July 31, 2014, I heard a ‘yip’ come from the bedroom. I ran inside and saw Nikki had started to have her puppies on my daughter’s toddler bed, she had pulled off all the sheets, and had her first puppy right on the toddler bed mattress. This little white puppy came out, with a solid head and a single spot on his lower back. I affectionately referred to him as “One-spot.” Another white pup was born, this one with a variation of patching; then the third puppy was born, another white pup, with heavy patching and a unique patch on her left leg. I’d never seen a GSP with a single patch on the lower leg. That puppy was Reggie. I kept her, and she was a tough little thing. She ran into my ex-husband’s bird-hunting vest after he’d gone out with Buster (Reggie’s dad) and pulled out a dove. She was only 5 weeks old! And there she was, on the porch, bird in her mouth, enjoying herself, when 3 adult bird dogs came over and wanted to take it from her. She got on her four little legs and intently growled at them. To my surprise, the big dogs backed off, and Reggie went back to enjoying her dove. At that moment I thought, “I have to keep this dog for the breeding program.” I did, and our best bird dogs came out of my Reggie.
Reggie just turned 10, and that marks a decade since my first litter, a decade since officially becoming a breeder. I do believe you’re a breeder before you actually whelp a litter. But most of you are smarter than me and did a whole lot more planning than I did, so I really had only been in the world of breeding about 3 months when I had my first litter, especially since I got all my dogs after they were a year old. I don’t recommend it, but that’s my story.
I wanted to share my 10-year anniversary with you. It’s exciting, and I never knew it would take me where I am today, where I’m so lucky to work with you, an amazing dog breeder amongst a community of dog breeders, who has grit, passion, and a lot of heart. Dog breeding isn’t easy, but it is rewarding. Thanks for being with me on the journey.
Have you ever wanted to ask me a quick question? You can! If you go to my website on any podcast episode, you’ll see a sidebar (or at the bottom of the post if you’re on mobile) and you can ask me a question there. I use these questions on the podcast, like today’s Q&A episode where we’ll discuss four questions on dog breeding:
- When you should form an LLC? From Sean
- How many females you should have? From Lisa
- How do you start breeding? – From Giovanna
- I got a male, can I still run a breeding program? – From Charles
Let’s dive in!
When should you form your dog breeding business as an LLC?
It’s a good question Sean had. If you search online, you’ll probably be told to form your LLC right away, that you want to kick it off correctly and keep business expenses and liability organized and working for you. While this is true, it would be ideal, it can also be a lot of paperwork for something you aren’t sure you’ll enjoy or want to continue doing. For this reason, I think it’s okay to run your business as a sole proprietor (sorry, my international friends, this is primarily talk for Americans) for the first few litters.
If you aren’t familiar with a sole proprietorship business model, it’s essentially a business that you don’t need to form. You have a name, but, as far as the IRS is concerned, you are operating as you, a single person. This means, instead of getting an EIN, or employer identification number, from the IRS, you’ll instead use your social security number as the business’s number. In essence, the business is kind of an alias for you. You’ll list all of your business income and expenses, profit and loss paperwork on taxes, on a Schedule C of the standard 1040 tax form.
The benefit to this is that you don’t need to set anything up. The negative is that you will pay more in taxes, HOWEVER, you’ll probably not have a lot of taxes the first year anyway. You’ll be recouping your investments on supplies and breeding dogs, amongst other things, so your profit will be low, and it shouldn’t add a lot to your tax expenses.
The biggest negative of not being an LLC is that you don’t have the liability protection. I will say, with a few bits of good planning, mainly good financial practices with buyer deposits and making sure buyers aren’t getting injured by your dogs or on your property, you’ll be in good shape with liability. So is it important? Absolutely. Do most people form a business before their first litter? No.
So when is a good time if you haven’t yet? I would probably make that decision once I’ve bred about 4 litters or you’ve been breeding 1-2 years. This is enough time to know if you like it, so you aren’t spending more money than is necessary; but at the same time, it’s not so much time that you’re greatly risking your liability and asset protection.
If you’ve been breeding a while and you still aren’t an LLC, that’s okay! I would look into it with your State. Most States are fairly reasonable with their LLC policies. To be correct in terminology, it’s usually said that you ‘organize’ an LLC, and it stands for Limited Liability Company, not limited liability corporation, although a lot of people say that.
In Arizona, for example, it’s between $50-$85 to organize your LLC, and takes about 5 minutes online. From there you can get your free EIN from the IRS. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not pay for an EIN! It’s free, online, and takes 5 minutes! Next, you can go get a bank account.
The biggest thing that’s weird about LLCs is that they are not federally recognized, which means that there is no specific taxation for them like there is with sole proprietors and corporations. This means you’ll need to choose how your business is taxed, and, while I have my opinions, there are some situations where you might opt for something different. It doesn’t hurt to talk to your tax accountant and get their opinion.
If you’d like to learn more about business formation and what it entails, please send me an email at [email protected]. I’m always trying to help you where you need it. This is all the fun stuff I learned in Business School, and I’m more than happy to share.
