like, you need to have raised at least a team, at least a pair of livestock guardian dogs successfully to maturity before you even consider breeding. Because you won’t know what you’re getting into and what your clients will be getting into no need to even talk about it. And it might be the same dogs you bought.

You buy dogs for me, they’re limited. And then you come back and you say, okay, we’re ready to do the breeding thing. Can we do that?

And then say, go test your dogs, go make sure you’ve taken this course and then we’ll talk. But yeah, be prepared. And also the other thing is you have to just have faith.

You have to persevere because it can be really hard, especially if your dogs are higher. My dogs are higher priced, I don’t know of another breeder who charges. I can know of some, they’re probably close to my range, maybe the same now, but most of them are a lot less.

When I was breeding unregistered dogs, I was selling my unregistered dogs for more than what a lot of people were selling their registered dogs for. My last unregistered puppies went for $2,500 to $3,000. And there are people breeding registered dogs for $1,500 or $1,200 or whatever.

So you have to have faith when you’re doing that because most people are going to say, well, why can’t I just get a cheap dog? And what does it matter? And whatever.

And you just have to keep waiting for those right homes. But what I found is, I’ve got this dog and he’s getting older, and I really wish he was sold, and oh my gosh, but then when they finally do get the home, it’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect.

It’s just exactly where they were meant to be. It just took a lot longer than I would have liked. Most people breeding companion dogs, they’re not going to want to keep their dog for a couple of years or nine months or whatever, but because mine are outside, it’s a little bit easier, but not simple.

Julie Swan | 1:03:59

No, but it gets easier though. I think, right, as the website is built and people are more educated, you’re probably getting more and more people.

Kim Crawmer | 1:04:06

Yeah. And I’m starting to see the email list converting finally. That was another thing because you’d hear all this every $1 you spend on email marketing, you get $40 back or something, but for social media, you get 10 cents back or whatever.

But what I learned was if the thing you’re selling, no matter what it is, if it’s higher priced, conversion is going to take longer. So if you’re selling fancy watches, they’re going to convert a lot slower than if they’re buying a $10 watch. So the same with the dogs, I’m not going to sell the dogs as fast, but they start to get to know you.

They start to like you to trust you and whatever. And then finally I’ve started, I don’t know exactly how many, but I think I’ve seen at least two or three people who came, who did end up buying puppies. And usually a lot of times people buy two.

So who found me through my email list first, or maybe they found me on social media or my website, but they got on my email list and then they got to know me and then they bought. So now after the last, some of those classes you had that I listened to, I’m like, okay, I got to redo my funnel because I’ve been sending people the wrong way. I’ve been sending them to HoneyBook, which has been fantastic, absolutely fantastic using HoneyBook, but I need to get them on the email list first, make sure they’re on the email list first.

And then if they’re ready to buy, they can quickly go into HoneyBook, but if they’re not at least get them on the email list. So they kind of get to know and figure out and whatever. And I was getting a lot of people coming to HoneyBook who shouldn’t have been there yet.

Because they come in and they were just looking around. You’ll, you’ll know they’re just looking around because you send them stuff and they don’t say anything. They just should never have been there.

They should have gone to the email list first, Kit. That’s what I use. So yeah, get that going, the website first, email list next, social media, if you have time, it’s great.

Yeah, because, and yeah, a lot of those social media that are not going to buy, like I got a lot of people that follow, I probably, I think I have about 4,600 people on Instagram. Every once in a while, I’ll get someone who comes to me because they found me on Instagram. I’ve followed you on Instagram.

I probably sell, I probably get more people from goats through Instagram than dogs, but I do, I had someone from Texas who bought two puppies for me a couple years ago and she found me on Instagram. So it helps, but the email list and the website are the most important. And the website meaning work it, you got to work it.

Julie Swan | 1:06:48

Yeah. Add new information, keep your pictures updated, add new questions to your FAQ. If you got time, let’s start working on those blog posts.

Like I love that. I think you’re a shining example of really making your website work for you.

Kim Crawmer | 1:07:01

I actually kind of like it. Like it’s kind of fun.

Julie Swan | 1:07:06

It’s fun isn’t it? It’s kind of fun.

Kim Crawmer | 1:07:06

And oh my gosh, WordPress is amazing. I am obsessed. And I, I wanted to have a WordPress site for years.

I got Weebly first because I heard WordPress is too hard. Don’t do WordPress. It’s so hard.

And so Weebly was real easy. So I got it and it was, I mean, I had to figure it out, but it was pretty quick, but it’s just so limited. And then it started getting really glitchy and difficult.

Like I had this, I still do. Cause I still have my Weebly site. I ended up putting my dogs on the new, I made a new URL for the dogs and a whole new WordPress site for the dogs.

And I left the goats on the Weebly site. And I had this terrible, terrible problem on Weebly where it just randomly mixes up my pictures. So I would tell somebody go look for a, you know, this goat’s available and they go and they say, there’s a dog on that page. Or they go look for a dog, and there’s a goat on that page, or there might be a bottle of shampoo on that page. Cause I have a blog post about shampoo or something. So it would just randomly, and it still does it.

I’ve kind of figured out how to make it not as bad, but it still does it sometimes. So you just, you think your website’s perfect. And then somebody goes in and they tell you something’s not right on that page.

So it just got really difficult. And just, so once I figured out the WordPress, it was when you had that podcast about splitting off for different breeds. And I was like, I don’t have different breeds, but I have the goats and I have the dogs.

