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.
Leilani Nichols of Northwest Cairn Terriers
Leilani Nichols of Northwest Cairn Terriers in Oregon joins us to share her unique approach to breeding and placement. In a world where every puppy looks cute, Leilani uses her marketing to target buyers who are truly ready for the specific challenges of a clever, feisty Cairn Terrier, ensuring a perfect long-term match. She also offers fascinating, hard-won insights into the difference between dogs bred solely for show ring success versus those bred specifically for temperament and personality. Leilani’s commitment to matching the right personality to the right home proves that honesty and strategic communication are the keys to building a sustainable and ethical breeding program.
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. Welcome back to 12 Days of Breeders. Today we have Leilani Nichols of Northwest Cairn Terriers in Longview, Washington.
Leilani, thanks so much for coming on. You have such a fun story. I can’t wait to share it.
Leilani Nichols | 0:36
Yeah, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed listening to last year’s podcast episodes, so I was surprised, and I’m honored to be a guest on this year’s.
Julie Swan | 0:47
You earned it. It’s awesome. All right, so I’ve got to be honest, breeding pretty much sounds like it’s chased you your entire life, and you fought it, right?
Like, I don’t want to be a dog breeder, but yet here we are. Can you just tell us, how did you get started? What was it like growing up for you?
Where did these first seeds come from?
Leilani Nichols | 1:07
Yeah, so there’s a kind of stigma that comes with being a dog breeder. So the last thing I want to tell people when they ask me what I do is that I’m a dog breeder, because they just think that you cuddle with puppies all day, and that you don’t actually work, which couldn’t be further from the truth. But I’m very entrepreneurial.
Growing up, I was a foster home for the Humane Society, but we also had hunting dogs growing up. They were purpose bred, and I was familiar with bloodlines and trainers, and the importance of all of that in a dog that was bred for a job. Those dogs were very predictable behaviorally.
And you kind of know what you’re getting, as to where a lot of our rescue dogs, or our foster dogs, were complete behavioral train wrecks. And it taught me a lot. So animal behavior was very natural for me.
Julie Swan | 2:08
You breed horses too, right? Like today, you’re also involved with horses?
Leilani Nichols | 2:12
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 2:12
So is this where the training came from, working with the special dogs from the Humane Society that you fostered?
Leilani Nichols | 2:20
I don’t know. I’ve always really loved horses. I think I saw myself being a professional in the horse world.
The horse world is just, it’s really hard to make a living. I still work in the horse world to this day, but I just do it on a level that’s enjoyable for me, because having a kid now, it’s just crazy hours with the horses, and it’s really not sustainable. I think there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of women trainers doing it full time, especially that have kids.
Julie Swan | 2:50
Yeah. Just because there’s too many things. It’s very time consuming.
Leilani Nichols | 2:54
It is.
Julie Swan | 2:55
And is it hard to schedule?
Because the horses need what they need when they need it.
Leilani Nichols | 3:00
Yeah. And they just take a lot of time. It’s funny because the dogs take a lot of time, but the dogs are safe.
You know, you can set your baby down on the floor and take care of your dogs. As to where the horses, if you’re training horses, people are probably sending you horses with behavior issues or young horses. And so there’s no safe place to have your kid with you. And also it’s outside.
We get a lot of really rainy, icky weather here, as to where with the dogs, you can control your climate a little bit.
Julie Swan | 3:33
Yeah. I never even thought, it’s an obvious point really. It never crossed my mind.
So yeah, that makes complete sense. Right. So going back, you had been exposed to the mutt world with potential behavior problems, surrendered dogs that were waiting for a new home that needed some love, needed to establish themselves in families.
And then your family liked to hunt.
So you had hunting dogs and you had sort of like this bloodline. And I think, I’m a little partial because I have hunting dogs, but there’s a beauty to seeing a working dog in its element. So you got to experience all this as a kid.
Okay. So then.
Leilani Nichols | 4:12
Yeah. Staying on track, I guess. So I went to school to be a vet tech, because I had a horse that was having medical issues, and I didn’t really understand what the doctor was trying to tell me.
He had complicated problems, and I wasn’t really able to decipher, or make the best decisions for him, just because it didn’t matter how many times the veterinarian explained to me what was going on with him. I just couldn’t understand what he was saying.
Julie Swan | 4:40
And you were younger too, right?
Leilani Nichols | 4:42
Yeah. I was in college at that point. And so that prompted me to go to vet tech school, which was great.
I worked in the large animal field for about five years after graduating. And I did a lot of herd management. We did a lot of goats, cattle, horses, those kinds of things.
And it was very educational.
Julie Swan | 5:07
Yeah. So you got your vocabulary. So you understood more of the medical stuff for sure.
But you learned a lot, because, it’s a whole different mindset, large animals. So for people who don’t know, large animal is more like farm animals, horses, cows, goats. Whereas small animals are usually just pets, like cats, dogs, and maybe lizards or rabbits.
Leilani Nichols | 5:28
Yeah, for sure. So they look at things from a herd management perspective a lot of times, or a health of a bloodline rather than an individual, which I think is really valuable perspective for breeding programs, because I see a lot of purebred dogs where we’ve taken a dog that maybe isn’t fertile or has fertility issues. And then because of amazing medicine, we can get puppies from that dog from artificial insemination and all these other things.
But that dog probably isn’t really a great viable dog to carry on its genes, because if it can’t naturally reproduce, if it isn’t naturally whelping, if it isn’t a good mother to its puppies, then you are carrying on those traits to the next generation.
Julie Swan | 6:13
Yeah. And in contrast, what did you see in the world of livestock? How would something like that be managed?
Leilani Nichols | 6:19
Right. So dairy farms, or even large goat herds and stuff, they are tracking things like the sires, the birth weights of the babies versus the mature weights, the ease of birthing, they’re tracking their susceptibility to parasites, any medical things that you’re seeing in a bloodline.
I keep these too in Excel spreadsheets. And I put every single puppy in there, and the puppy owner’s info.
And then if they get back to me at any point in time with my dog came up with this condition, I log it in there. And then that way, if I see a trend, I know I can pinpoint a bloodline.
Julie Swan | 7:02
That makes sense. That’s a huge carryover. And I think what people don’t understand a lot in livestock is, if it creates extra work, it’s just not worth having around.
Leilani Nichols | 7:14
Yes. And because they’re really thinking about it. I think as dog owners, we pour money at them, because we love them.
And emotionally, we’re so bonded to them. The farmer perspective that I was seeing, was more was like, they love their animals, but they had to make financially sound decisions regarding their animals. For instance, I’ve retired a lot of young dogs early, and let them go on to pet homes, just because maybe they weren’t the most fertile.
Maybe they weren’t the best mom, or maybe they just matured to not really have the confirmation or disposition I was looking for.
Julie Swan | 7:56
Yeah. It’s not like in cows, you know, people, they eat them, they are done with them, but here, we just find them another home. It’s not as crazy, but I think it’s smart.
Have you seen a shift? Because you’ve been breeding for over 10 years. Have you seen a shift when you made those hard decisions?
Did it hurt, but then came back better for you?
Leilani Nichols | 8:17
Yeah, it’s been up and down because my program has just changed so much over the years, but my really good lines that I have maintained from the very beginning, are still some of my best dogs. And it’s just by being selective, but I also play it safe. So I don’t keep just one female to carry on that line.
I will keep three at a time, just because you don’t know what’s going to happen. Anything could happen. Or one of them could be a poor producer or just not be thriving in it, or who knows, but I want to have the leeway to make the decisions in the best interest of my animals and in myself and not be stuck in one path.
Julie Swan | 9:00
Sure. That makes sense. When you say you keep three back, because you don’t have huge litters, right?
Like you’re maybe getting four to six.
Leilani Nichols | 9:06
Yeah. So I’m keeping a female from almost every litter sometimes, if it’s a female, I really, really love. A lot of our litters actually, we keep back from, because you don’t want to be breeding a ton, my opinion, everyone does their own thing.
I don’t want to breed a bunch of litters that are just pets. I do have some litters that I do have just pets coming. And the way I look at that, is those are high quality lines that meet everything I’m looking for, but for whatever reason, I don’t need to keep from that line.
And so those are supporting the rest of the program when I have litter like that. But yeah, five puppies, six puppies is a big litter for me. So if I have females from a female I really enjoy, I’m probably DNA testing them.
I’m probably keeping one.
Julie Swan | 9:57
That makes sense. And do you have them all at your house, or do you use guardian homes?
Leilani Nichols | 10:01
They’re all at my house now. And I have a co-breeder that has about half the program too.
Julie Swan | 10:08
Nice. That’s pretty good. So you kind of have like a partnership worked out where you guys are running one program under two roofs.
Leilani Nichols | 10:14
Yeah. Yeah. I love that because it’s nice to have a team.
It’s nice to have someone to lean on, or even just a vent buddy when you’re having a tough day, because as breeders, we know there’s always something.
Julie Swan | 10:28
Yeah, exactly. I want to ask you a couple more questions about that, but before I do, because some people may not be familiar with the Cairn Terriers. Can you explain a little bit like what they are, what size they are, coat texture, just so people have an idea.
Leilani Nichols | 10:41
Yeah. So my dogs are usually from 14 to 17 pounds. They’re a coarse coated terrier.
They originated from the Isle of Skye. They’re kind of a little hunting breed, and they were originally bred to hunt vermin, and they will run in packs. They will go to ground, they will go underground, and they are very loud when they do that, because you want to be able to find them when they’re underground so that you could dig them out or help them.
And yeah, they’re very tenacious, but why people like them today is they’re a big dog in a little body. So they’re small, but they have great teeth, which is kind of hard to find in a small breed. And they’re hardy in a lot of other ways too.
I hear stories all the time. I had a lady years ago and she goes, “oh, my old dog, I ran him over and he was fine.” And I was like, what?
He’s 14 pounds. They’re very hardy. So they’re a tough little dog, but I think a lot of people appreciate that about them.
Julie Swan | 11:56
Oh yeah. I see a lot of similarities with the Rat Terriers because they’re that big dog in a little body. They think they’re like 80 pounds, but they’re not.
Yeah.
Leilani Nichols | 12:04
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 12:06
I love it. Okay.
That makes sense. So with this co-breeding situation, can you explain a little bit of how it works, just so people can see the idea, and how did it get started?
Leilani Nichols | 12:17
Wow. That just kind of organically happened. I was working with Mikkayla in our horseback riding school.
