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.
Sarah Whitman of Bonnie Brae Collies
Meet Sarah Whitman of Bonnie Brae Collies, who just sold her first litter of puppies. Sarah’s experience working in accredited zoos with rhinos and elephants fundamentally shaped her approach to breeding. She shares how her deep dive into population genetics led her to Collies and a registry with an open book that allows for intentional diversity planning, moving beyond closed gene pools. This episode is a must-listen for anyone feeling constrained by legal restrictions on dog breeding, as Sarah is creatively working with state and local laws to shape and structure her program. She discusses the practical constraints and opportunities presented by her Colorado location, discussing how she’s building a responsible, sustainable program that is still completely compliant with local laws.
Transcript
Julie Swan | 0:00
Welcome to the Honest Dog Breeder Podcast with me, your host, Julie Swan. Where each week, we dive in to discuss all things dog breeding, so you can build a breeding business you love, producing dogs that fulfill their owner’s dreams. I believe you can have an honest dog breeding program that also pays the bills.
So throw those pods in your ears while you’re cleaning kennels. I’d love to join you. You guys are in for a treat today.
Today we have Sarah Whitman of Bonnie Brae Collies. And Sarah, you’re just outside of Denver in Colorado. And this is exciting.
This has been like a three-year journey for you getting to this first litter. Let’s talk about what went into it. How did you even come up with the idea to start breeding?
Sarah Whitman | 0:44
Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m very excited to talk with you today. Like you said, about three years in the making.
So I got into breeding. A lot of things kind of happened at once. I had a dog, a rescue dog, and he died from a heritable disease, degenerative myelopathy, very, very testable disease.
And I knew I wanted another dog. I was hesitant to go through a shelter. I was totally a big adopt don’t shop person for a while in my life.
And I was hesitant to go through a shelter. I had two kids at the time, and they were two and six-months old. And so I started thinking about a breeder, thinking about what specific dog I might want.
At the same time, my husband is a big cat guy. So we were looking to get a cat or two. So then I started researching cat breeds, figured out the kind of cat that I wanted, a ragdoll, again with kids.
So then I started looking at ragdoll breeders, and going on websites, and talking to a few of them. At the same time, in the back of my head, I was like, I could do this. This is something that’s interesting to me.
I was working with animals at the time already. And my exit out of that career was kind of on the horizon. I knew I would eventually have more kids, and not want to keep working at that capacity.
So all of those things were kind of happening at once. And when I finally decided I actually want to be somebody that would contribute the kind of dog that I want. I had already, I guess not been so gung ho on the adopt don’t shop thing, but the more I researched dog breeding and breeders and all the different ways people do it.
The more I was like, well, I would like a predictable dog. So that’s kind of how I landed on the other side of, this sounds fun to me. This sounds like I could actually contribute something.
And yeah, play a bigger part in contributing the kind of dogs that I want for my family.
Julie Swan | 3:07
Yeah. Well, it sounds like it was just a great move for your lifestyle too.
Sarah Whitman | 3:11
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Julie Swan | 3:11
Having kids, and then having kids at home. Because you have three kids now right?
Sarah Whitman | 3:15
I have three now.
Julie Swan | 3:15
Yeah, three. So yeah, it’s busy.
Sarah Whitman | 3:19
Yes, it’s busy.
Julie Swan | 3:20
So you were researching the cat breeders.
Sarah Whitman | 3:23
Yes.
Julie Swan | 3:24
What did you notice with cat breeders?
Is it different now that you’ve been working with dogs?
Sarah Whitman | 3:29
A little, I mean the stereotypical cat people, dog people, that’s definitely a thing. It’s funny. All the cat breeders, I didn’t know this before I started researching it, but they refer to the sires and the dams and everything.
They call them Queens and Kings. I don’t know if it’s just a ragdoll thing.
Julie Swan | 3:47
No, no, that’s a cat thing.
Sarah Whitman | 3:48
It’s a cat thing. Okay. I thought that was so funny.
And I had not known that before I was looking for a cat, but it was like Queen Lily or whatever. I was like, “Oh wow, this person’s fancy. This person loves their cats.”
And then I saw it on other websites, I was like, “okay, it’s a thing.” So yeah, there’s cat people, dog people. People do it kind of differently.
Like the breeder we ended up getting one of our cats from, they had their waitlist basically public. You can see your name, like going up the list, so that was kind of interesting.
Julie Swan | 4:21
What did you think of it?
Sarah Whitman | 4:23
Yeah, it was kind of weird. I was just kind of nosy, like, “Oh, I wonder who Caitlin F is, why did she pass on that last litter?” So yeah, it was kind of weird.
Not a deal breaker. I ended up getting a cat from that person anyway, but yeah.
Julie Swan | 4:42
Yeah. I’ve seen it on a couple of people. Some people think it builds up demand, or something like, “Oh, there’s already this many people I better get in soon.”
Sarah Whitman | 4:52
That makes sense. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 4:53
But I also feel like it’s kind of weird to have everybody’s names publicly.
Sarah Whitman | 4:58
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 4:59
I don’t know. I mean, usually it’s just first names like what you had, but I have seen people where they put the whole name like first and last, and I was like, “Oh, okay.”
Sarah Whitman | 5:08
Look them up on Facebook. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 5:10
I think you’re getting a dog from the same person as me.
Sarah Whitman | 5:12
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 5:15
Anything else you learned from the cats? I do think what we call dogs, you know, cats are queens and a dog is a bitch. It just doesn’t seem fair.
Right.
Sarah Whitman | 5:25
Right. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 5:26
Or like we have kennels and they have catteries.
Sarah Whitman | 5:29
Yeah. The cattery. Yeah.
What else did I learn from them? Just kind of smaller stuff, like talking to the breeder, how it was communicating with them, their communication channels, stuff like that. At one point I talked to one, it seemed like it was a much bigger operation, and it was just very short messages.
I was like, “okay, I’m sorry to bother you.” You know, that kind of vibe at one point.
Julie Swan | 5:59
Oh. Okay.
Sarah Whitman | 5:59
Yeah. So I didn’t get a cat from them. Because I was like, “okay, I won’t ask any more questions.” Which I can understand, they probably get a lot of interest, and they don’t want to deal with a hundred questions, and then you don’t even buy a cat from them kind of thing.
I get it.
Julie Swan | 6:16
But also, we know that’s a marketing problem. But it made you feel crappy.
Sarah Whitman | 6:22
Right, yeah.
Julie Swan | 6:22
Like it wasn’t fun.
Because, if you felt like you had to apologize before asking a question, that’s not good.
Sarah Whitman | 6:28
Right.
Julie Swan | 6:28
Yeah.
Sarah Whitman | 6:30
And one other thing, I’ve seen this with dogs too. They don’t have the price of their dogs or cats listed on the website. And I didn’t really want to even bother with asking more, unless I was like super, super interested, but that’s one of the first things I decided. I was like, I want everyone to know what they’re paying.
Julie Swan | 6:53
Sure.