How many females should you have in your dog breeding program?
Lisa asks. It varies, but generally 3-6 is the number for most breeding programs. That’s the quick and easy answer, but it really does depend. I have an entire MasterClass in the Dog Breeder Society for this particular question. It is such an important part of your breeding business–understanding how many females and dogs to have–that it’s actually the very first MasterClass I put together, Program Design. I have an entire formula in there that you enter in your data, and it’ll kick out how many females you need.
Having that said, I like to work it backwards off of how many puppies you want to produce and average litter size. Let’s do an example. For most breeders, the number will be somewhere between 30-80 puppies produced per year.
For me, I have about 48 puppies per year, so about six litters. I breed my females back-to-back, so they each have 2 litters per year. My dogs average 8 puppies per litter at this time (although it’s been less in the past). To get to my 48 puppies, divided by the average litter size of 8 puppies, that’s six litters. Because I breed back-to-back, that’s only 3 mamas.
In my breeding program, losing a litter is a pain, but it isn’t critical for my business. I have enough income from other sources that missing a heat or having a litter that doesn’t take isn’t common, nor would it tank my finances. However, I have been in a place in the past where it would.
If you run your numbers and you NEED six litters, then in my situation I would want to have that fourth female. This would give me a buffer in case I had smaller litters or missed one. You can always choose to skip a heat, but you can’t have a litter if you don’t have the female.
If your litters are smaller, you’ll need more females. It is greatly dependent on you, what you need, and what you can manage.
Here let me add what I have witnessed working with a large variety of breeders. That is, that the time invested, and help required, to produce and sell over 100 puppies per year is a considerable jump. It seems to require staff and a lot more overhead. It’s not that it’s wrong or doesn’t work, but it is a very different business model.
So, to summarize, run your minimum number of puppies sold, and work the numbers backwards. Remember, if you want all the details, check out MasterClass #1, Program Design inside the Dog Breeder Society for all the details on how to calculate the number of puppies, mamas, and the ratio of studs you need for your females.
Want to Get the Roadmap to a Successful Breeding Program?
I got a male, can I still run a dog breeding program?
This question comes from Charles. It happens. If you have heard me discuss starting your breeding program, and what breeding dogs to buy in the past, you’ll know I recommend getting females first. This is because you can easily keep a female from your first litter, doubling your breeding dogs by going from 1-2, and they’ll be related, so it makes it easy to buy a stud you can breed to both. Having that said, it isn’t how I started. As you may recall, it all started with Buster, and his bloodlines have been in all but 2 of my litters. If you started with a stud, you’ll need to at least pick up one female, probably two, then you’ll go as I did, with two maternal lines, using your stud.
The reason it’s hard to run a bloodline off studs instead of mamas is because you can’t breed your female to a lot of males, but you can breed one male to a lot of females.
For me, what I’ve found makes the most sense, is to keep your bloodline by keeping daughters, then bring in new blood with a stud, to breed to your new generation of daughters. You’ll keep consistency vertically with your females, and you’ll keep your COI low by using new blood from studs.
How do you start dog breeding?
Giovanna asks. Starting dog breeding is not particularly difficult, but there is a lot of weight to the decisions. In essence, you just need to buy a female and a male–ideally, unrelated–and breed them. However, the quality of those breeding dogs will set the stage for your bloodline. Therefore, it’s very important they are quality. The single most important thing you can do when you start is to buy quality dogs that complement each other.
The next biggest thing is figuring out who you are going to sell to. In fact, not figuring out who you are selling to is the biggest mistake I see breeders make. So many people focus on creating this dog they see in their mind, but forget that you have to put that dog in someone’s home and, if that match is wrong, the dog’s quality of life will suffer.
I believe there are no good or bad dogs, but there will be good and bad dogs for certain people; which is why it’s so important to know WHO you are selling your dogs to, your Ideal Puppy Buyer, and then breed for that person.
If you’re stumped about when to do branding, coming up with a logo, kennel name and colors, or maybe you’re not sure how to figure out when to build a website or what to do first, I recommend you download my free cheat sheet the Roadmap to a Successful Breeding Program using the link below. It’s a simple one-page pdf that will show you the steps you need to take to kick a breeding program off in the correct order.
Once you have a map of where you’re going, you’ll be able to sort where you need to put energy and focus. You’ll know the next thing to figure out. I have a page on my website that’s simply titled How to Start a Dog Breeding Business. It’s on my website under tools and resources. You can get the roadmap there, but also a collection of blog posts that will help you understand what you need to get started.
The whole reason I made the Dog Breeder Society was to support you in making all these decisions. I don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all when it comes to breeding, so my goal when I teach a MasterClass is to give you all the criteria to consider when making your decision, so you can make the right decision for you. I’d love to see you inside!
You can learn more about the Dog Breeder Society here.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Honest Dog Breeder Podcast, with me, your host, Julie Swan. Thank you for taking time out of your day to spend with me! Can’t wait to see you in the next episode!