We had a horseback riding school, had notice, that was really a tough business. And it was a great test of our ability to work together, because the stressful times we went through with that really forged me.
Julie Swan | 12:45
What was so hard there?
Leilani Nichols | 12:48
Parents mostly, but also costs with horses are just really high. And then to maintain a good quality of life for a lesson horse is difficult. Because you need to maximize the number of lessons that horse is doing in a day.
So it’s paying for itself, and it’s paying your instructors. But at the same time, there’s only so many beginner lessons a horse can handle before it kind of checks out.
Julie Swan | 13:11
You mean like it’s just tired.
Leilani Nichols | 13:13
Yeah, they’re just kind of emotionally dull from, you know, imagine dealing with four beginners every day. And all of those beginners are excited to see you, and bringing you treats and want to pet you and are so excited to ride you. And then they’re terrible riders.
They’re bouncing all over you. And then you’re expected to be happy about that day after day. And I was noticing my horses just kind of had a glazed look in their eye.
And I was like, oh, this isn’t for me. I love animals. And just emotionally, I want them to be vibrant and excited about life.
We didn’t want the program to go away. So we actually gifted it to one of our instructors, and she continued it at a different barn.
Julie Swan | 14:03
Different barn, different horses. Got it.
Leilani Nichols | 14:05
Yeah. So Mikkayla, before we had closed that, I had a female that was in a guardian home. And because she had lived by herself, she did not play well with others.
Cairn Terriers really need to be socialized. And so I said, you know, I have this female, she’s a great female, but she can’t come live with my pack. It’s not working.
And so she said, well, I would love to try to raise, so basically she started as a guardian home. But because she’s a horse person, and she’s just so in tune to the puppies and to the dog’s needs, she took such great care of that dog, and raised such a wonderful litter that I was like, “hey, do you want two more?” So we raised up some younger, more submissive dogs alongside that one.
And that’s just how she got started with me.
Julie Swan | 14:59
Perfect. So you primarily do the marketing. It’s one website, you interact with the customers.
Is that kind of the setup?
Leilani Nichols | 15:07
Yeah. So I do all of the answering of the phone, all the emails, all the website, all the social media. And I only have one kiddo.
So that’s very doable for me. Plus, I have a history of running those kinds of things for other businesses, or for my horseback riding program. So it was a natural progression.
But also, now, if you call Mikkayla on the phone, she’s got two under two. You’re not going to get a word in edgewise. So she just takes great care of the dogs.
And we talk every single day. And I just handle all the clientele.
Julie Swan | 15:47
That makes sense. Well, it seems like it’s a good fit for the two of you, for sure. Do you find that people who’ve worked with horses tend to have a little bit easier time working with dogs?
What I see with my kids and horseback riding is a horse is over 1000 pounds, you don’t get to make big mistakes around a horse and get stepped on, it doesn’t go over well. So you have to be a little bit more aware. And I also feel like the horses because they’re a prey animal.
They let you know when they didn’t like something sooner, they have a reaction. Do you do you find a pairing there? Or a difference? I’m just curious.
Leilani Nichols | 16:23
I think it’s definitely helped me having a deep understanding of how horses minds work. And my view is probably a little biased, because I’m surrounded by a lot of horse people. But I do notice that people with life experience, or farm or outdoor experience, really thrive with my dogs.
And I don’t know if it’s just my dogs or all dogs, but they seem to be good at problem solving. Good at raising an animal, good at paying attention to behavior, and going okay, what am I doing that’s causing my dog to be this way? Instead of just being like “the dog is doing this. It’s the dog’s fault.”
Because most of the time it’s not. We’ve either put them in a situation where they’re reacting that way. Or we have repetitively done a behavior that has taught our dog to behave a certain way.
So if you can back up and look at the issue from that perspective, then it’s very helpful.
Julie Swan | 17:21
Yeah. Have you done anything to get more of those kind of buyers? Because I think we run into it a lot, especially I’ve noticed that when I only see pretty dogs and beautiful sleeping puppies on an Instagram feed, I’ll end up talking to that breeder later in a strategy session.
And she’ll say, “Oh, my gosh, they’ve got a problem. They’re calling me all the time.” And I’m like, because they fell in love with a stuffed animal.
So do you do anything to help sort that out?
Leilani Nichols | 17:52
So it’s funny, because I recently changed my marketing to include more dirty dog photos, more digging dogs. And I think it was a podcast of yours a couple years ago that I listened to, that basically said you should show your adult dogs behavior, or something similar to that, so that the people buying your puppies from you are not surprised. And they know what they’re signing up for.
I posted a video yesterday of one of my dogs rolling in horse manure. And he gets up and he shakes and there’s manure going everywhere. And then one of my other dogs runs over and is sliding his ear into it.
And my people love it. It got 1000’s of views. And I think the first comment was, “Oh, my gosh, I love them” with like the heart eyes.
And I’m like, “Yeah, you’re my ideal puppy buyer.” That’s what they do. They’re dogs, they love stinky stuff.
And it’s good for people to see that they can have energy, even though I think of them as a very low maintenance dog. If I start describing them that way all the time, or only showing cute puppy pictures, I attract the wrong kind of buyers.
Julie Swan | 19:05
And that makes a lot of sense too. Because probably what’s low maintenance to you is not really low maintenance to standard people. You probably can’t handle more than the average person.
I think most breeders are that way.
Leilani Nichols | 19:15
Yeah. And I was even listening to a podcast the other day that was talking about, they had studied the world’s longest lived dogs and what they had in common. And almost all of them were farm dogs.
And I was like, Oh, that makes sense. Because there’s so much going on on a farm. It’s very entertaining.
And it’s a very active, engaging kind of lifestyle. My dogs sleep most of the day, but even when they’re relaxing, they can lay up on the deck and they can watch what’s going on. If that makes sense at all.
Julie Swan | 19:50
It does make sense. So basically, you’re thinking, to use the canine term, this enrichment sort of thing, they have a very enriched life, but it’s done very organically, right? It’s not forced.
Leilani Nichols | 20:03
Yeah. And I’ve been getting better at educating people about things they can do. You know, using kibble as treats, and training sessions early on, suggesting that in my emails to them. Puzzle toys, taking videos of my dogs playing with the toys to encourage people, or change the way that we’re thinking about engaging with our dogs.
And I think that’s been very successful. I’ve had several of my puppy buyers now go to barn hunt clinics, which is where they hide the rats in the PVC tubes. And it’s fun.
It deepens your bond with your animal. It’s fun for the owner. It’s fun for the dog.
And then you have a better dog the rest of the day, because they got their wiggles out, and they’re just more settled. I don’t think it brings their energy level up in the rest of their life. I really think it just gives them an outlet, and then they’re happy.
Julie Swan | 21:00
Yeah. That makes sense. Because it’s stimulating their brain and their drives more than it’s just physically stimulating.
I think that’s the biggest difference.
Leilani Nichols | 21:08
Yeah. And they need that. And people don’t always understand.
My dogs are not really reactive, even though I don’t take them in busy public places very much, just because I don’t want the risk of exposure into my home with having puppies, but they don’t see red when they see a little critter in public. And some Cairn Terriers that live in town do. And I think it’s because they don’t get that outlet as much.
And so I try to explain to people, you’ve got to give them an outlet. You’ve got to somewhere in there, so that they’re not so triggered by every little thing, because you might think it’s cute that your dog perches on your couch and stares out your window and barks at shadows and squirrels all day, but that’s not actually a healthy behavior. That’s a sign that your dog is under stimulated.
Julie Swan | 21:56
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it’s really great to point it out in such a black and white way. Hey, if you see this, this is not working for your dog.
Leilani Nichols | 22:03
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 22:03
Yeah, exactly. I like that a lot. Okay.
So how did you, because we’re still building up this story. So how did you get into Cairn Terriers?
Leilani Nichols | 22:16
So I had a Scottish Terrier.
Julie Swan | 20:18
How are they different?
Leilani Nichols | 22:21
He was a little easier going, I think, than my Cairns. They have shorter, stubbier legs, and bigger heads.
I remember when he was a puppy, he would trip over his own head all the time, he was the cutest, cutest little guy ever. But even before that, I had a Jack Russell. So I’ve always had a little Terrier dog.
I loved that dog so much. But of course, I got him actually out of a benefit auction when I was a rodeo queen. We were at a benefit dinner, and they had puppies.
And I was like, 18 at the time. And I was like, “Oh, my gosh, Mom, can we have one,” and so we bought one. And anyways, he ended up, it was so sad, because I took that dog with me everywhere.
He was absolutely my best friend, just like love, that was my heart dog. And he had DM and CMO and was affected, couldn’t go on walks, would cramp up and start screaming, and you’d have to pick him up and carry him. His jaw started deteriorating so bad.
Julie Swan | 23:34
The CMO, I’m not familiar with that.
Leilani Nichols | 23:36
Yeah, I haven’t had a dog with it since. And at the time, it was before I went to vet tech school and everything.
So my vet didn’t know what it was, really, and just thought it was like a aggressive cancer of the jaw, because that’s kind of what it acts like. And then, of course, those puzzle pieces came together for me later, as I was understanding more about problems in small terriers. But it was just really, really sad.
And of course, we got a hold of that breeder. And they were just a backyard breeder. But they’re really sweet, kind people.
They just had two Scottish Terriers. They bred them together, and they had puppies. And they didn’t know.
So it was really important to me that my next dog, I never, ever wanted to go through that again. Because it’s heartbreaking. And then, of course, when you become a breeder yourself, you don’t want to put anyone else through that, because you bond with these animals.
You love them, like they’re family. And then to lose them, especially so young, so tragically, it was just really, really tough.
Julie Swan | 24:45
Yeah, because you lost him. He was like, how old?
Leilani Nichols | 24:47
He was only a little over a year old.
Julie Swan | 24:49
Gosh, yeah. And that’s just awful. So yeah, you pour all this time and love and everything into this dog, and then lose him.
So yet another reason for you to start breeding, right? To fix these problems.
Leilani Nichols | 25:00
So one of the veterinarians I worked for, told me I should get a Cairn, because she had met a Cairn as a vet in college and fell in love with the breed. And she said, they have a larger genetic gene pool than the Scotties. They’re not as inbred, linebred, whatever you want to call it.
But they have a lot of the same characteristics that you loved about your dog that you lost. And so, of course, we waited until we were out of college, and we bought our own house. And then within six months, the first thing I did, was I went out and bought my dogs.