Sarah Whitman | 6:54
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 6:54
Oh, for your breeding program.
Sarah Whitman | 6:56
Yeah, for mine.
Julie Swan | 6:56
I agree with you. I also noticed there’s a trend, like people in their fifties and sixties today are very much like, “we’ll just call and get the information.” And in the middle, the people in their forties right now are like, “I can do that, but it’s annoying.”
And then I’ve noticed, a lot of twenties and thirties, it’s like, “why can’t you just tell me what you want?” And so they end up not contacting you.
Sarah Whitman | 7:20
Yes.
Julie Swan | 7:20
Yeah.
Sarah Whitman | 7:21
Yeah. And I guess that was me. I guess I’m in that category.
Julie Swan | 7:24
Me too. I hate it. It’s a big thing in construction. You’re like, “what would it cost to do this?”
And you have to call a lot, but anyway, so continue. Okay. So you had the cat research.
How’s the cat doing with all the puppies? Is that pretty funny?
Sarah Whitman | 7:42
I have two now, actually. Yeah. One of them loves babies, like my babies.
She always loves them. And so I thought she was going to be really, really interested in the puppies. And she has totally kept her distance the whole entire time.
I barely see her anymore. And then the other one, I don’t know if my dog gave him a look at one point or what, but he has been respectful, but very interested.
And so now that the puppies are bigger than him, they’re a lot more bold, one of them barks at him, and he’s hissed a couple of times. He’s a ragdoll, so he can’t be mean if he tried, but yeah, the puppies have gotten cat exposure, but not mean cat exposure.
Julie Swan | 8:30
Which is good.
Sarah Whitman | 8:31
But yeah, he’s like, what in the world are these weird cat, not cats. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 8:37
Yeah. Right. That makes sense. All right. Well, okay, cool.
So before we get into this whole first litter experience and everything, can you tell us a little bit about how you prepared? Because you’ve been working on this for a while. I remember talking to a couple of years ago, and can I spoiler alert, that you were working with the rhinos?
You have the coolest story. Okay. So the first time that we talked, you were at work and we were on a Zoom.
You were so fun. You had your phone, you were on Zoom, and in the background, I just see rhinos, like in the back, walking. And I was like, this is the coolest thing ever.
I couldn’t wait to tell Bill when he came home. But anyways, so you used to work with the rhinos and the elephants, I believe.
Sarah Whitman | 9:19
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 9:20
So tell us a little bit about that. Where were you working?
Sarah Whitman | 9:22
I was at the zoo. Yeah. And yeah, like you said, worked with rhinos and elephants, Malayan tapirs and red river hogs.
I don’t usually lead with those because people don’t really know what they are. But yeah, I worked at the zoo for eight years. The last three of them were part-time, and then my newest baby was my final exodus from the zoo.
But yeah, we had a baby rhino in 2020 and that was a whole big thing. It was like 12 artificial insemination attempts over the course of five years. I wasn’t there for all of them.
Julie Swan | 9:59
What is their cycle length?
Sarah Whitman | 10:03
They cycle every like 45 days.
Julie Swan | 10:05
So it’s pretty quick.
Sarah Whitman | 10:06
It is pretty quick.
They’re pregnant for like 15 to 16 months. And then she was getting a little bit older. And so she had, a lot of training went into the actual successful AI.
We did train her, the zoo had a whole big positive reinforcement only kind of thing. So it took a lot of time to get her to voluntarily train for the AI stuff, including we would do rectal ultrasounds to see her uterus, because their skin is so thick. So you have to do that from the back.
But through that, we could see what kind of issues she was having, why she wasn’t getting pregnant and being able to time the AIs better. That’s how we finally got her pregnant.
Julie Swan | 10:50
Do you remember what was off?
Sarah Whitman | 10:53
She had fluid in her uterus. She would have anovulatory cycles. And this, so the kind of rhino I worked with most was the greater one horn rhino.
They’re also called Indian rhinos, but they have, it might be the largest follicle of any mammal species, but it’s like 13 centimeters. It’s something crazy. It’s something crazy.
If it’s not the largest, it’s way up there. So easy to see if she was actually throwing out an egg or not.
So a lot of training went into that. She got pregnant, then she was pregnant forever, and had the baby a month before COVID shut down. That baby lives in California now.
Julie Swan | 11:31
You told me about too, that it’s really a big deal with reproduction in zoos. Why is that?
Sarah Whitman | 11:43
Yes. Depending on the animal, there’s a whole thing called a species survival plan, an SSP, mostly for threatened or endangered animals. And there are people that keep track of stud books, who’s related to whom, who’s the best match for this rhino.
There’s literally a greater one horn rhino reproductive specialist, like the person, this is their job. Crazy specialized. Yes.
She literally travels to zoos on grants to do AI and stuff like that on rhinos. It’s crazy. There’s somebody like that for elephants as well.
So very specialized, very, very cool to know your craft that well, your science that well. She also would work with the stud book coordinator, and figure out who’s the best match. It’s basically just, who’s the most unrelated.
They’re not worried about like somebody’s weird legs or structure, like a dog person might be. A dog person can be a little bit more specific with what they want their dog to look like. For an endangered species, it’s kind of like, “Oh, they’re not second cousins.
Awesome. Let’s match them up” kind of thing.
Julie Swan | 13:07
Yeah. Because you can’t pull in new genetics. Is that right?
Sarah Whitman | 13:10
Yeah. Endangered Species Act. There’s no new endangered animals coming into the zoo.
So specifically for elephants that’s a whole thing of what that world is that I’m no longer in, what that world is kind of talking about. What the next 50 years look like, because it’s a closed stud book essentially. And it’s very closed. There’s not a ton of elephants in North America.
AI does make it a little bit easier, to potentially get sperm from European elephants, that kind of thing. But they’re not bringing in wild elephants and rhinos. Technically, greater one horned rhinos aren’t endangered anymore, but they’re not bringing new greater one horned rhinos into a zoo in America kind of thing.
Julie Swan | 14:02
Wow. So even though there’s other gene pools that exist, the law prevents them from using those, right?
Sarah Whitman | 14:08
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 14:10
Wow, you’d think you could just tranq them, collect them, and bring in some new.
Sarah Whitman | 14:14
You would think, I know. And maybe they will start that, there’s so much politics involved, not just animal side politics, but literal geopolitics, so maybe that could happen down the road. At least at the time I left, that was not really an active conversation. It was more like, yeah, what are we going to do?
What does the elephant population look like in 25 years in American AZA zoos?
Julie Swan | 14:45
Yeah, no, it is interesting. I just had no idea. So it was interesting to me when you were sharing that.
But anyway, back to dog breeding. So, all right. So you had some experience.
Was there anything that you learned during working at the zoo, that you’ve found applied to dog breeding, or that maybe set you up for success or changed your expectations?
Sarah Whitman | 15:05
I think it gave me some confidence. The stakes felt to a little bit lower with a dog than with a rhino. On the one hand, the rhino side and elephants, we also did when I worked with elephants, we did all males, but we did sperm collecting. So we did the other side of AI.
