Giardia was awful. Losing those puppies was absolutely awful. It was a hard way to get through my first year of breeding. You know what was worse? Parvo. Parvovirus has been by far the worst thing I’ve dealt with in puppies. Watching their little bodies fighting, too nauseous to eat, not strong enough to stand, their eyes sinking into their head from dehydration. You sit there with them, hoping, praying they’ll be able to hang on long enough for their immune system to fight it. And sometimes they can’t; they look at you that last time, then their eyes glaze over as they make that last gasp for breath. Part of you feels relief they’re no longer in pain, but part of you feels like the biggest failure. These little puppies trusted you to care for them and you failed them.
Losing puppies is by far one of the reasons dog breeders quit dog breeding. It’s painful to watch, it makes you feel awful, like a failure, and it’s extremely hard to tell your buyers, the people that trusted you to send them home with a lovely, healthy puppy, that you failed them.
In my experience, giardia, while nowhere near as detrimental as parvovirus, was the thing that had me questioning if I should quit breeding. I asked myself for months if I deserved to breed when these puppies were sick, dying in my care.
I didn’t quit because I had a realization that this could happen to any breeder, and it certainly could happen to older dogs, but less detrimentally, I finally gathered enough resolve to stop questioning if I deserved to be a breeder and to lean into fixing this problem, to find a solution.
Learning to solve the problem makes you a better dog breeder
If you’re dealing with puppy death, viruses, endless parasites or protozoan infections, please know that there is a solution. This doesn’t have to define you or your breeding program. Will the PTSD be there for the next few litters? Yes, absolutely, but it does pass with time, and your confidence will grow.
I’ll also let you in on a little secret. Chances are, if you’ve never had to deal with a parasite or similar challenge with your dog breeding program, then you just haven’t been doing it that long. It happens to all of us. Don’t feel bad, dogs are gross. When you come out the other side, you’ll be a better breeder.
Think about it, which doctor would you rather see? The one who has dealt with all sorts of crazy viruses and done emergency trauma surgeries, or the doctor who has never experienced them? Getting through a virus or parasite teaches you and makes you better. Obviously you don’t need to go out and bring home parasites or expose your dogs unnecessarily to viruses, but when it inevitably happens, be curious as to how you can make changes to make it better.
This losing of puppies, especially horribly from parvovirus, is one reason many breeders quit. The combination of heartache and guilt is too much, and they decide they no longer want to subject themselves to that sort of pain again. Are they wrong? I don’t know that they are. We all have the right to live life how we feel is best and that’s the beauty of it. Placing puppies in new homes, and the lifestyle and income it provides, may simply not be enough to counteract the pain or potential to repeat that pain.
Truly, there really aren’t all that many reasons breeders quit. Losing puppies is one of the most common reasons, especially in the beginning of your breeding journey, when you haven’t had a chance to fall in love with the other parts of breeding enough to make up for the pain.
When dog breeding becomes incompatable with your life
Stemming from that, the next reason breeders quit is that breeding becomes incompatible with your life. What does that mean? Well, it no longer feels like you’re living life in alignment with your purpose. Some might think of this as their soul’s purpose, others may think of it as their lifestyle preferences. It doesn’t really matter how you look at it; the point is that it is becoming a net-negative in your life, something that, when it’s all said and done, takes more from you than what it provides, whether that’s money, freedom, or joy. If dog breeding isn’t a net positive, or at least on its way to be, then often breeders will use this as a way to exit the breeding industry.
Here are some examples of dog breeding being incompatible with your life:
You love the dogs, but your spouse hates them
You may have realized you love the dogs, but your spouse hates them. It creates a ton of tension in the marriage, your spouse is constantly irritated that there are puppies crying or that it smells like dog, or that they don’t feel they can have their friends over because the house has been taken over by dogs.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you decide, “Okay, it’s over for the dogs,” but it does mean these problems need to be addressed right away. That doesn’t mean you spend $100,000 on building facilities, but it does mean that you should listen to your partner’s frustrations and see what can be done to make it more accommodating. Can we move the puppies to a room or the garage where they’re safe and comfortable, but where your spouse can feel like they’re getting a break from the dogs? Can we make a rule that there are no dogs in the master bedroom? Can we hire a house cleaner with the dog money to help the house feel a little more clean and organized? Maybe we can make a plan to build some facilities outside so that we aren’t bringing dogs in and out of the house all day, or maybe we can rotate who lives with us inside.
As much as I love all my dogs, I do not have them all in my house. It wouldn’t be possible to have 7 GSPs, 9 Rat Terriers, and Cinch, Bill’s cattledog, running in and out of the house all day. My house would be a muddy mess, and I’d be pulling my hair out trying to keep things somewhat organized and reasonable. They have a nice home and yard in the backyard, and that helps me stay sane, and prevents Bill from divorcing me.
Oh, and no one wants to say this out loud, but it’s okay to have favorites. There are some dogs I love and I feel very close to, and there are other dogs in my program that I love, but that I don’t feel that same closeness with. They aren’t bad dogs–sometimes they’re better breeders than the dogs I do adore–but I just don’t like them as much. If you’ve felt guilt over this, I’m going to tell you it’s totally normal, and also helpful when you realize you’ll need to retire and rehome some of your breeders.