And I actually sold one of my horses to buy my first three Cairn Terriers. And I told my husband, I said, “don’t worry, I know I spent,” because I wanted more than one. And at the time, it wasn’t really big plans of breeding, but I was just like, I want more than one.
Because I had 14 acres and a cool farm, like, why not? You need a bunch of little Terriers running around. And so I said, I’m just going to breed them a couple times, and they’ll pay for themselves.
So that’s how we got started with that.
Julie Swan | 26:12
I think that is a very farmer mindset. Whenever you buy livestock, you run the numbers in your head.
Oh, when will I get that investment back? It’s just kind of how that goes.
Leilani Nichols | 26:25
Yeah. And we didn’t have a lot of money growing up. And so when my mom remarried, when I was 13, I got my first horse.
And just to stay in horses, I’ve always had to work extra jobs and stuff, because maintaining horses is very expensive. And so I had kind of learned once I got good at horses, that if I trained them, I could sell ones that I trained, or I started breeding them a little too, even when I lived at home. So I already had that mentality of, I love my animals, and I can work in the thing that I love.
Julie Swan | 27:02
Yeah, that makes sense. So you always had to have this entrepreneurial mind, so that you could afford your hobbies of horses. Ever since a young age.
But when did the idea of breeding come in? Was it just because you wanted to pay for the dogs?
Leilani Nichols | 27:24
Yeah. And also, I mean, even as a kid, I had the dogs computer game, where I would breed my dogs on there. And because you could make different crosses, and try to make ones that you couldn’t get in the game.
Such a millennial thing to say, probably. But I had desktop computer games, or I would on Sims. I just thought it was really interesting.
And then in high school, I was in Future Farmers of America. And I ended up getting a trip to the National Convention where they do tons of educational stuff. People always ask me about what Future Farmers of America is all about.
And it’s really about preparing youth for the workforce, which a lot of people don’t know. Because I competed in interview, public speaking, those were my main events.
Julie Swan | 28:16
Not just farming, it’s business in general.
Leilani Nichols | 28:20
Yeah, FFA is great. It prepares youth for real life. Of course, I did dairy cattle judging, I did a thing called milk judging, which this all does circle back.
So they did these celebrations of students that had their own businesses. And at the National Convention, if you had a successful business, you might get to present it on stage. And so there was a girl that came on and she was breeding a toy breed.
And I don’t remember if it was Pomeranians or Chihuahuas. But because she didn’t have a farm, so she couldn’t raise a crop or a farm animal, she was raising these dogs. And over the course of high school, she had saved $22,000 for college.
And I just thought, wow, that’s really cool. And of course, this is years before I become a dog breeder myself. But it was always in the back of my head, like, that’s an option.
Julie Swan | 29:21
Mm hmm. Yeah. It was something that you’d be good at.
And it made money. Right?
Leilani Nichols | 29:26
Yeah, yeah. Kind of just a natural fit for me, really.
Julie Swan | 29:31
Yeah. Okay. So then your vet friend recommends the Cairns, and then you get them, you have them.
So you bred a couple litters to recoup your investments, keep the husband happy, I get it. I feel like your husband’s very supportive of your business.
Leilani Nichols | 29:55
Oh, he’s absolutely the best. We’ve been lucky to grow together over the years. Because we meet when we were both 18, and we’re in our 30s now, so you know he’s amazing.
Julie Swan | 30:09
Anything that you can share on how, through the crazy things in breeding, how you work with that to keep balance?
Leilani Nichols | 30:19
Marry a patient person. I think a big thing is making sure, and you’ve mentioned this too, making sure that your dogs aren’t a burden on your family. Kind of rewarding your family for being part of the journey with you.
So I try to be really supportive of things he wants to do. I really try to make it so the dogs don’t interfere with the flow of our life, because of course when you get started, you just have dogs in your house. I raised puppies in my master bedroom, off the end of my bed. I raised them in our kitchen, so you kind of go through that.
I think the big thing for him is when I paid off my student loans, he was kind of like “wow.” And at that point, I’d been doing it for four years or something, but it was like a light bulb moment of like, “I think you should keep doing this.” So ever since then he’s been very very supportive, and built me lots of fences, and things for the dogs to keep them happy, and keep us happy too.
Julie Swan | 31:36
Yeah, that makes sense. So he saw what it did for you, and then you at the same time have made it accommodate him. So that’s beautiful.
Leilani Nichols | 31:45
Yeah we followed Dave Ramsey, very to the letter for a long time, which we go on and off of that. But I think having the same rules and guidelines, where you kind of just agree on things without having to discuss it is helpful. Because we just got on the same page with his materials, and then through that, it’s like with financial matters, which maybe don’t seem like it relates too much to this, but it really does. It just kind of streamlines everything.
Julie Swan | 32:22
Yeah that makes so much sense. It’s like having a good contract right? Like you know what we’re going to do before the problem ever occurs.
Leilani Nichols | 32:29
Yes, you have rules for, this is how we spend our money, this is how we save our money, and then if you can follow those rules, then everyone’s happy and on the same page.
Julie Swan | 32:42
Yeah I love it. I think it’s so good. That’s good advice. And how fun you guys met each other so soon.
Your program has changed a ton from when you first started out to now.
Leilani Nichols | 32:58
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 32:59
Can you take us through some of it? Like what it was in the beginning, and then how it is now?
Leilani Nichols | 33:04
Yeah, when we first got started, I was still health testing my dogs, because obviously I had that vet tech background, but I think I just had a Facebook page. I didn’t have a website for the first several years. And a lot of it was just word of mouth. And I think my puppies were priced very competitively, so word just got around, and people from all over the Pacific Northwest, my litters were spoken for before they were born, easily. I was just keeping a wait list, pen and paper on a notepad, and calling people when they were born.
I would get off work. I would stop at the end of my road, because I still had cell service on my way home, and I would call back all the puppy inquiries and if they didn’t pick up, I’d say “I’m about to drive home. I’m not going to have any cell service. You’ll have to leave voicemails on my answering machine, but you can email me.”
Julie Swan | 34:03
You couldn’t even text or call people from your house because of the location.
Leilani Nichols | 34:08
Yeah no, we lived way out. We’ve moved since then, and a lot of that was because of the dogs too. It was very inconvenient, just communicating with people. But people were okay with it because I was just very upfront.
I said “I live out in the middle of nowhere. You’re not going to be able to get a hold of me.” But at the same time it was very peaceful, because I could take my puppy pictures at home, and then the next day on my way home from work, I’d send out all those puppy pictures, so I wasn’t getting texts and stuff all the time like I do now. So that was the start.
Julie Swan | 34:48
So that worked out really good. But then you wanted to make some improvements, maybe moving to town was easier. Did you guys moved when you had your kid, or was it after?
Leilani Nichols | 34:57
It was right before, but I was pregnant when we moved.
So we kind of transitioned once we got to the point where I had just paid off my student loans, and we were still at this point raising puppies in kiddie pools and x-pens in the 100 year old farmhouse. When I decided okay I’m gonna do more of this, I kept some puppies from my last litters, and we did a lot of guardian homes. Because I was like this is great. A lot of people are familiar with what a guardian home is already, but like a foster home for a breeding dog, where we cover the vet bills, and we get to raise some litters, and we have a contract and I watch the dogs when they go on vacation, that kind of thing.
It took a few years to evolve, but it was problematic, even though we did an application process with the guardian homes. I’m not a numbers person, but I do keep meticulous track of it, because I want to make sure I’m doing the right things. And it wasn’t making sense, and it wasn’t any one person’s fault, or any one particular issue. It was like the death by a thousand cuts kind of thing. So we ended up doing away with the guardian program.
Julie Swan | 36:19
Can you share some of the things that were taxing in it? What were some of the things that you just don’t have to deal with now, that you had to deal with all the time then?
Leilani Nichols | 36:31
Yeah, way more communication, which even just raising puppies you have a ton of communication. Because everyone that has one of your puppies has your phone number, past and present, so that’s a ton of people getting a hold of you every day. But then if you add guardian homes on top of that, and they ask questions about everything because they care, they want to take great care of this dog that you provided them, and you’re the expert, and so you’re spending a ton of time educating them. But because they’re less invested, and they got this dog for free, they’re less likely to do the research on their own, and they’re less likely to read things that you send to them. I just feel like people that pay, pay attention. So I had issues with that.
My guardian homes were much more prone to emergencies than my home pack.
Knock on some wood, I don’t have much for emergencies.
Julie Swan | 37:26
You mean they would eat weird things or they’d get an injury?
Leilani Nichols | 37:31
Yeah, like I had one that got an injured paw, or a couple that got injured paws for different reasons. Or eating things they shouldn’t get into. Or people that are more pet minded, and not as dog minded all the time like a breeder would be. I don’t think subconsciously, like all the time, in their head they’re thinking as much about those kinds of things necessarily. And my guardian homes were great, they were the kindest people. No one wanted to leave the program because they were like “this is great, I get free vet care, free board.”
Julie Swan | 38:05
Would you cover those injuries?
Leilani Nichols | 38:09
I did cover quite a few of them for people. And I had a contract that outlined pre-approved vet care, like basic maintenance care. And some people though even went kind of overboard with that, you know what I mean, like you can be kind of strategic about your care at home to provide top quality care for your dogs without costing you crazy amounts of money. But then also, some of these homes were located in more populous areas where vet care is much more expensive. So those are things to consider. I care about people, and I always wanted people to feel like I cared about my dogs, because they knew I was selling these puppies. So yeah, I think I pretty much covered almost everything.
There was one instance where they had racked up a pretty large emergency vet bill, and I felt that it was preventable, and I basically told them I would cover the first portion of it and that beyond that it would be up to them. And that effective immediately we would retire that dog of course. But I have to keep an emergency fund for my pack. I can’t be shelling out my entire emergency fund for one emergency that was probably preventable on a guardian home’s end, because that would be irresponsible.
Julie Swan | 39:34
Yeah that makes so much sense. It’s a hard one. It’s hard one to find a balance for.
Leilani Nichols | 39:42
It’s tough. I just don’t want to be put in that position. I don’t really have emergencies with my dogs at home. And I don’t have to explain to people as much reasons why we do different things. I feel like I’m not putting out fires all the time.
Julie Swan | 40:01
Yes, I kind of agree with you. I can manage a ton at home. And some people think well sure vet bills, like my emergency vet bills or unanticipated vet bills are usually under a thousand dollars a year. And I have a lot of dogs.
Leilani Nichols | 40:11
Yeah, exactly. I just find that it’s actually less time consuming for me just to have the dog, and take care of it myself now. Of course I have a small breed, so they don’t take up much space.