So that was another thing. But when we do those things at the zoo, there’s a whole team behind it. Like I said, there’s people from other zoos that come in to help, and there’s our on-call veterinary team at the zoo, and even just the rhino and pachyderm team.
So there’s a lot of people. So not everything’s on you. Whereas with the dogs, everything was on me, obviously, I’m still getting help and stuff like that.
And I don’t own a stud or anything, but a lot more was on me.
Julie Swan | 16:04
Absolutely. Yeah. You’re whelping and rearing the puppies. You’re doing it all.
Sarah Whitman | 16:07
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I’d say my time at the zoo gave me confidence that I could do it.
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 16:19
Yeah. That makes sense. It makes sense.
You have all this experience, and you’ve seen the whole process, and you probably saw it in the most complicated, most scripted way, and I think probably when you actually were working with your dog, you were like, oh, this is a lot easier.
Sarah Whitman | 16:35
Yeah. Yeah. I can get in with the dog.
You can’t get in with the rhino. Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 16:40
Yeah, wouldn’t go over so well. So what else did you do to get ready? I know you worked on selecting your breed for a little bit.
You were kind of back and forth.
Sarah Whitman | 16:51
Yeah. I landed on Collies. So Scotch Collies and Scottish Collies.
So they’re technically different. There’s a lot of overlap, but I can go into the differences a little bit with those.
Julie Swan | 17:04
Yeah. And tell us how you made your decision.
Sarah Whitman | 17:07
Sure. Yeah. I wanted a family dog.
I wanted a bigger dog. One day when I’m done having tiny kids, I’m like, I’ll have a little tiny dog again. I do like the tiny dogs, but I wanted a big dog.
I wanted, one that has a reputation as a family dog. I like a little bit furrier. I liked how Collies looked.
So at the same time, deciding on Collies, I found these two other Collie registries. One is called Scottish Collie Preservation Society, and the other is Old Time Scotch Collie Association. So there’s a lot of dogs that are dual registered.
Should I explain the difference a little bit, how I understand it?
Julie Swan | 17:52
Sure.
Sarah Whitman | 17:52
Of the registries.
The Scottish Collie, the way I understand it, is they breed to turn of the century breed standards. So they’re just less extreme looking in a lot of ways. They require health testing in the registry.
There’s a lot of overlap with AKC Rough Collies and Scottish Collies. And then there’s overlap with Scottish Collies and Scotch Collies. But there’s not many AKC Collies that are in the Scotch Collie registry, if that makes any sense.
Julie Swan | 18:23
Yes.
Sarah Whitman | 18:24
Okay. And then Scotch Collies, they’re a little bit more, they’re like the landrace Collie.
Like before Kennel Clubs existed, what were Collies originally in the UK, that kind of thing. So it’s also a recreation project in a little way. But yeah, I really liked both of them.
They have open stud books. And I appreciated that, as I was getting deeper and deeper into dog stuff. That was one of the things that I decided I valued a lot, was the focus on genetic diversity.
Julie Swan | 19:02
So you love the idea that unlike what you experienced with the rhinos, where we have this closed genetics, that you have the ability to bring in a new dog. So if there was an issue in the breed, these registries were welcoming new blood to fix it.
Is that right?
Sarah Whitman | 19:19
Yeah. Yeah. They value the new blood.
There are avenues, a dog might be like an appendix registered dog. And then they still have the goal of making sure it’s still a Collie at the end of the day.
Julie Swan | 19:31
Yeah.
Sarah Whitman | 19:32
But yeah, there’s ways to outcross, and I valued that a lot.
Julie Swan | 19:40
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I think there’s a lot of merit to that, especially when you’re looking at breeding a dog that’s going to survive in a family. You need it to thrive in a family environment.
So we always want to prioritize temperament. And when we close the book, it doesn’t always make sense. I get that.
Sarah Whitman | 19:55
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 19:56
All right. So then you ultimately decided which way to go.
So it was which one?
Sarah Whitman | 20:03
So that’s why it’s a little bit confusing, because my dog is registered with Scottish Collie Preservation Society. And the stud I used is an Old-Time Scotch Collie. So my plan for my keeper puppy is to register her with both.
Try to dual register her. There’s a lot of overlap. They’re separate, but there’s a lot of overlap.
Julie Swan | 20:27
Yeah, it was a totally a pain. Yeah. Because AKC only opened up Rat Terriers in 2016.
So all of my original dogs were UKC. I wanted to move over to AKC because it’s just what I knew.
It was a debacle waiting on papers.
Oh my God. Yeah. All right.
So you had time, you had figured out now what you wanted. So now you were on the hunt for buying a dog, right? And then getting prepared.
So, how did you get your dog? How did you end up finding her?
Sarah Whitman | 21:02
I think I found her. I think her breeder had posted something on one of those registries, like the Facebook pages. So I had clicked around.
I wanted a puppy from, spoiler alert, my dog. I wanted a puppy from her because I was like, she’s so beautiful. She’s just perfect.
I loved her so much. So I started talking with her breeder. She ended up keeping the keeper puppy, because my dog had had two litters before me.
So she ended up keeping the keeper puppy, but then she was like, “would you want to talk about her maybe?” And so I ended up getting the dog that I love, instead of her daughter, which I know is a little bit of a, I don’t know, maybe a controversial move or something, but I loved her, and it kind of brought me comfort knowing, “okay, one of us has done this before. One of us knows what we’re doing with whelping,” she had no issues with her two litters.
So I’ll have had this litter, and then I’ll have one more with her before retiring her, but I’m keeping one from this litter. So yeah, I found her, I think just from Facebook and at the same time, I had started just kind of playing around with a website build. It always felt like I was doing a school project.
That’s the image that was in my mind. I was like, I’m in sixth grade doing a middle school project. Like if I had a dog kennel, what would I want it to look like?
You know, make a pretend website or something. And so, honestly, I treated it like that. But it was helpful, because I could hash out just in my own mind, things I hadn’t thought about, like what are my breeding philosophies? What are the things I value?
Like I was talking about genetic diversity, what are the things that I would contribute to for future puppy buyers, that other people might not, like all my training experience at the zoo, training’s a big thing for me. I really like training. So I’ve focused on those kinds of things to promote, I guess would be the word, to focus on more of, “yeah, I haven’t been breeding for 20 years, but I really like training and I have kids and I like these dogs with my kids,” and that kind of thing.
Julie Swan | 23:23
I think that training really sets you apart. Because that’s not normal for breeders. Most breeders don’t have a training background.
So that was a great move for why you were different. But then also your understanding of the need for genetic diversity. I think that is really important to a lot of people.
You still meet a bunch of people who think a dog at the shelter will be healthier simply because it’s a mix.
Sarah Whitman | 23:44
Right. Or even the purebred, you know, we don’t like puppy mills either. Even if a dog’s a purebred, that doesn’t mean they’ve been health tested and all that stuff.