Different species, even more than different breeds. And so I was like, Oh, I can do that. Cause I didn’t want to change because I was worried about messing up my SEO. Because my old site does really, really like if you, if you type in marimbas or like Maremma puppies for sale or Mini Nubians or whatever, you’re going to probably see my site, sometimes the very first hit of all.

And at least on the first page. And I was just really worried that I would lose that. I didn’t want to lose that.

So then when I realized I could make, cause you have your Rat Terriers on a different URL from your GSPs. And I’m like, Oh, I can make Prancing Pony Maremmas. And then see if Prancing Pony Farm can still be the goats.

And then that way it won’t, I have time to build it slow. And, and I could not figure out the 301 redirects. I think Weebly just won’t allow them.

It will allow you to redirect within Weebly, but I couldn’t get it to redirect to the new site.

Julie Swan | 1:09:38

You would probably have to transfer your domain to a new host, potentially if you bought it through Weebly, that might be what’s required.

Kim Crawmer | 1:09:45

Yeah. I don’t know. I just couldn’t figure it out.

Julie Swan | 1:09:48

I can help you with it when you’re ready.

Kim Crawmer | 1:09:51

You can tell me. But what I ended up doing was I still have the doc, the Maremmas kind of listed on the old site, but basically I took most of those pages and made them into external pages, external link. So when you go on a dog page on there, it goes to my new site. So it’s kind of a cheat code, get around it, but it’s, it’s helping it because people will find me through there, but it’ll take them to the new site.

But there’s just so much stuff. I’m just having so much fun with WordPress. There’s just so much cool stuff you can do.

I spent a lot of money on Black Friday sales for plugins.

Julie Swan | 1:10:31

Good. Good. Yeah. I have a whole course coming out next year on WordPress and building your website there.

Kim Crawmer | 1:10:41

So it’s amazing. Like, there’s this thing called blog to social, it’s really cool. Cause every time you write a blog post, then you can share it to all your social stuff, but you can do it all at once.

And it’ll kind of like set each one up, you know, and so it’s formatted, formatted properly for each different thing. And it’ll share it to your Google business profile, your Google business listings. So I never was good about updating my Google business and that helps.

So now it links to both of them. I have it to my, cause I made a new Google business listing. So it’ll, so I can share everything to my old Google business thing and my new one.

So there’ll be like a post on there and then there’ll be on Instagram and Facebook and whatever, you know, so that’s really cool. It’s like a one, one click, you know, anything to get you doing stuff more. Shortcuts, shortcuts, that’s another big thing.

I had two clients in one week come to me to buy animals, goats or dogs or whatever it was. And a lot of times I sell goats, especially to people who are breeding too, or, you know, and they said, I’m just amazed at your processes. You’re just so organized, you know, whatever.

And I said, yeah, that’s because I have ADHD. If I’m not super organized, nothing will happen. Like it’ll just be a mess.

So I’m always looking for hacks, ways to streamline it.

Julie Swan | 1:12:10

You do. You’re always bringing something new to the table. I love it.

Kim Crawmer | 1:12:13

Some of the stuff I’ve learned from you, like HoneyBook, that literally was the biggest game changer. I’m sure there’s other ones that are good too, but that one, it’s just, if you’re breeding anything and you’re dealing with clients, if you’re breeding goats, if you’re breeding, whatever, it’s just to have. Because I had templates where I could answer, like I had, they fill out this questionnaire on my website and then I get an email and then I send a templated email, whatever, but it never really worked right.

They were just, you know, so having it all just go to this contact form and then boom, you’re in the system and it just makes a huge difference.

Julie Swan | 1:12:48

It’s so fast. Oh, I know. I really like, I was right on the verge of having to hire somebody, or figure out something better. And I really was not in a place to hire someone.

And I was like, man, and HoneyBook was like done. Like, it was like, Oh my gosh, I didn’t need to hire someone anymore.

Kim Crawmer | 1:13:03

That’s exactly it. Because I would, I am going to get, I am to a point where I do need to hire, like everybody I know has got a VA lately and I’m like, I really need a VA, but what I really need is a farm hand. And I had a farm hand for a few months and it didn’t end up working out, but it was really great while I had them.

So that’ll be my first hire when I do. But all that office stuff and all that marketing and whatever, if you can find systems and different things that will help you do that, it’s worth it. I have this one person who, a client, she’s bought a lot of animals for me, dogs and goats.

And she’s like, you’re spending money on this. And you’re spending money on that. And I’m like, but it costs money to run a business.

And if I can save time, you know, get things done more efficiently. I use the planner app for social media because I finally figured out that works a lot better. I can stash everything in there and then I can go back and schedule it and whatever, a scheduler thing.

So yeah, any system you can find that saves you time and you don’t have to, like when you hire an employee, you’ve got to do the taxes and all that stuff where when you’re just paying somebody for an app or a software or whatever, it’s just a business expense.

Julie Swan | 1:14:18

It’s a little simpler.

Kim Crawmer | 1:14:20

Yes. A little simpler. So yeah.

Julie Swan | 1:14:25

Well, thank you so much for coming on this show. It’s been such a joy hearing your story and all the new stuff because you’re always working on something. It’s always fun to talk to you.

Kim Crawmer | 1:14:36

Always a project. Thank you so much, Julie.