Julie Swan | 40:33
That makes sense. When did you make that decision, to finally end it? Was it when you switched to this house and everything was set up better for you? Or did you just kind of sort of trickle out of it?
Leilani Nichols | 40:50
I was still going hard on guardian homes the first year or two we were here. And then about three years ago is when we started transitioning. And it was a slow transition because a lot of my bloodlines were in guardian homes. So I had to raise litters from those dogs, and keep a puppy. And it was a lot of difficult conversations with people, of you know I’m giving them a free dog and I’m retiring it to them early. But they liked being part of the program, so it was a slog to get through it, but we don’t have any guardian homes anymore. It’s so much easier just being on our own.
Julie Swan | 41:34
Yeah. Well you have Mikkayla too though right? So because you have her, you can actually have a considerable number more dogs. But it sounds like her mindset on raising dogs, and managing dogs, is much more in alignment with yours.
Leilani Nichols | 41:46
Yeah, and I don’t like business partnerships usually. I’ve had other business partnerships that did not go well. I don’t know why me and Mikkayla mesh so well, but we have from day one. And I respect what she does, and she respects what I do, and we’re best friends, and we talk every day. So we both know how hard the other person is working all the time.
Julie Swan | 42:14
I think there’s a lot of respect there. And you have a good understanding of each other, and you can also you trust the other person’s judgment. I think that’s probably a really big piece of it. I noticed that in the employees where I’m like oh my gosh this is the worst employee to work with and when I have the best employee to work with, not that you’re in an employee situation, but in my head, it’s how much I can trust that person’s judgment when I’m not there.
Leilani Nichols | 42:39
Yeah, and I’m to the point now where I have cameras on my dogs. I mean I always have trustworthy help, I pretty much take care of them myself unless I’m traveling for some reason, which I don’t do often. And I only have people I trust to take care of them. But still, I’m checking in on them because I just, I don’t know, they’re my babies, and it’s my whole livelihood. I’ve built everything around it. So at this point it’s very important to me.
Julie Swan | 43:21
That makes so much sense. I remember I had to go on a trip for a week, and I had the camera on the puppies, and they were all sleeping, and I was like or they’re dead. And then finally I was like oh wait this thing has a microphone, so I just made a little whistle sound and they all perked up, and I was like okay good.
Leilani Nichols | 43:39
Yeah I do that too. My dogs always look at me like I’m crazy. I have one female that just had puppies for the very first time, and I’m so grateful for the camera, because anytime I’m in there she’s so excited to see me she can’t settle. And she’s just a busy bee, and I haven’t had a lot of them like that. So the only time I see those puppies nursing or her relaxing is on the camera. But as soon as I leave, she’s good, and they’re all good, so I’m like “okay, thank you.”
Julie Swan | 44:15
That’s good. I know, it’s so much faster too because you just flip it on check it and be like, “okay, we’re good.”
Leilani Nichols | 44:18
Yeah, and I can check it from bed in the middle of the night. I used to have to go and check all that stuff manually. Make sure they’re warm, make sure everyone’s nursing. And the cameras are amazing.
Julie Swan | 44:36
For anybody who hasn’t set them up yet, they’re so cheap now. Like I got mine for 40 bucks, hooks up to my wi-fi, I can see it even when I’m out of the state. I can still look in on everything.
Leilani Nichols | 44:44
Yeah exactly. I check it right from my phone even if I’m driving somewhere states away. I can just pull up all my cameras right on my phone, and then they move too. So you can move them and then you can talk on the microphone. It’s a game changer.
Julie Swan | 45:02
It’s such a relief. It is like hiring someone. And it’s honestly just so so affordable. That makes sense.
Okay so you had a moment you were telling me earlier, where you ended up kind of bringing in a bunch of dogs. You didn’t really buy someone’s program, but you did get their dogs. Can you explain how that works? A lot of people think about, “oh I want to buy someone’s dogs, or I want to buy a breeding program,” and there’s a lot of differences that play into it, but how did it go down for you?
Leilani Nichols | 45:39
Yeah, so it was a breeder I had worked with before. We had exchanged puppies, and they were ready to retire. And it was kind of during that time where the Covid puppy boom had just happened. And it was really impossible to find homes for puppies there for a minute. And they were just ready for retirement for a lot of different reasons. And so they had called and offered me their dogs. They were looking for someone that could buy the whole program, or the majority of it, and wasn’t going to be too high maintenance of a buyer.
Basically, they needed a knowledgeable buyer that could handle a lot of different life stages of dogs, and knew how to have multiple intact dogs. And I’m a go-getter, so I was like “bring me the dogs, I’ll buy them as long as we can make the financial side of it work.” So they made a deal with me where I put half down, and then I paid them the rest when those dogs had their first litters. So that made it doable because of course these things never come up in great timing. So it’s amazing how much just being open with people, and a phone call can really get you places.
Julie Swan | 46:59
Yeah, so they talked to you. You had a relationship with them before, and then you were able to just sort of negotiate, “hey here’s what I can do, and I’ll help you in this way.”
Leilani Nichols | 47:07
Right, and I didn’t know what these dogs were going to be. I liked the dog I had from them. And I had videos of their facility, and I had followed their Facebook page, but I didn’t know what I was walking into getting those dogs. So I didn’t want to over commit either, and put all my eggs in one basket, because I’ve made that mistake before.
I was telling you yesterday I think, that I raised three males in a row that did not work out to be stud dogs for various reasons. And it’s no one’s fault, it just it happens. As breeders sometimes we select a male to be a breeding dog, and then when it matures we’re looking at it, and we’re like this should not be a stud dog. And it definitely shouldn’t have tons of puppies. I think all three of those I retired without breeding a single time. So that hurt.
Julie Swan | 47:53
Yes, it does. So yeah that makes sense. Yeah, I agree. I think so many times when I work with breeders, and they’re talking about contracts, or a deal they’re trying to coordinate with another breeder, or something like that, they’re always most of the time, unfortunately, they’re thinking of how it affects them, and what they want to get out of the deal, and they stop talking about, or considering what the other person needs. And I think so many times if we just put ourselves in their position, look at what they need, and then make it work for both people, it just seems to work so much better. And it sounds like you do that all the time.
Leilani Nichols | 48:34
Yeah, that is really hard. We have a lot of breeders that are, jaded I feel like is the word, and they, breeders in general in my experience. They’re grouchy, and they don’t want to work together. And I really try hard to have good relationships with people. Not to say I haven’t made people mad. We all have.
I’m like you can be mad at me, people have been mad at me before, I’m just doing my best. So I think if we can all come to the table, that we’re all doing our best, no one is trying to make things hard for anyone else, and we’re all learning all the time too. I think as a new breeder, you’re gonna make mistakes, it just happens. You don’t know what you’re doing, you’re learning as you go, and it doesn’t matter how much information you consume, it’s going to happen.
You have to have the ability to bounce back from that and just have an open dialogue with people. But I have gotten to the point really where I prefer phone calls over anything else. I’m like “if I can get you on the phone we can have a conversation.” But emails just are really tough, and breeders are suspicious, as they should be because they’re like “what are your motives, are you going to buy a puppy from me and are you a puppy mill.” So just talking to people, and seeing if you share values basically, which I think most good people do.
Julie Swan | 50:17
I agree, I find people are much more reasonable than we like to give them credit for.
Leilani Nichols | 50:22
Yeah they are. And everyone’s going through their own tough things. When I have had disagreements with other breeders, it’s usually something they were going through at the time that they didn’t want to talk about, that had nothing to do with dog breeding, So just being empathetic with people is a big deal.
Julie Swan | 50:42
I agree with you. Where do you think all this jaded stuff comes from? Because I do find you’re right. I have my opinions on it, but I’m curious what your thoughts are. Why do you think breeders get so difficult to work with?
Leilani Nichols | 50:57
I don’t know, because they haven’t accepted me into their club yet. I mean, there’s lots of breeders I talk to and we’re friendly. But my breed club, if you read the bylaws of it, I don’t think I can be in it, because I have more than two litters a year and you have to have known two other club members for over a year, and they have to vote you in at the meeting. And you cannot be at that meeting.
Julie Swan | 51:28
It feels like a sorority.
Leilani Nichols | 51:30
It feels like a mean girls club.
And then I’ve gone to the shows, and I’ve had some success at the shows. And when I have professionals show my dogs they do really well. But I I did go to some AKC shows with my own dog, and it was hard. I was friendly to people, and just trying to make friends, but it’s really hard because people don’t know you, so they don’t trust you.
I don’t think it’s that they actually are mean, I think it’s just that they’re like “I don’t know you, you didn’t get your dog from me.” And also, they are there to compete. They’re there to be competitive. As to where I’m like I have shown so many horses I don’t care, I can get last place, I’m just there to have fun. And also in having the professional show my dogs, I have realized the odds of my dog doing well with me showing it are pretty low. A lot of it is on the handler.
Julie Swan | 52:37
Yeah that makes sense, that makes sense. I think at the shows in particular, everybody wants to win. So nobody wants to seem vulnerable. So they put up this wall so they’re protected. But I feel like, okay so I’ve talked to hundreds of breeders, I’ve never met a single breeder that was like “yep, got everything perfect, it’s good.” And anyone that starts out that sentence, in about three minutes I’m like “cool, so why did you schedule a session?” There’s always some things, and nobody’s doing it perfect ever.
Leilani Nichols | 53:14
And in my role as a vet tech, I’ve been behind the scenes with big fancy breeders. Well “fancy.” Listening in on those conversations they have just as many struggles as anyone else. And they just want to make sure that their dogs are going to good homes, and they have healthy dogs and everything.
But I do wish, that, like I love what the Jack Russell Terrier people have done with highlighting the functionality of their dogs and celebrating it. I’m not a Jack Russell member, but I follow some different accounts that talk about it. And basically my understanding is they don’t do confirmation unless they also do sport. And I think that’s awesome. A lot of breeders preserve like a line, it’s their line that they’ve had forever. And they have that one, maybe another one.
I have five maternal lines that I maintain because I wanted the genetic diversity to pull from. So I have sport type lines and I have show lines that were bred for confirmation. The confirmation lines consistently are not as drivey, so that makes sense for show. Behaviorally I don’t like them as much as my sport type lines. They’re usually not instantly great with kids, and they have more metabolic issues. They get fatter easier, and their coat is thicker.