So yeah. Yeah. The website though, building it in advance, it was helpful for me to just think about what I value, but also then when I actually had a dog, and found a stud, and had a whelping date on the calendar, I didn’t have to mess with that.
It was already pretty much built. I’ve edited stuff of course. But the bulk of it was already there.
Julie Swan | 24:25
Yeah. I think it is probably one of the number one mistakes I see a lot of newer breeders make, is they don’t do a website, because they don’t think they have anything to put on it, because they don’t have dogs yet or they only have one dog. And then when they need a website, because they’ve now bred their dog and they’re getting going, it’s like, “Oh my gosh, I have this giant project ahead of me at the same time as I’m trying to raise all these puppies and find them homes.” And it’s really stressful.
And it’s really bad for Google, because Google loves the length of time your website has existed. Because your website, you built that pretty soon.
I think within almost a year of us meeting.
Sarah Whitman | 25:03
I think it was 2023. Yeah. I know I didn’t have my dog yet, because I had a bunch of pictures of just random Scottish scenes and things I thought were pretty, that were watermarks, this is where I’ll put my dog one day, you know?
Julie Swan | 25:19
I mean, it’s good. It’s a good start. Right.
And so then it did make it much faster to edit. Because you were already familiar with the software and everything. I love it.
I think it worked out really, really well. Okay. So you had your website up and running, and then did you do anything social media wise, or anything to get out there?
Or did you wait to do that when you had a dog?
Sarah Whitman | 25:41
I did wait until I had my dog to start the social media. Yeah.
But I used your tips. I did a lot of Canva stuff. And then I think I started the social media.
I probably started it after I got my dog, at the end of 2023, I guess.
Or beginning of 2024, I think is when I started the social media stuff. And yeah, I didn’t have puppies until August of this year. So I didn’t post a ton, because I was like, what other words can I put up?
I would put some of my dog doing something cute, like we went skiing or something. And so she was just in the snow looking pretty, you know, that kind of thing.
I did try to breed her and she didn’t get pregnant in the fall, that was not her fault. The male, he fertilized the grass instead. He was a little bit, he was a little bit too short and excited.
So no puppies. So, I made a post, you know, no puppies for this year kind of thing. I didn’t do too, too, too much posting, just every once in a while, just I’m still here.
I’m still planning on breeding. And then once the puppies were here, I was like, yes, now I can post all the puppy pictures, what people want to see rather than just random words.
Julie Swan | 27:05
Did you find your following grew a little bit before you had dogs and pups and all that?
Sarah Whitman | 27:10
A little bit. Yeah. A lot of it was my friends kind of thing.
But yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I still used the hashtags.
The Facebook thing was kind of interesting. I was able to link the Instagram and the Facebook pages, but Facebook doesn’t like the word Collies. If you look at some, I don’t know if they were just older.
Because some Collies pages got through, but people might spell it weird, or they’ll put an apostrophe or like a weird little symbol, so my Bonnie Brae Collies page has little dots between, or else I can’t use the word Collies in the title page. I don’t know why, I don’t know why.
Julie Swan | 27:49
Like that’s a banned word or something?
Sarah Whitman | 27:51
I guess so. I know.
I’m like, does that mean something in another language that I don’t know?
Julie Swan | 27:55
Yeah. No, I know. Like you can’t use like “this little boy is available” because that sounds terrible. You have to be careful. But we’re obviously not selling children.
Sarah Whitman | 28:08
Yeah. Just the word Collies, Facebook doesn’t like it. So that was kind of weird.
And I had played around, do I want to do a group or a page, that kind of thing. I didn’t know what to do, but landed on a page, and then was able to connect the Instagram page and the Facebook page pretty easily. So anytime I just post to one, it’s automatically posted to the other.
Julie Swan | 28:26
That’s always convenient. I find I have entirely different people on my Instagram and Facebook.
I don’t have a ton of overlap in my breeding program, with people that are on one or the other, but it’s interesting. So, all right, cool. So you got social media going. You had the website.
So this was all pretty smooth. And so I think you were probably pretty ready in November of last year to get going.
Sarah Whitman | 28:50
I was. And I really wanted, I was pregnant at the time. So I really wanted to have puppies then, knowing that I would have a baby in April.
And I was like, I’d really prefer to not have a new baby at the same time as new puppies that I’ve never done this before. But that’s what happened. So it’s good.
We’re all good.
Julie Swan | 29:09
Yeah.
Sarah Whitman | 29:10
And we moved at the same time.
It’s fine.
Julie Swan | 29:13
And it was close to, didn’t you have your puppies right after the move?
Sarah Whitman | 29:17
Yes. Like literally right after. Like a week and a half after kind of thing.
Julie Swan | 29:22
Oh wow.
Sarah Whitman | 29:23
It was a lot. It was a lot. I will look back at these days and be like, “yeah, that was hard.”
But honestly, the puppies aren’t the hard part. Truly. I’m not even just saying that.
The puppies aren’t the hard part.
Julie Swan | 29:36
What is the hard part?
Sarah Whitman | 29:38
The three kids.
Julie Swan | 29:39
Oh, the kids. Oh yeah. For sure.
Sarah Whitman | 29:41
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 29:41
Yeah. They’re much more. Yeah.
All right. So, okay.
So the website was up and running. Social media was working. Did you do anything on the email list or not yet?
Sarah Whitman | 29:56
No, not yet. I tried a free trial with HoneyBook, I tried it at a bad time for me to try it, because things got too crazy, and I didn’t try it again, but I would love that. I just have my own buyers list. Oh, the other thing with having started the website and the social media ahead of having puppies, is by the time the puppies came, I had a list of probably 16 interested people already, that had reached out and were interested in a future puppy.
Julie Swan | 30:30
Did they contact you through your website?
Sarah Whitman | 30:34
I think it was mostly all through my website. I do have a Good Dog profile. I didn’t list the litter.
I got intimidated by the, if you’re listing a litter, you have to sell them all. The fine print of that, like you have to sell your puppies through Good Dog. And so I didn’t list the litter.
I just have a presence, I guess, on Good Dog. So yeah, most everybody came from my website. On the Scottish Collie and Scotch Collie, I’m on the breeders’ maps.
So some people found me that way too. So yeah, I had a list before the puppies came, and mentally I expected the list to be cut in half, which was about accurate. Because all the puppies have homes.
And then I have a couple of people for the next litter. But yeah, that helps also having the presence ahead of time because I already had so many.
Julie Swan | 31:28
So you had 16 interested people, before your puppies were born.
Sarah Whitman | 31:33
Yes.
Julie Swan | 31:34
Did a lot of those come in the time in which she was bred and waiting to have puppies?
Sarah Whitman | 31:40
No, it was actually the 16 were all before she was even bred, because once she was bred, I contacted everybody and was like, “Hey, she is bred. If she’s pregnant, the puppies would be this time. Are you still interested?”
And that was when the list started whittling down, which was great. So yeah, all of my posts were more for building up the bulk of what my program looks like kind of thing. It wasn’t marketing for a specific puppy, because all the puppies were spoken for by the time they were born. Yeah.
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 32:15
Yeah. And then you picked up more people with those pictures for the next litter.
Sarah Whitman | 32:19
Yes. Yep. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 32:21
So when did you take deposits?
Sarah Whitman | 32:25
That’s probably something I’ll change.
The way I did puppy selection was, I kind of did a combination of, sorry, my brain’s going one way because you know, you get a lot of advice when you’re starting breeding and hearing from different people. And so it’s kind of, you want to whittle down, like, okay, that works for you. Is that something I should actually put into practice?
Or should I do my own thing? So a lot of the advice had been, don’t let people choose their own dog. You pick the dog for them.
You as the breeder pick the dog. And I understood that sentiment, if somebody really likes a black dog, but their lifestyle doesn’t match at all. But it was still like, I don’t like it all the way, because if somebody really loves this dog or this kind of dog, they are probably going to be willing to work for that dog a little bit harder.
So I kind of did a combination of finding out people’s lifestyle, what they wanted in a dog, me keeping an eye out as personalities emerged, and a combination of me picking a few that I think would be good for them. But ultimately, they get the say, I mean, no one’s going to say, “I don’t like that puppy,” but if they really prefer one over the other, and it’s two that are a pretty good fit for them. I want someone to be able to choose.
Julie Swan | 33:56
I think that’s so smart. And they do, they take responsibility when it’s what they pick. Yeah.
I think there’s a balance and an art form. So it sounds like you kind of worked it. You were like, “here are the couple ones good for you.”
And then they were able to pick.
Sarah Whitman | 34:09
Yeah. There was one, I guess they’re fine, but heartbreaking, I had somebody wanted a sable female the whole time. And then she fell in love with a male instead, but somebody was really wanting this specific sable male that I had.
And so I had to be like, sorry, somebody ahead of you ended up going for the male. She’s wanted the female the whole time. And he had been one that I was like, “this one might be good for you.”
So that was I guess a mistake, or a lesson learned.
Julie Swan | 34:44
How did they take it when you told them?
Sarah Whitman | 34:48
They were, they were bummed. And then I did, who knows what I’ll do in the future, but I did let families come out and meet puppies.
Julie Swan | 34:55
I think that’s always good.
Sarah Whitman | 34:56
And so they came out after they knew that one was gone, and I had just the ones that were available left so they could sort it out.
Julie Swan | 35:06
Oh yeah. I always hide the puppies that are already spoken for when people come and look, because I don’t need that.
Sarah Whitman | 35:13
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So they found one that they loved. They had a really hard decision between two. So that was ultimately what happened.
They couldn’t decide between two, and then had to pick one. So I think they will be happy. But yeah, with the applications and the deposit, I ended up going for this litter in order of application that I received, and not deposits, because so much was up in the air.
I was just nervous. I was like, she didn’t get pregnant when she was supposed to last year. I didn’t want to take deposits too soon.
So I ended up taking them as people confirmed, yes, I want a puppy from this litter. But I still kept their order, in order of the application rather than the deposits. But that’s something that I’ll change for next time.
Next time, if you really want a puppy from this litter, I will go in order of the deposits, not the application.
Julie Swan | 36:12
So you’ll still wait to collect deposits until the puppies are born. Is that the idea?
Sarah Whitman | 36:18
I don’t know.
I should decide that now.
Julie Swan | 36:21
It’s an interesting thing. So what I find is that with new breeders, since we’ve never had a litter, then it does feel weird collecting money sometimes before the puppies are on the ground.
It feels like you don’t have like proof of product.
Sarah Whitman | 36:35
Right.
Julie Swan | 36:36
And so I understand in the beginning on the first few litters, or at least the first litter, maybe waiting. I think that’s a comfortability place for everybody. But I do find that down the road, I’m like, as soon as you know you want a dog for me, send me money.
And then I always tell them, if it’s the contract or the deposit, you’ve got to sign the contract and you’ve got to give me a deposit. And which ever comes last is the date you’re on my list.
Sarah Whitman | 37:00
Okay. Okay.
Julie Swan | 37:01
So I’ve seen that work pretty well. But I think you rolled it really, really well. When you priced your puppies, were they average for your breed, or were they lower? Would you know where you fell?
Sarah Whitman | 37:17
On the lower end of average, I would say. And I’m also going to charge more next litter.
Julie Swan | 37:27
Fair enough. Yeah. I always feel like those first ones are practice anyway.
Sarah Whitman | 37:31
Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 37:33
Yeah. I love it. Okay.
So that’s good. And everybody was pretty good with it. They just kind of were like, “Oh yeah, that makes sense. We’ll place the deposit.”
Sarah Whitman | 37:42
Yes.
Yeah, everyone, no one had a problem with it.
Julie Swan | 37:44
That’s a hard thing for a lot of breeders. So what did you say? What did you say to do that?
Or did you already set that expectation when they first told you they were interested?
Sarah Whitman | 37:53
I did set the expectation when they were first interested. I kind of gave a rough draft of how I imagined the process going. And then once people were set, then I was like, I’ll hold your spot.
You can send me deposit to Venmo or whatever. I wasn’t like, get in to me in 48 hours, or else I’m moving on to the next person. Because I had talked to them all, and all the people were pretty serious and reasonable and everything.
So I just kept it in order of the application, and I didn’t have any issues with the deposit, but yeah, in the future, I’ll be a little bit more strict, like you were saying.
Julie Swan | 38:40
Well, it’s a progression, right? I don’t expect it in the beginning, because it doesn’t really feel right. But now I’m at a place where when people tell me now, because people contact me and they’re “well, let me know when they’re born.”
I’m like, I’m not doing that. I’m not going to go through 40 text messages and send, no, no, no. Jump on my email list.
Or if you want to get a dog, place a deposit and send it in.
Sarah Whitman | 39:02
Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 39:03
I just can’t keep track of it otherwise.
Sarah Whitman | 39:04
Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 39:06
That’s again, down the road, right? So all right. So that’s cool.
So they were pretty easy. Super, super good. Did you like the buyers you found?
Sarah Whitman | 39:18
I do. Yeah. I really liked them.
Julie Swan | 39:21
How did that come about?
Sarah Whitman | 39:23
Honestly, it just kind of happened, maybe my website put out the vibe well enough, that I would like them or whatever, but yeah, I really like everybody. Everybody really seems intentional about wanting this kind of dog, and knows what they’re doing. And yeah, I don’t know. The magic just kind of happened.
Julie Swan | 39:45
Well, that’s good. It’s probably because they’re coming through your website.
Usually the website does the heavy lifting. With those people, did they tell you anything about why they picked you? Do you remember?
Sarah Whitman | 40:03
No, no. I should ask. You know what?
It’s probably my location. Everyone’s local. That’s what it is.
So I won’t ask, “Why do you like me?” I think it’s my location.
Yeah. There’s one other Scotch Collie person in Denver, but maybe they’ve had one litter. They’re not doing it very frequently.