Now that’s just my breed. And it could just be the experience of the ones I had, but I have an imported male that is straight international champions top and bottom. And he is beautiful, but temperament wise, not my favorite dog. I think crossed on those more sport type lines, I get a nice compliment of the two. So I just wish breeders were more open-minded I guess about, maybe there’s attributes to these dogs that aren’t winning in the show ring that we’re not paying attention to.
Julie Swan | 55:33
Yeah I think you’re right. I think you’re right. It always got me when I thought to myself “okay so if my dog doesn’t have the temperament I want but it has the long neck I need to win the show, or the stupid ears are perfect” you know what I mean. I just felt bad having to say “do I want to win or do I want to breed the right dog for my families.” And in the end, I just thought I can’t possibly justify breeding because of this ear length when I’m losing this.
Leilani Nichols | 55:59
Yeah my one of my dogs that I showed, she had such a wonderful disposition. She walks around like a little service dog, her tail never even comes up in public. She just is there, she’s happy to be there, and she has a happy little expression, but she’s not wiggly. Her tail doesn’t go crazy, and she’s not jumping up in the air, and the judges don’t love that. They want to see like a Terrier like pizzazz, with the little prance, with his tail straight up. And they look like they’re ready to pounce on something. And she’s just kind of walking beside me like okay. And then I’d try to get her to perk up in line, and she’s like “yeah I’m being polite.” And so she didn’t show well at all.
But that bloodline is my most successful line to put in every home, because they’re great with kids. They’re great in public. They’re so trainable, you don’t have to train them for them to be great. And they’re healthy. And then my hardest puppy to train that I recently raised, and only kept one of that bloodline because they are so not easy to home as pets. I tell people if you have not had a Cairn Terrier before, and you don’t like cheeky little troublemakers, this is not the dog for you.
If you like an extremely smart, vibrant dog that’s going to out-think you at every corner. And you just love training, and you want to teach this dog all kinds of crazy stuff, and she’s just going to throw behaviors at you. This is the dog for you.
And she showed really well, and I’m like of course she did. Because she marches into a room just like “look at me, I’m the stuff.” And I’m like yeah but she’s a little turkey. She’s always thinking of ways to get into things.
Julie Swan | 57:52
Exactly. And it’s really hard for a show to capture what makes the complete dog. I think that’s what it comes down to.
Leilani Nichols | 57:58
Yeah I wish there were more all-around type events. I know there are, you know AKC has the different events. It’s really hard. What I’m struggling with as I’m trying to get out more in the public with my dogs, because I know what they can do, I observe them at home, I know what ones are more athletic than others. And then coming from a very competitive horse background, I’m good at spotting good movement, good confirmation.
But it’s hard to think about traveling to a show far away from home with thousands of other dogs when you have puppies at home. I would love to hear how more breeders balance that. Because it’s been a struggle for me. Especially having a young family, the idea of on top of that we’ve got to pack up the kid and the husband, or they’re just going to be without me for the weekend which isn’t very fun either.
Julie Swan | 58:54
I think what I see, just from that perspective, is that people who do show are either sending the dog with a handler, rarely attending the shows themselves or for as much time. Or they have a staff at home. You either have giant programs with staff, or the other side of it is you have such a small program that you have two moms and you’re just, this is it. I would say the majority of them are not toting kids to shows as much. So I’m seeing a lot less.
I think there’s a really big misunderstanding that breeders need to be in show, or that breeders are doing show all the time. Because it’s just simply not the case I’ve talked to many more breeders who’ve never even done a show than ones that are showing.
Leilani Nichols | 59:42
Yeah, and the internet makes it sound almost like if you’re not at a show every weekend you’re a bad breeder. Which I don’t agree with, but yeah, that might be a next step for me. I really would like to have a great relationship with a handler that I can just talk to openly we can keep good dogs with them and keep them on the road.
Julie Swan | 1:00:03
If it’s fun. I tell a lot of breeders, if it has intrinsic value and you like the shows, do them. But if it doesn’t, you don’t have to.
Leilani Nichols | 1:00:12
It’s so funny that you say that, because we did the dog show thing last year. And I was like, this is better people watching than the airport. The bedazzled crates rolling around and all the different outfits.
It’s so colorful. There’s all the different breeds. And these dogs waltzing around with their little bibs on, so they don’t get drool on their fur.
And it’s so great. I love it.
Because I’ve been a crazy horse show person. So I understand the level of dedication, and also a smidge of insanity you have to be that dedicated to something. But also to your normal person buying your puppies, they don’t care about any of that.
Julie Swan | 1:00:59
No, they don’t. Yeah, exactly.
And for all the reasons you pointed out, breeding your dog who has her tail down is going to make them most happy anyway. Because she’s making the easiest puppies to work with.
Leilani Nichols | 1:01:12
So, yeah. And I mean, she has a normal tail set. She just is not on alert all the time like my other one is.
But I’m probably going to get smited for everything I just said. But it’s okay. Like I said, people have been mad at me before.
Julie Swan | 1:01:27
Yeah, no, it’s fine. It’s just the truth of it, right? One thing that was really interesting.
There was a big study, of course, during Nazi Germany. And they were working with these wild fox. And they took these fox and they would do a temperament test.
They would have no interaction with them, auto feeders, auto waters. And they would go in with them and they would see how the fox interacted. They had a scale of one to five.
One was the most aggressive. Five was the least aggressive, most docile. And in the experiment, they would only breed ones to ones and fives to fives.
And what they found was that the ones, over a few generations, would only produce ones and twos. And the fives would only produce fours and fives over a few generations. And so over 20 generations, they were able to consistently have this.
And what got crazy about it is that in the process of doing it, the more docile ones, the fours and fives started to get rounder, floppier ears, and curly tails. And so one thing you’ll notice is when you look at wild animals, like coyotes, erect ears, their tails are always big, not curly.
Leilani Nichols | 1:02:41
You know what? It is really funny that you say that, because my bloodline, that one that I told you is like a service dog, her first puppy. That bloodline every once in a while, like every four or five litters, I will get a male born with the floppy ears. And when I have people that are like, “I love Cairns, but I just really want a calm dog, like an old soul.” Well, you should wait for one of those.
And they’re not breed standard. And they look kind of like a Muppet. But they’re adorable, and they’re the most friendly, sweetest dogs you’ll ever meet.
And I have a handful of them out there. And so that’s kind of funny. It’s a good observation.
Julie Swan | 1:03:32
I’m trying to track it with my Rat Terriers. My stud dog has the little floppy at the tip of his ears and he is much more relaxed. Like a rabbit ran by and my girls were like, “oh, let’s go get it.”
And he was like, “did you see that flower? It’s so pretty.” And I was like, wow, you don’t have their drive.
But it’s good. Because my families are not doing any kind of work with my Terriers. So I’m trying to track to see, because we get button ears where they fold in half, almost look like they’ve been buttoned closed.
But I don’t have them very often. And so there is a genetic component, but I’m tracking to see if it relates to a more docile temperament. I think it has to do with epigenetics.
I’m not sure a hundred percent, but it’s my preliminary study.
Leilani Nichols | 1:04:13
Yeah, that is interesting. It kind of makes me think about how I’ll get requests sometimes that they’re like, “I want a petite, dark, calm female.” And I’m like, okay, so the odds of that puppy being born, like maybe I’m going to get one or two this year that matches your color and size and gender that you want. And then you added calm on top of that. And it’s not realistic.
Julie Swan | 1:04:43
No, it’s not.
Leilani Nichols | 1:04:44
And I think one thing that really also helped with that is the puppy application that you helped me create. Our new one asks applicants to prioritize what’s most important to them. And it’s hilarious because everybody selects temperament that matches my lifestyle. No one selects any other option, but I still think it’s important to put on there, because it starts them thinking about like, I need the right dog for me, not just a color that I think is cute.
Julie Swan | 1:05:17
Yeah. And I think there’s just such a misunderstanding. And we often notice it so much as breeders and we kind of forget our buyers don’t think about it.
But a lot of times people are like, “well, I bought a German Shorthair. So they’ll all be the same. It just matters what color I get.”
And it’s like, no, not at all. They’re very different. And I think buyers just think, well, if it’s in the breed, it’ll be the same.
And they just don’t understand that they’re different. It’s like, have you met my two kids?
Sometimes I’m like, did you come out of the same bloodlines?
Leilani Nichols | 1:05:47
Yeah. Yeah. And I am finding that people are letting me guide them more.
And I’m getting better at guiding people. For instance, I used to match really calm puppies with households with children that were busy. And I’ve actually learned, I explain to people now, that’s not the way to go. Your puppy’s going to be exhausted all the time, and it’s going to have a hard time keeping up with you.
And then he’s going to get cranky when he gets mature. So I actually put busy puppies in busy households because it is stimulating for them. But then you have to educate the buyer like, okay, you have a busy puppy.
So puzzle toys are your friend. Here’s how you introduce that dog to your kids. Here’s appropriate things that your kids can do with the puppy to help you.
And so that’s been really fun too.
Julie Swan | 1:06:36
That’s really good. How did you get to the place where you’re guiding them more? I think that’s something a lot of breeders would love to get better at.
Leilani Nichols | 1:06:44
Well, of course you’re like tackling one thing at a time, right? Always, as you’re growing as a breeder. And I think what really hit me was, I had grown to this point where I had a good reputation and my dogs were at the price point I needed to be at and everything.
But then I was having issues with feedback of puppies not being good matches. Not consistently across the board. I’m just so particular about my program that it didn’t take very many instances of this, like two or three for me to be like, “whoa, this can never happen again.” And those people all kept their dogs, of course.
I offered to buy the dog back immediately, and even one lady, she just wouldn’t stop. I was like, “hey, it sounds like you’re under-equipped and you don’t want to work with a trainer, and I feel really terrible, and I want to come pick up this dog from you.” And then she was like, “oh no, no, no, I’m going to work with a trainer.”
So I just want to preface with that. But that was kind of the thing that lit a fire under me of like, I need to do more research about appropriately matching people and looking at it from their perspective. Because, me having a vast background in animal husbandry, and living on a farm, like we talked about earlier, it’s very easy for me to fit a dog into my life.
But putting yourself into your buyer’s shoes and what their day looks like. Like a question I ask people all the time is I said, when my puppies come home, they’re usually ready for a 45 minute walk first thing in the morning, every day. Are you prepared to put aside that time?
I mean, that’s on top of the potty training and the puzzle toys and everything else. And I think that’s eye opening for some people, for some people that’s an immediate like, “oh, I’m not ready for this.” And some people are like, “oh yeah, of course.”