And then I think there’s the other closest one is maybe like Oklahoma or something. So I think it’s just people find out about the breed, and then look in their area. So yeah, I think it’s just a geographic thing.
Julie Swan | 40:39
Did you do your Google listing to help them find you that way?
Sarah Whitman | 40:42
Yes, yes, I did. And my brother helped me with, I don’t know the terms. You probably know all the terms, but you know, the first little line that you read when you search, my brother could help me with that.
Julie Swan | 40:55
He helped you with the metadata. Oh, that’s so good. I know I’ve met a couple breeders who just have really cool brothers.
Sarah Whitman | 41:03
Helpful brothers are nice. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 41:05
Exactly, that’s so nice. I mean, I get it. I do love my brothers.
All right. So that’s cool. So then moving forward into the actual breeding.
So you had that hiccup with the stud who couldn’t quite perform. Yes. All right.
That happens sometimes. I’ve noticed that sometimes the boys are just not as. . . if they’re really pretty boy pets at home. Sometimes they’re like, “what is that?”
Sarah Whitman | 41:32
Yeah, “What do you want me to do?”
Julie Swan | 41:35
So this time around different stud?
Sarah Whitman | 41:39
Different stud, yes.
Julie Swan | 41:40
How did that go down?
Did you find a stud? Or was it always in the plan with the breeder you were working with?
Sarah Whitman | 41:45
I found him, he was also local, which was very helpful, because the first time that it didn’t work, I had traveled. I drove to New Mexico and then it didn’t work. So that was a bummer.
Julie Swan | 41:57
Yeah. Oh my gosh, that’s hard.
Sarah Whitman | 41:57
And then this one I found, I had to chase her down a bunch, but she was local.
I liked him, he was actually a brother of the one I tried to use in the fall, just from a different litter. So I liked his deal. And it ended up working out great.
I went over a couple of days with her. I didn’t leave my dog there. I was there the whole time. But, she just came and saw the puppies the other day actually.
And I’ll probably use the same one for the spring litter. My last litter with my dog. But I found her, I think just through those Facebook pages within those registries, I would search for Colorado, look for anybody local, so that I didn’t have to drive too far, since I had the baby this time.
Julie Swan | 42:51
Right. Oh, no, that totally makes sense. And I think it was probably good to not leave your female there.
Sarah Whitman | 42:56
Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 42:57
If it’s possible.
When you’re close, like I know people leave their dogs with me for three days or so, but it always is nice when we can just meet, do the thing and be done.
Sarah Whitman | 43:07
Yes. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 43:08
All right. So that’s cool.
And then she was pretty easy, right? She’s done this before, and your dogs are athletic. So it’s not like a major.
Sarah Whitman | 43:17
Yeah. She was pretty easy.
Julie Swan | 43:20
So tell us about the litter. How did it go? Was it easy?
Was the gestation easy?
Sarah Whitman | 43:26
Gestation was easy. She was a few days overdue. Like I said, we had moved very soon before.
So it was like, “shoot, did I stress her out too much?” Which may have been a factor, but she had been out to the house a bunch before.
So she had known the space. We just hadn’t slept there yet. But it was also very vindicating, having just been pregnant recently, because she’s such an athletic dog, and she was so tired and waddly and hot, and just would come in and lay down.
And I’m like, okay, thank you. See, it’s not just me. My husband actually, he was like, “oh, she just looks so uncomfortable and so miserable.” And I was like, uh-huh.
Yes, she does. She sure does. Yep.
It’s really, it’s hard. But she was a couple of days overdue. I had literally sent an email to the vet 20 minutes before, and I was like, “Hey, she’s acting fine.
But like it’s day 67, I think it was, she was due on this day.” I didn’t test ovulation. So I didn’t know exactly.
Just from the breeding date, and here’s the stats or whatever. And then she like came, she just looked at me, and then started trotting back to my bedroom where I had the whelping box. And so I followed her and she laid down and immediately, like I was expecting to see contractions and everything, and she did not until a baby was coming out.
I mean, obviously she probably did, I just missed it, but yeah, it was very fast. I was like, “Oh, it’s happening right now.”
Julie Swan | 45:04
Yeah.
Sarah Whitman | 45:04
So my, my older two kids, older five and three, they’re watching a show in the kitchen. I’m like, okay, please keep them busy. I didn’t tell my daughter what was happening, because I knew she would just be all up in everything at the time, but that only lasted for one puppy.
So then the second one started coming, she’s asking me for something. I’m like, “I can’t help you right now.” She’s like, “why?”
I’m like, “I’m helping Road.” So she comes in, and sees the puppy coming out. And I’m like, “hold the baby.”
I also have my baby at the time. So I was like, “here, hold the baby so I can help her.”
I guess the only thing I didn’t, my dog was very focused on eating the placentas, and not the puppy at first.
Julie Swan | 45:46
Cleaning the babies.
Sarah Whitman | 45:47
Yeah.
So I would kind of do the baby thing. You know what? A lot of things don’t gross me out, but I did gag a bit when she was just scarfing the placentas. I was like, okay. Because my brain does this thing, where I see something gross, and my brain’s like, you have to do that.
You have to eat that. Like that is why.
Julie Swan | 46:06
Oh, almost like you’re eating it yourself.
Sarah Whitman | 46:08
Yes. I see her doing that, and my brain’s like, all right, you have to do that. And so that’s when I start gagging, only a couple of times.
Only a couple of times. But yeah, they came out really fast, and then my baby starts crying. So I’m nursing the baby, when helping the third baby come out. In my mind, I’m like, this is crazy.
I said in my head, I’m like, this is crazy. What is happening? This is crazy.
My son, thankfully was just happy, watching Paw Patrol or whatever. She had five of them pretty quickly. I was doing the calcium and everything between the puppies.
She had five probably within the first three hours or something. About 20 to 30 minutes between each one.
And then there was like a two, two and a half hour break, and I could still feel a little puppy in there. I didn’t get x-rays, so I didn’t have a puppy count. Her first two litters though, I mentioned she had litters before me, her first litter was 14 and her second litter was 11.
So I was like, I really hope she does not have that many puppies. That sounds crazy.
Julie Swan | 47:14
Yeah.
Sarah Whitman | 47:15
And she didn’t it. She had seven. After that two, two and a half hour break, she had two more, back to back, the fastest, literally like within two minutes of each other.
So yeah, not 14. And then she relaxed a lot more, and I couldn’t feel anything more. And I was like, “I think she’s done.”
Julie Swan | 47:32
When you were feeling her, can you kind of describe what it felt like when you felt a baby and when you didn’t?
Sarah Whitman | 47:40
Yeah, it was literally like a little tube, it just felt like a mass in there. Yeah. Like a little mass, almost the size of a Guinea pig.
I could feel a little hard, a hard Guinea pig in there. I was like, I think that’s a puppy. I’m assuming that’s a puppy.
Julie Swan | 48:02
Yeah.
Sarah Whitman | 48:03
Yeah. And then I didn’t feel that after, it was just a lot more squishy afterwards.