And it really separates out if someone just agrees with me, that I’m as the breeder telling you that’s how my puppies do well. And then if you’re immediately going, “okay, yeah,” then I’m going, “good, this is going to be a good relationship.” Because I’m telling you something is going to be hard, and you either already realize that, or you’re already strategizing or thinking of ways to make this work.
Julie Swan | 1:09:11
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So you’re actually just setting expectations up front more readily, and using your Instagram now or whatever you’re using, for the more muddy pictures and those funny videos, you’re getting people who are ready for this.
Yeah, so I see that coming together. And now they’re receptive to you. Have you done anything extra, other than just being confident in what you’re doing, that’s helped you come across as more of an authority for them to ask you those questions?
I think that’s another struggle a lot of breeders have. Their buyers don’t look at them like they have the answers.
Leilani Nichols | 1:09:44
Really? Wow, I guess I haven’t encountered that as much, but people do compliment my website all the time. And even before I had the HoneyBook series of emails and stuff, because people listening might not know that I work with Julie as a coach now.
And I had a very successful profitable program already. So I didn’t know that I needed to work with a coach, but just going to put in there that it is worth doing. You can always improve.
But people were already saying, “I love your website. It’s so educational.” And what kind of prompted me to build the website was I was relying on Facebook completely to find homes for all my dogs and for people to follow my dogs.
And my Facebook page got taken down. So that was just like, oh my gosh. So now I do the technique where I have a large presence online.
I’m on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. But I think of them like spokes on a wagon wheel that lead back to my website as my main hub. And then I have an email newsletter.
And anyone who gets ahold of me and isn’t ready for a puppy but wants to keep in touch, I encourage them to join the newsletter. And I link it in the stories on my social medias and stuff. Like “if you want to never miss an update, join my newsletter.”
Because then if all the social media disappears, I still have a way to get in touch with people that love my dogs. But I think just having all those materials online was really helpful. And then what helped me form a lot of those blog posts was actually any time I encountered a problem.
So if someone brought a puppy home and they had an issue, I’d go, “oh, I’m not doing a good enough.” Instead of being like, my puppy buyers are a pain in the butt. I’d go, let’s rethink that.
It might actually be I didn’t do a good enough job educating them. The resources they have are not helping them. They don’t have someone to explain this to them.
So I just became that person on my blog. And if I’m writing an email to someone, educating them about something, I’m probably also making a blog post to put on my website. And then I’m sharing that information across all my platforms.
And it’s amazing how that’ll set you up. And even your hate comments can be used for this because I get so much less hate now that I have a really thorough website because people can go on there and research me and be like, oh, this person is responsible or they do in fact do a good job. But in the beginning, when a lot of that information isn’t published, people kind of just draw assumptions.
Julie Swan | 1:12:33
Yeah, I think that’s a big thing. So you’ve basically taken your website and it creates the authority for you. They’re able to see that you know what you’re doing, because they can read all these articles you put together.
I love that tidbit about taking every time there’s a problem and turning it into a blog post. Like, there you go, guys, that’s your entire blog post strategy. But I want to just pause and highlight for a second what you said about when you see a problem, instead of saying those people are stupid, you got curious.
And I will say across all breeders I work with, when you can take that mindset and get curious and then look for the solution, those are the breeders that are moving forward so fast. And it explains why you’ve had so much success in such a short time.
Leilani Nichols | 1:13:18
Yeah, yeah. Because you’re coming from the perspective that people are good and want do good. And another thing is these people, they love their dog.
They want to just take the very best care of them. And unfortunately, there’s a big disconnect between breeders and veterinarians. And sometimes we can get pinned against each other a little bit.
So also being careful with that too. But I use my frequently asked questions page on my website, it’s basically, I don’t know the words I’m looking for, but anytime someone has an objection, my answer to any potential customer objections is on there.
Julie Swan | 1:14:04
Can you give an example?
Leilani Nichols | 1:14:05
Okay, so a customer objection could be, “I want a health tested dog. Do you health test your dogs?” That could be a potential objection.
So your frequently asked questions page is an opportunity for you to highlight what a great job you do health testing your dogs. One that helped me grow so much, is people out of state want your puppies. And maybe they’re not comfortable flying themselves, or they don’t know what’s involved in travel, but having something on there, like “we fly puppies all the time.
We work with these services. They’ve been great. We can hold your hand through the whole process.
It’s really not a big deal.” Objection covered. That’s half my puppies for the year flying all over the United States.
Or they’re looking for a specific kind of dog, or a specific kind of coat type. You could have education on there about what coat types are in your program.
Julie Swan | 1:15:00
So these are not necessarily objections, but anything that would prevent them from taking the next step to contacting you, anything that gets in their way. So like the threshold of entry, like how do they get to contact you.
You’ve taken all those questions and answered them. And I’m sure sometimes your answer is not going to be what they want to have, which is fine. That just means that you’re not going to waste time talking to them on the phone.
Leilani Nichols | 1:15:24
Yeah. And a lot of people are afraid of that. I love it.
I think of it like I’m attracting the people in that are right for me and I’m pushing the people away that are not. And that’s hard when you’re getting started. And it’s a mistake I’ve made in the past, wanting to go out of your way for every single person.
But what I’ve found is that when you do that, people start expecting it of you, and they’ll push you further and further out of your comfort zone. So now I’m just pretty firm with people. I say, this is how we do it.
I think I do a fair and nice, and good job of everything. And if that doesn’t work for you, I totally understand. I will give you phone numbers for other breeders.
That’s the last thing, of course. But if they get back to me and they’re kind, and they say, “well, you’re just a little out of budget for me.” Or “You’re too far away. We don’t want to deal with the travel and we didn’t realize you were located so far away.”
I’ll give them a number for someone that will probably work for them. And then their experience of me is, Leilani is this wonderful, helpful person. She connected me with a breeder closer to home, even though we weren’t a good match.
Julie Swan | 1:16:42
No, that’s so perfect too. So yeah, you leave them with a good taste in their mouth of working with you, I think is kind of the answer there.
Leilani Nichols | 1:16:50
Yeah. I don’t ever want to part ways badly. I think the only time, sometimes it’s almost impossible to get out of a situation, is you get weird phone calls sometimes.
Really strange phone calls sometimes. And I usually just try to end those nicely. And now I just direct people to filling out the puppy application.
I’m like, “well, we can’t really go any further until you fill out a puppy application.” And then that gives me a nice way to respond and just point out the reasons why I think we might not be a match.
Julie Swan | 1:17:26
That makes sense. Yeah. I love that too.
I think that’s a great way to reject people. It’s not that they’re broken, it’s just that, “oh, we’re just not a good fit. It’s not your fault,” you know?
Leilani Nichols | 1:17:36
Yeah. And I mean, red flags for me are if you have a dog already and you tell me, I’m rehoming the dog because I’m unable to take care of it, or train it, or something. And I’m like, my dog’s probably going to be the same problem all over again for you.
So here’s all the ways that my dog’s hard to train. So I will lean into whatever insecurity they’re coming to me with.
Julie Swan | 1:18:05
That’s a good way to think of it. Yeah.
You kind of magnify it, so that they see it, and it also gets them on board with leaving.
Leilani Nichols | 1:18:15
Yeah. And then at that point, if they come back with they understand what I’m saying, but they have a plan to work through it, and they have references and stuff, then we can talk. But we have to be careful because we love our dogs, and we want them in good long-term homes.
Julie Swan | 1:18:33
Yeah, absolutely. I know that match is everything. And it’s hard with your dogs because they are cute, but they’re not a stuffed animal.
They’re not a simple couch potato. They’re a little busy.
Leilani Nichols | 1:18:45
Yeah. I had a home apply recently, wonderful home. Had only had Lhasa Apsos.
And so a question I always ask if you haven’t had a terrier before, is I say, have you had a terrier breed before? And they go, no. And I go, well, let me tell you about them.
They’re puppies for two years. They put everything in their mouth. They want to bite and chase everything.
It’s totally normal. They settled down around four and then they lived to 18. And really nice people.
You could kind of hear the, oh, oh. And then I didn’t hear from them again. And I’m like, yeah, you know, it makes sense.
Julie Swan | 1:19:26
Yeah. Yep. I totally agree with you.
I think that’s honestly, sometimes the best situation.
Leilani Nichols | 1:19:32
I would hate for them to get one of my dogs and be like, “what did we sign up for?” Because the people that are right for my dogs, love them. They’re just like, this dog settled right into our life, slept through the night on night one, so smart, already going on walks.
And that’s the home I need. But I understand why they don’t fit everyone. Some people need a less athletic dog, or a dog that needs a little less stimulation.
Julie Swan | 1:20:01
Yeah, I agree. I think that’s what’s so funny. There’s so many breeds and there’s a reason for that.
We have so many options. The people are so different between my German Shorthairs and my Rat Terriers. It’s just so funny. The group of people I have, like, we watch our show together every night with our dog on our laps, with the Rat Terriers. And then the GSP people are like, we go hiking every weekend and we go on boating and we do this and we do this.
And it’s just so funny how they’re so different. But with the older clientele that I have with the Rat Terriers, they’ve already had dogs, so they don’t really think my opinion about anything really matters. So it’s always weird, establishing authority with them is much more work because “I know that, got it covered.”
But then they haven’t had a puppy in 15 years, and they’re like, “aah.” And then the GSP people have little kids and it’s normal. It’s just funny.
Leilani Nichols | 1:20:50
Yeah, it’s funny. I get a lot of retired people that buy my dogs, and they have a ton of life experience. Which I love, and I just have to remind them about the puppy phase. The women usually will be very conversational, but when it’s the men that pick up, they’re like, “yeah, I got it.” And I’m like, I believe you.
I believe you that you’ve got it, but I’ve still got to go through your puppy packet with you real quick, and at least show you what’s what in here, so that you have all your paperwork together and you understand that this is your food to transition and stuff. Mikkayla and I had a very gruff older gentleman buy a puppy recently, and he’s probably going to be the best terrier home ever, but the way he just confidently is like, “why are you educating me, about the dogs?” I’m like, “well, it’s kind of what today’s market expects.”
Julie Swan | 1:21:48
Yeah, that’s very true. It is very different. I think 20, 25 years ago, nobody got any support from the breeder really.
It was very unusual. And now it’s very standard, at least what the breeders that are here.
Leilani Nichols | 1:22:01
Yeah, I kind of wish people were a little more independent sometimes. And I know we’ve been working on my materials pointing people towards being more independent. Just because I’ve never bought an animal and then later had a problem with it, and came back on the breeder and been like, “this is your fault.” I feel like if you’re taking on the responsibility of a life into your home, then it’s now your responsibility. And you’re trusting them to be the best home they can be, and they’re trusting you that you were a good breeder and did everything on your end to the best of your ability.
Julie Swan | 1:22:42
Exactly, exactly, yeah. You want to have that relationship where there is that trust there and so then when we come together with a problem, it’s about solving it, not about blaming. And it is hard to do that, especially when you work with them so much, and they rely on you. And so how do you get them to rely on you for checks and balances, but they still need to own the responsibility of the situation.
Leilani Nichols | 1:23:09
Yeah, and I think a lot of that comes from vetting them up front, like we’ve been talking about, really, you shouldn’t be closing every deal in sales.
Julie Swan | 1:23:19
Not for dog breeding, no.
Leilani Nichols | 1:23:21
No, not every application should be a yes. You need way more applications than what you have puppies, that way you can sift through and get the best ones. I’m not rejecting people right and left, I’m kind of causing them to reject themselves from it, you know what I mean? I’m just in conversation, and being honest with them and up front, the people that aren’t a good fit, weed themselves out. They decide that it’s not the breed for them or the right timing or something else.
Julie Swan | 1:23:54
Yeah, exactly, I love that. And the more you shift it into your marketing materials, that’s doing that sifting and less on the back end of your business, that’s the secret.
Leilani Nichols | 1:24:03
Yeah, I’m excited to experience more of that, I think it’s coming more as I take more dirty dog videos.
Julie Swan | 1:24:12
Yeah, it all starts with dirty dogs, right? Everything that dogs do that are gross, I tell my buyers all the time, dogs are gross.
Leilani Nichols | 1:24:20
They are, they put everything in their mouth, I tell people that when they bring their puppy home, I say they run through their poop and then they run through their water and then they drink their water faster than you can do anything. And it’s a litter of puppies and then they kind of go, “oh yeah,” and I’m like, “yeah, they’re dogs.”
Julie Swan | 1:24:39
They’re dogs, they’re a mess, exactly. Okay, so one of the things that you’ve had that was so successful, is what you’ve done with your social media. That’s actually brought a ton of traffic to your site, to your business, everything.
Can you share a little bit about what you’ve done?
Leilani Nichols | 1:24:56
Yeah, it’s a tough one. Because I think one thing that really set me apart in the beginning especially, is good photos of the puppies, good lighting, good background.
A lot of people feel really insecure about the inside of their house and what it looks like, this is a nice house, I didn’t always have this house. So what I would do is I would go to Ross or something and I would stage areas with cute toys and beds, all the colors going well together. And I would make a little puppy pen where light is coming through a kitchen window, get a scrap of vinyl flooring from Home Depot that’s a good color. And I would set them on that and do all my puppy pictures and updates on that. And it really helps a lot.
I think a lot of people don’t realize that you can do that. Because you might not have the most aesthetically pleasing carpet or flooring in your home, or the best lighting, you might need to get a ring light or something.
And then a lot of people post a handful of times and then they’re like, “okay, that’s good.” I encourage people to consume social media too, so that you at least understand what does well. I research, go on there, and I see what videos grab my attention, or are getting a lot of other people’s attention. It’s usually the same ones. And it’s good lighting, the puppy is front and center in the camera, filling the frame, the colors go together and from there you can shape your brand. So mine, I’ve been shifting a lot more to outdoor and gardening type images, because I want more outdoorsy people, so adventure type stuff. But then also just showing up consistently and posting.
You can take breaks, there’s been times where between litters, I didn’t post for months at a time. But then ramping that social media presence back up a few months before you need to find homes for those puppies if you don’t have a wait list. Just because the people are thinking about you in the back of their mind basically.
Julie Swan | 1:27:10
I love that, and I love that stage setup. Because we don’t always have good stuff. Like the lighting where I keep my puppies is terrible, I’ve got trees all over it, and trees in Arizona are a hot commodity so we’re not getting rid of the trees, but they are terrible for pictures. So I have to rig up some stuff all the time.
Leilani Nichols | 1:27:33
Yeah, and I have nice whelping boxes with the pens around them now. And I have a nice concrete dog run with a roof over it and everything. All the things you need as a dog breeder. And I also have to explain to buyers, you need those to appropriately separate your dogs and keep them happy. They’re not stuck in them all the time, they’re not in dog jail. But you need that having many intact dogs to separate them and keep them all safe and happy.
But at the same time, people don’t respond well to a bunch of pictures of that on social media. Even though it’s things I might nerd out about, like I used to take a picture of my puppies in a basket with all my vaccines nicely laid out on a tray. They don’t want to think about their puppy being stuck with a needle, but as a vet tech, I’m like, this is so aesthetic.
So just thinking more about what they want to see. And pointing your online presence towards that. And now I’ve shifted a lot more to less puppy content, more adult dog content. Because they’re going to have a puppy for a short window, they’re going to have that adult dog for a long time. So if you have followers that love your adult dogs, then they’re going to be much more successful with your puppies.
Julie Swan | 1:28:58
Yeah, that’s so true, so true. And so many social medias for breeders are simply puppies. And sometimes they’re always sitting perfectly or sleeping, which is hardly the experience when you take the dog home.
Leilani Nichols | 1:29:11
Yeah, and I think that’s a recipe for really dissatisfied clients basically. If your social media is just straight cute puppies, which I’ve done for periods of time. I think it’s much better if you can shift people more towards enjoying your dogs as adults.
Julie Swan | 1:29:30
Yeah, I agree with you.
Leilani Nichols | 1:29:31
And I know I’ve tried to help a lot of people with that, and it seems like it’s a struggle for a lot of people.
Julie Swan | 1:29:37
What do you think is their biggest struggle?
Leilani Nichols | 1:29:40
I think a lot of people post for a month, and their following didn’t grow, and they give up. I think a better strategy is to challenge yourself to put out 100 pieces of content on one platform. Focus on one, because they see how I’m on four or five different platforms and they go, “oh my gosh, that’s so overwhelming.” I don’t grow those all at the same time. I focus on one at a time.
And it’s funny because a lot of people are also not flexible across platforms. They’re like, “I’ll do Instagram, but I’ll never do TikTok.” Well, I get buyers from all those places.
So maybe just put yourself out there, challenge yourself to put a hundred pieces of content on one platform and grow it. And then as you get comfortable, the ones that you already grew, you’ll be way more comfortable repurposing content across platforms. Like last night while I was watering my plants, I took some pictures and videos of my dogs.
They’re across platforms now, all doing very, very well. But because I’m across platforms, that’s probably, who knows, it could be 20,000 views, even though they were just average performing content. And it wasn’t a struggle or adding extra time to my day, because I literally took those while I was watering my plants.
And then I edited them while I was making dinner and posted them. But in the beginning, give yourself the grace that you’re going to have to sit down and dedicate probably an hour a day to learning how to edit something on Instagram or whatever it is that you’re using.
Julie Swan | 1:31:20
Yeah, I do think it is the time, the method, and when you fit that time into your day. Like you were able to do it while watering, while you’re making dinner, those are things that maybe if we could habit stack and say, “okay, every time I’m doing this, I’m going to work on this for my social media.” I think it really helps. I found for me, I sit down and I will work my captions and then I will go look for the visual to go with it.
I reverse engineer it most of the time.
Leilani Nichols | 1:31:49
Yeah. And I’ve found you don’t even have to be complicated about it. People ask what the dog’s name is that’s in the picture.
So I’ll be like, “meet Mini, #cairnterrier”. But also people go, “well, I find homes for my puppies without doing that.” And I’m like, that is awesome.
I would love to be in that spot. I’m not there yet. It’s how people find me.
But also, I love that it brings me so many people, because I have options. I don’t have to settle for puppy homes. And I’m not getting stuck with older puppies.
Because I have lots of good buyers for my puppies at the right age.
Julie Swan | 1:32:37
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It’s definitely working.
It’s definitely working for you. And it does work.
It does work.
Leilani Nichols | 1:32:43
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 1:32:43
And when you pair that with your email newsletter, and the traffic to your website.
That’s the money shot.
Leilani Nichols | 1:32:51
Yeah, yeah. I was looking at my Instagram analytics this morning. And it was like, you’ve reached 572,000 people in the last 30 days.
I was like, that’s one platform. So if you think about it, you’re getting the cream of the crop for your puppies. Because if your back end materials are good, your educational materials are good.
And then also, it’s building trust with your buyer. In the beginning, people would call me and they would have all these questions. I mean, I would spend over an hour on the phone.
And I still do that sometimes with people. But that’s hard when you’re working other jobs. I’ve always worked a lot.
That’s really, really hard to keep up with.
The phone calls I get now are “I’ve been following you for years. I love your dogs. I just filled out a puppy application on your website.
But I’m so excited. I can’t wait to hear from you. But I just wanted to touch base and introduce myself.
And I really hope you’ll accept my application.” It’s such a contrast.
Julie Swan | 1:33:54
Very different. Yeah, it’s very different. I love that.
Leilani Nichols | 1:33:56
A totally different experience. And I love it. Because I don’t feel like I have to explain myself or my program or my philosophies or my dogs even.
And a lot of times they’re coming to me now, with a lot of the new materials I’ve been putting out about the temperament testing and stuff. And they’re going, “Can you help me select a puppy?” Because I used to be just so tickled that they were like, “I want a puppy from this female.”
I was like, Oh, yeah, you already know what female you like. But now they’re just saying, Will you help me select one? And I’m going, Yeah, because your perfect puppy might come out of a totally different litter.
Julie Swan | 1:34:35
Yeah, I love that. I love that. You’ve had a lot of success doing that temperament testing.
Leilani Nichols | 1:34:40
Yes, we recently added that. And it was funny, because it was dealing with a problem once again.
So I sent a puppy home. And the puppy was totally normal and good. But I heard back that the puppy was food aggressive.
And I was like, “No,” as a breeder, you know if your dogs are food aggressive, we’ve seen them eat every meal from the time they’re first eating. And we know all their relatives. So I was like, I can’t have that, I need some kind of a pre-purchase exam basically on my puppies of, this is a baseline of where your puppy was at when they left my care.
So that’s great, right? Because it’s insurance for me. But what it has ended up turning into beyond that is it’s a wonderful way for your puppy buyers to see you as a breeder interact with their puppy, and what their puppy’s needs are.