Julie Swan | 48:07
Yeah. That makes sense.
Okay. So you noticed this noticeable change between those two. Yeah.
Sarah Whitman | 48:15
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 48:15
Okay. That makes sense.
Sarah Whitman | 48:17
Yeah, and her attitude changed. So that’s why I was like, “I think she’s done.”
Julie Swan | 48:25
Did you learn that in zoo school? You probably can’t do that on rhinos.
Sarah Whitman | 48:30
Yeah. Even by the time the baby rhino was too big for the rectal ultrasounds. Because that’s what they still did for a little while.
When the baby was tiny, you could see it kicking from the outside, but they would do an ultrasound from the outside. And it was like, “Oh, there’s a foot.” I was pregnant with my first, at the same time the rhino was pregnant actually.
So I have a rhino ultrasound of a foot, and then my baby ultrasound of a foot. It’s kind of cool, but yeah, you couldn’t see much once the rhino was rhino-sized, you couldn’t see much in there.
Julie Swan | 49:01
That makes sense. All right. So everything came out pretty easy.
How did you feel, like if you hadn’t been there, you think everything would have been okay.
Sarah Whitman | 49:10
I think everything would have been fine. Yeah. Yeah.
I was happy to be there. I was so nervous beforehand, and it’s one of those things, I’m like, I can’t prep anymore for that. There comes a time when it just has to happen.
I watched dog birth videos. I was like, okay, what happens if. . ., I was just trying to prep. But then there comes a time in the zoo world too, like with the free flying birds, you can practice inside a thousand times, but there’s no in between of inside and outside. Eventually you have to let your bird fly outside.
So it’s kind of like that, or like having your own baby, like, yes, you can do all this birth prep, but. . .
Julie Swan | 49:58
It always got me with human kids. Because you read everything. And you’re focused, because you’re thinking about this giant thing that’s going to come out of you. And you’re all you’re focusing on is reading about the birth.
Sarah Whitman | 50:07
Yes, and then postpartum slaps you in the face.
Julie Swan | 50:10
Yes.
Because you’re like, I never thought about any of this. And I think I did the same thing with puppies too. In the beginning, I was like, “Oh good, we got this.” And then I’m like, “Oh no, now what?”
Sarah Whitman | 50:20
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I did feel a huge burden lifted once the puppies were here. I was like, okay. You know, obviously things can still go wrong, but I was like, man, I was so anxious about that.
Julie Swan | 50:34
It seemed like it was super easy. And I think with the athletic dogs too, we go, “Oh, it was kind of easy.”
Sarah Whitman | 50:39
It was kind of easy. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 50:41
I know they make us look good.
Sarah Whitman | 50:44
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 50:45
That’s how I feel about them. All right, cool. So then you had them pretty easy.
The first few weeks were pretty easy to manage with the pups?
Sarah Whitman | 50:53
First few weeks were easy. They started climbing out of the box, I think sooner than I would have expected.
And then at the time the whelping box was in our room, which was on the carpet. So it was like, okay, once they start climbing out, I don’t want them in the room anymore, they’re still in the house. I got that vinyl flooring that you had talked about.
Julie Swan | 51:12
Oh, the remnants from Home Depot or something.
Sarah Whitman | 51:13
Yeah. Which was super, it’s been super, super helpful. I just have them in the little front area, and now that they’re bigger, one of them can now jump the little puppy pen gate.
They’re spending a lot of time outside, because my kids don’t pick up enough to let the puppies go everywhere. I’m like, all right, if you want, we call it a puppy party when we let all the puppies run everywhere in our house. If you want a puppy party, nothing on the ground that you don’t want chewed on.
Julie Swan | 51:47
Right. Oh, that’s a great motivator for getting kids to pickup. I like that.
And they’re how old now? They’re eight weeks. Oh, so they’re about ready to go home.
Sarah Whitman | 52:00
The first two go home today. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 52:01
So exciting. Congratulations.
Sarah Whitman | 52:03
Yeah, exciting. A little sad. Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 52:07
Oh man. How was it as they got bigger, obviously they’re climbing out a little bit, they’re crafty little things, but, anything that you did with the whelping or puppy rearing as you were weaning, that made things easier, or that you wish you would have maybe done differently?
Sarah Whitman | 52:23
That flooring, I honestly, I was like, man, I’m so glad I got that. And the litter box, the litter box training. I know that you had suggested that, it was a huge help even today.
I’ll try to let them out before I go to bed, but they poop in the box. It’s so helpful. It is so helpful.
Yeah. And I’ve told the puppy buyers that too, obviously they’re going to potty train them, but I’m like, they will poop in the pine litter.
Julie Swan | 52:52
Yeah. I love it.
Because my buyers, when they’re working, they’re like, “what do I do with this thing for 10 hours,” you know, you need to have a job. So I get it. I was just building a puppy pen with that and it’s so easy.
So yeah, I know. Like who’s the idiot who waited 70 litters to do that?
Sarah Whitman | 53:11
It was very helpful. I loved that. I loved that tip.
Julie Swan | 53:15
That’s awesome. I’m so glad. So buyers went well.
Puppy selection, did you just go through by pick and talk to everybody?
Sarah Whitman | 53:24
Yes. Yep. And it was also hard, because I knew I was keeping one.
And I didn’t know which one I was keeping yet.
Julie Swan | 53:31
Yeah. How did you end up picking?
Sarah Whitman | 53:33
Basically, it was my family’s favorite. That was a big, a big part of it. I did the temperament testing.
I know that’s not always super accurate, but I was just curious about it anyway. So I did that. And her personality is very much like moms.
So I liked that, obviously I love her mom. So yeah. Everyone kind of landed on her.
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 54:00
That’s perfect. She sounds like she was such an easy fit, easy pick.
Sarah Whitman | 54:05
Yeah. Yeah. And then genetic testing wise, MDR1, my dog has two copies of that.
And the male that I bred is clear. So all the puppies have one copy of MDR1. So I didn’t have to test the whole litter, and find out who has two copies, who’s clear, who has one, that kind of thing.
I assume in the future, I might bred to a male, since she has one copy, to a male that has one copy. And then that’ll be another kind of complicating factor. If I’m deciding who to keep.
Julie Swan | 54:38
Is it a problem if they get two copies?
Sarah Whitman | 54:41
They can’t have ivermectin or anesthesia drugs. It’s a drug sensitivity.
Julie Swan | 54:47
Oh, that makes sense. Okay. I’m not familiar with it.
Sarah Whitman | 54:50
They say Rough Collies, up to 75% of Rough Collies can have MDR1.
So they’re very, very affected, which is another reason, back to the whole genetic diversity thing.
Julie Swan | 55:04
Yeah. I found down the road. While it’s always helpful to get all clear dogs.
It helps if you pick one, either the males or females in your breeding program that are clear, whatever’s easier to attain. For me, my studs always have to be clear of everything, because that just keeps everything good.