So what I tell people is it’s not a pass fail. It is simply to look at what your individual puppy’s strengths or weaknesses are. And it also will help me give advice too.
Because if they call back, and they say I’m struggling with this or that, I have a record of how that puppy temperament tested beyond just my observations raising that puppy. I have a written record and a video record. And it will help me know what advice I’m going to give.
Like is the puppy under stimulated? Or are you not very good at telling your dog no, and now it’s become an issue.
What direction are we probably tackling this from?
Julie Swan | 1:36:21
And to clarify, you’re essentially videotaping them as you’re doing a temperament test, and watching them in action. And so then that goes on YouTube. And so there’s a baseline for you, a baseline for them.
And then it’s also nice because people get to start to see the differences. And then I think maybe it further builds your authority. Because people are saying, “wow, she really knows what she’s doing. I don’t see any of that stuff.”
Leilani Nichols | 1:36:45
Right? I wish I had known those videos were going to do so well, I would have dressed up cuter. But yeah, we have a temperament test.
It’s like a two page paper. And we’re going through, what are the fear reactions of the puppy to a loud noise, to opening an umbrella, it’s a visual thing. We put food down, we put food in the bowl, or our hand in the bowl with the food while they’re eating, we pet them while they’re eating.
We play with them with a toy just to see how drivey they are. We restrain them, hold them on their back and off the ground. And yeah, it’s really helpful for people also to see how you can firmly but fairly handle a puppy, because terrier puppies are little gremlins.
You are being kind to them, of course, but you also have to set expectations and boundaries from the beginning. And I’m doing that in those videos, and showing people, this is how you get your puppy not to bite. This is how you get your puppy to be patient.
And people love those, the buyers love them. And it’s the greatest last pup date. I send weekly puppy updates, we call them pup dates. And that’s the last one I send them before they bring their puppy home.
And most people say “we sat down and watched that on the TV with the whole family.” And I’m like, “that’s so awesome, you guys are getting a snapshot of what to expect. So it’s not a shock.”
And then also, what I didn’t expect is how many new people it has attracted. Because people have basically went, “Oh, my gosh, I love this, because I can see how you interact with them and how well socialized they are. And I love their personalities.”
Or even “I’ve had one before, but I just trust and I know that your puppies are going to be good because I’ve seen multiple videos of you interacting with these litters.” And of course, I’m temperament testing Mikkayla’s litters, and she’s temperament testing mine. So that it’s kind of a stranger interacting with the puppy.
Julie Swan | 1:39:02
Yeah, that makes so much sense. But that’s good. And so that’s fun.
We’ll have to put all these links in the show notes so people can watch some of these.
Leilani Nichols | 1:39:10
Yeah, or just look up Northwest Cairn Terriers on YouTube. It comes right up. My YouTube presence is not that polished, because I haven’t really focused on it.
But I think it’s definitely going to be a focus for me, because it’s one of the only social medias that doesn’t have policies against breeders, I guess. Because you know, Facebook and Instagram, they’re no animal sales. And I feel like it’s really detrimental because the scammers are just running rampant on those platforms.
It’s really hard to differentiate yourself. But if you’re not on those platforms, people are stealing your content and using it on there anyways. So I think it’s good to have a good presence on there, set yourself apart, and then just direct people back to where you want them to go.
But my Instagram got deleted on earlier this week, because I wrote out a caption about how much I loved my new whelping boxes for potty training. And I had put in there about how great it is because my puppies are going to be so well prepared. I already did litter boxes before, but I got the configurable whelping boxes, I’m finally stepping into the current times, getting with the times on the whelping boxes.
And I was just so excited. I made a post about it. And my account, AI flagged it, it deleted everything instantly.
Luckily, I was able to appeal it and I got my account back. You should never ever ever sell a puppy on an app. I mean, I wouldn’t want to anyways, they need to call you or apply on your website. But that was scary.
I was like, wow, that’s 30,000 followers. That’s a lot of work that I’ve put into that account over the years. And YouTube, I think is a safer place to be.
And it has just as many people.
Julie Swan | 1:41:06
Yeah, I know. I don’t disagree with you. I think the content tends to live a little longer on YouTube.
And it feels fresher. I mean, I was watching videos this morning. And I was like, nine years ago, they made this nine years ago.
Leilani Nichols | 1:41:19
Yeah, it’s kind of funny, because I have old YouTube videos. I think my current about us video on YouTube still talks about the guardian homes and everything. And even my property looks totally different than what it looks like in that video.
But it still works. And then I just explain to people the changes. We’re slowly working on updating, that it’s time and money.
Julie Swan | 1:41:44
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Oh, it’s perfect.
Alright, so any advice to new breeders, if you’re going to give somebody getting started advice, what should they think of, focused on, do?
Leilani Nichols | 1:41:54
I think it’s really important to remember that we need to be professional. Because I feel like as dog breeders, there’s a lot of not professionalism that goes around. And people really like being treated professionally and kindly. And remembering that even though you’ve had lots of dogs, and you talk dogs, and you have dogs all the time, maybe it’s not exciting to you anymore.
That to this person, this is like one of five dogs they’re going to have over their lifetime if they’re a dog person. And this is their baby and they are so excited. It’s really hard sometimes, but if you can just put yourself in that moment with them, and treat them with kindness.
It’s okay to set boundaries. You know, “don’t text me asking for pictures every day.” But I don’t say it like that. I say “I send pup dates on Wednesdays, we’re really busy and we try really hard to keep you guys updated as your puppy’s growing. But that means you’re going to get pup dates on Wednesdays.” But I’m never going to say don’t text me. I think people struggle with that.
And also people don’t want to hear about your struggles as a breeder. That’s hard too. I have a lot of friends that are breeders, and I think posting bad things that happen to you, I think what we’re looking for is sympathy or empathy for our position and how hard it is.
And I don’t doubt it. I’ve been there right there with you. Terrible days, terrible things happen, and we just have to get through it, and we still have to be smiling and answering the phone the next day and that sucks.
But if you’re publishing that online, that’s what it’s putting in people’s minds about you. So they think “that breeder, man, they have a lot of whelping issues.” Or “they have a lot of odd things that happen in their puppies.”
And it’s like, no, that was just one puppy, right? One in a whole, how many years? But you publishing that, I don’t think it looks good.
Not that we need to hide stuff or anything. I’m just saying, think about it from their perspective and what you need to be educating them for, and what’s going to help them be successful. And that is not our one-off terrible times that we experience.
If that makes sense at all.
Julie Swan | 1:44:26
Oh, I think it makes sense. I guess the difference is, I’ve heard don’t share your wounds, share your scars. So if you’ve overcome something, like I’ve overcome Giardia in my breeding program.
So that’s something I can talk about because I’ve solved it. Now, if my buyers run into it, which is very common in Arizona, I have a solution. So this makes me a more authority driven breeder.
But if I’m like, “oh my gosh, we’re dealing with this and it’s crazy and I’m stressed.” Nobody wants to see that on social media because it makes me look like a basket case. And I was a basket case when I was dealing with that, but wait, don’t share it.
Let’s talk about it when you get a solution.
Leilani Nichols | 1:45:10
If I can’t talk about it without emotion, I’m not ready to talk about it. But I think about my husband’s work, because that’s the most relatable thing for me. And I’m like, okay, they’re not posting:
“We had all this equipment breakdown and so-and-so was running late and I didn’t get any sleep last night and it was terrible. And so no one’s going to hear from me this week. Call me next week.”
You know, they’re not doing that. They might not post anything that day, but they’re not going to be posting negative things. So think of yourself like, if you were a normal business, not a dog breeder, not even an animal business, what would you be posting?
What would you not be posting? Because that’s really going to lead your social media. And then also thinking about what is normal and boring to you, is really exciting to other people.
I can’t even tell you how many tens of thousands of views I get every time I post a video of my dog upside down on the couch sleeping. People love that. Because it’s novel to them.
Maybe they don’t have your breed of dog. Maybe they haven’t ever seen your breed of dog sleep. It’s like going to the zoo for them, they’re like, “oh wow, it’s a Cairn Terrier doing this.”
“It’s a Cairn Terrier doing that.” And so just showcase your dogs doing what they do every day. And people love that.
That’s what they want to see because they’re trying to envision your breed of dog in their home or in their life.
Julie Swan | 1:46:47
Exactly.
Leilani Nichols | 1:46:48
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 1:46:50
It’s perfect. I mean, it works so good. And you’re selling that lifestyle.
You’re preparing them for what to expect. You’re doing so much work just visually.
Leilani Nichols | 1:46:57
Yeah. Yeah. And you can carry that over on the phone too, because I can’t even tell you how many breeders, I call them.
And they’re like, “I’m running late getting my kids to school. And also, so-and-so had a C-section,” and they know I’m another breeder, but I’ve even had conversations like that where they might not. And I’m like, don’t share all that.
Just ignore my phone call.
Julie Swan | 1:47:24
Call me back when you have time.
Leilani Nichols | 1:47:26
Call me back when you’re not running around like a chicken with your head cut off. I know that’s really hard because we don’t want to lose out on people and we want to be prompt answering the phone and stuff. But I promise you, as a person who does not check their email on their phone, I check my email maybe every day on weekdays, sometimes more like every other day.
And I put do not disturb on my phone for certain hours of the day. And I usually won’t get back to anybody on the weekend. And that’s crazy to hear for some dog breeders, but you’ve got to do it or you’re going to go crazy if you’re going to stay in this game.
And I think we as breeders need to maintain our mental sanity. And if this interview helps one person, I will just feel so good about that, because you have been so helpful to me. I listen to every single episode.
And I love that you get a little tidbit from other breeders here and there. So it’s always nice to hear.
Julie Swan | 1:48:25
Oh, I love it. I think you’ve given us many, many gems in this interview. It’s been so helpful.
Thanks so much for sharing your story, all your extra knowledge. And I love watching all your success. Can you tell people where to find you?
Leilani Nichols | 1:48:39
Yeah. So my website is northwestcairnterriers.com. Cairn is spelled C A I R N.
We’re on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube everywhere.
Julie Swan | 1:48:51
All right. Well, thanks so much.
Leilani Nichols | 1:48:53
Thank you.
Show Notes
Referenced Links
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- Learn more & Join the Dog Breeder Society
- Learn more about Leilani & Northwest Cairn Terriers
- Watch Leilani’s Temperament Testing Videos on YouTube
- Kit for Email Management Masterclass
- Website Copy & Design Masterclass
- HoneyBook for Buyer Management Masterclass
- Schedule a Business Strategy Session with Julie