And I did that with the goat. There was this weird goat disease, where they could have this gene. If they got double copy of it, their legs would buckle after 16-weeks of age and they can’t walk. And I mean, it was painful, like super knee arthritis thing.
And so I just made sure always my bucks had nothing.
Sarah Whitman | 55:44
That’s smart. Yeah.
Julie Swan | 55:45
It’s crazy.
But anyway, that might be a technique for you down the road.
Sarah Whitman | 55:47
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 55:49
It’s nice to know you didn’t have to really test anybody, I love when the genetics are so clean that you’re like, yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Whitman | 55:57
Yeah. Or at least predictable. Yeah. We’re not totally clean yet.
Julie Swan | 56:02
Right, right, you’ll get there. So you are Colorado, which may or may not be a mini California.
Sarah Whitman | 56:09
You got it.
Julie Swan | 56:11
A lot of parallels there.
Sarah Whitman | 56:14
Yes. Yes.
Julie Swan | 56:15
Anyway, can you tell us a little bit about that uniqueness? Because when Bill was working in Colorado, I was looking at it and things are different there.
Sarah Whitman | 56:26
Yes, Colorado loves laws. There’s a lot of laws. So we are, simultaneously with the breeding thing, trying to start up a boarding business. And if you board more than, I think it’s more than three dogs at a time, you need a license.
And if you breed more than two litters a year, or transfer more than 24 puppies a year, you need a breeding license. And then there’s a whole thing that was passed, Pet Animal Care Facilities Act. And you have to also get approved through them.
So that’s just made it tricky. Even when we were moving, trying to find a place, because of all those laws, we’ve had to kind of pivot our strategy, we’ll be more boutique. We’ll do super small scale, and just focus on what we can provide.
Even with the boarding thing, I now want to compete with a pet sitter rather than a boarding facility. So I’m going to do super focused on, your dog will get all the individual care.
It’s another thing I thought about too, even looking at the boarding stuff, they’ll have one charge and then it’s $2 for medication, $2 if your dog’s over 50 pounds, all these extra charges. And the same thing with the puppies, wanting to know what the price is. I’m like, just tell me how much I’m going to pay. We’re going to do the same thing with the boarding, like, okay, it’s this cost and it’s everything.
If you have a dog that needs some rice in the morning, I will cook your dog rice. Like that’s fine. But I’ll just charge more and do really focused pet-service style care.
So yeah, Colorado law has kind of forced some strategy changes. And then the same thing with the litters.
I don’t anticipate doing more than two litters a year in the future for that reason, just to avoid all the regulations.
Julie Swan | 58:26
Yeah. I thought it was interesting. You needed to be on certain agricultural land to break those some of those things. And a minimum 36 acres is not an easy piece of land to get.
It’s just very expensive in Colorado, even in the flat areas.
Sarah Whitman | 58:42
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
And where we just moved, it’s zoned ag. So we thought we were safe, but it’s smaller than nine acres, and it had to be a minimum of nine acres to be able to do bigger stuff. And so that was a whole other thing.
So anyway.
Julie Swan | 59:01
Yeah. And it’s hard, because it is like the price to get into it. It’s so much there.
Sarah Whitman | 59:05
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 59:06
Yeah. I totally get it. I know where I can buy four acres for song and a dance down in Arizona.
Sarah Whitman | 59:11
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 59:12
Yeah. Because who wants this dirt. That’s what I’m thinking.
Sarah Whitman | 59:17
You do.
Julie Swan | 59:17
Yeah. There you go. Right.
Okay. That makes so much sense.
I think that’s smart, two things that you’ve mentioned, that a lot of breeders don’t think about until it’s kind of too late, is one read through your laws. One thing that you can search, I’m just saying this for everyone else, not you in particular, is lemon laws, and then your state. Like “Dog lemon laws, Arizona.”
I don’t know why they’re called lemons, but that is a thing. That’s a good way to find the law for what happens if your dog fails, whatever standard the state has set. So if the dog were to come sick with parvo for me, 14 days, even though we know it’s a seven-day incubation, they can come back on me and say that that’s on me. So that’s kind of yucky. But also to know what you can do legally.
So like I live in the county, so I follow county laws. But like Phoenix, Greater Phoenix, they have licensing for breeders in a way that I don’t have licensing where I live. It’s a lot, and it can really, like you said, change how you design your program.
Change how you plan your business. It’s interesting. And USDA standards for dog care are really nothing.
Sarah Whitman | 1:00:38
Yeah, and with the zoo again, we did AZA inspections, we would have USDA inspectors drop in unannounced all the time. So I feel confident with that part, it’s just little things like at the zoo, it would be no meat stored above vegetables, because it drips down. It’s that kind of thing.
So I feel confident with that kind of thing. But then you’ve got inspectors come onto your property. I’m like, I would rather not, I would rather just avoid that mess, if I’m not doing the whole commercial thing that I envisioned at first.
Julie Swan | 1:01:19
Yeah, sure. It makes sense. I think so.
Yeah. And starting small and getting really comfortable with what you’re doing, before you make the choice to go bigger always happens to me. Because you can always do that.
That’s the other thing too that I want to say, is that you moved to a location that facilitated more of what you’re doing.
Sarah Whitman | 1:01:37
Yes.
Julie Swan | 1:01:37
I run into a lot of breeders where the law where they live is so bad, that their best decision is to move.
In order to keep their program running how they want to do it. It’s been wild.
Thanks so much for coming on the show. But before we go, could you just share, given your recent experience, is there anything that you would recommend to new breeders to do or to think about ahead of time, or anything maybe they shouldn’t do?
Sarah Whitman | 1:02:05
Yeah, join the Dog Breeder Society. Everyone is really nice and helpful. But really, you’ve mentioned before, the Facebook dog people can get kind of like, “how dare you ask that question?”
And I have not felt intimidated to ask a question there. So that’s for real. That’s been helpful.
The litter box training, like I said, was really nice. Just go for it. Think about what you want.
But don’t think so hard that you don’t take a step towards a vision. Your vision can change along the way, like, mine is already starting to, and what I’ll do different in the future. Just go for it and ask questions.
And at some point, you’ll figure it out. That would be my advice. Just do it.
Just do it. You got one life.
Julie Swan | 1:02:54
Yeah, pull a Nike and just do it.
Sarah Whitman | 1:02:56
All right, do it. Do it Shia LaBeouf.
Julie Swan | 1:03:00
I love it. Thanks so much. Where can people find you?
Sarah Whitman | 1:03:04
Instagram, Bonnie Brae Collies, and my website, bonniebraecollies.com. Yep. And Facebook’s weird.
It’s got the little thing because it doesn’t like Collies, but I am on Facebook. You can find me.
Julie Swan | 1:03:16
And Bray is spelled B-R-A-E, right?
Sarah Whitman | 1:03:19
Yes, Bonnie B-O-N-N-I-E, Bray, B-R-A-E, Collies, C-O-L-L-I-E-S. Yes.
Julie Swan | 1:03:25
Thank you, Sarah. Thanks so much for coming on.
Sarah Whitman | 1:03:27
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