All this to say that if you don’t love dog breeding enough to combat your spouse’s hate for it, quitting may be on the table for discussion.
Dog breeding is impacting your desire to travel
Another way breeding may be out of alignment is if you love to travel all the time, especially if spontaneity is part of it. It’s hard to pick up and leave on a trip without planning a dog sitter to come and take care of things. I don’t have too many people I can spring a quick “Hey, take care of all 20 of my dogs!” last minute. I would burn through friendships real quick.
Can you still travel and have spontaneous trips while dog breeding? Yes, you can, but you’ll need to have systems in place to accommodate this. For example, you may have someone you hire to clean pens and feed dogs every day. This is a nice part-time job for a lot of people and, when you find someone you can trust, they’re worth their weight in gold. You might be able to build in more flexibility in your schedule with someone like this.
You can also try out guardian homes or similar solutions as a way to reduce the dog numbers at your home. However, I’ll tell you it’s the same amount of work, just different work; now you’re coordinating with people instead of managing dogs. One of these types of work will feel like more and one will feel like less. Lean into that feeling and do what feels right.
You have a new job you’d rather be doing than dog breeding
You might have gotten a different job, and now breeding is getting in the way. It feels cumbersome and irritating instead of enjoyable. What if you love your new job, you love working with the people, and you never have to clean up poop at your new job, and the money is good? It’s possible that breeding no longer is enjoyable enough to do while doing this other job. That’s okay!
So many of us get into breeding because it’s the thing that fits our lifestyle: we like to be home, like to make our own schedule, like to work with dogs, and share them with buyers. Maybe it allows us to be home with our kids before they’re attending school, or maybe we want to do homeschool. Yet, lives change, your schedule and things can change, and it may no longer fit into the ideal lifestyle you would like for yourself. That’s okay!
If breeding no longer serves your lifestyle, it’s okay to exit the industry. It doesn’t make you a failure, nor a quitter. It just means you’re taking steps to better align your life with your true self and purpose. Nothing wrong with that.
Want to Get the Roadmap to a Successful Breeding Program?
If you can’t sell puppies consistently and at the price you want
The last reason breeders quit is the one that sits most near and dear to my heart. It’s not being able to sell puppies for the price that you want and as consistently as you want.
Many breeders have wonderful dogs, great breeding programs, but they are unable to consistently sell their puppies to the buyers whom they like and who want to have their dogs. Or, if they do find those people, they don’t want to pay the price the breeder needs to feel like it’s all worth it.
To give you an example, I could sell my GSPs completely out if they were half the price they are. They would be sold so fast people would be lined up for months and months. However, that number doesn’t feel right to me. Selling my dogs for half of what they are feels like me doing a lot of work and not getting the income out of it that I could, which leaves me disappointed.
Alternatively, I could double the number of dogs I’m producing and drop their price. In theory, this would get me close to the same income, it would reduce my marketing time invested, and would keep my gross numbers the same. However, it would double the work managing puppies. For me, that’s simply too much work for the money.
Think of it like this. You know what it takes to raise a litter of puppies. Let’s say you have 6 puppies born in a litter. If they all sold for $500 and they cost you $100/each to produce, you’d make $2400 on that litter. Who wants to do all that work for $2400? Even if you just break that down over the 8 weeks you’re raising puppies, that’s only $300/week, less than $50/day, and only for the 56 days you’re raising them.
Now, same situation, but the 6 puppies sell for $2500, cost you $500 to produce each puppy, and now, when they sell, you make $12,000. That’s a huge difference for essentially the same amount of work.
Notice how you would be essentially doing the same work in each litter, raising six puppies, except one situation makes you feel great, while the other makes you feel like an overworked failure.
The money matters, don’t let anyone tell you differently. If dog breeding didn’t pay, I would not be doing this much work.
Is the business side of your dog breeding business standing in the way of loving your program?
The reason this particular matter is of so much importance to me–not the money, but the idea that selling dogs to the right buyers, for the right price, to make it worth it–is because I’ve seen time and again how getting the business side of your business, quite often the marketing, is the only thing standing between loving your breeding program and hating it. It’s the thing that stands between continuing to breed or quitting the industry.
It also happens to be my specialty.
As you may have picked up on by now, I love business, I drool over it. I love learning new techniques to make business more efficient, smoother, and more profitable, all while maintaining your integrity to your dogs, your buyers, and your family. It gets me up in the morning.
If you are on the verge of quitting, or are at least basking in the frustration that comes with being unable to sell your dogs consistently for what is worth it to you, then I’m here for you. I want to help.
Common business problems dog breeders struggle with
There is a certain flow that comes with each part of the process, but here are some common problems I see with people who are struggling on the business side of their business:
They don’t have the right Ideal Puppy Buyer, or their Ideal Puppy Buyer is too general. When you know who you are selling to and use that in your marketing through your pictures, copy, and branding, the right people will naturally be drawn to you, while those that aren’t a good fit will go away, never wasting your time contacting you.
You’ll know you have an Ideal Puppy Buyer problem when you don’t like the people who are contacting you, when you don’t trust your buyers with your puppies, or when you are competing for price.
Special note on competing for price. If you find yourself keeping a certain price because that’s what people in your breed are doing, or because you don’t think you can sell the pups if you go up, that usually means you haven’t separated yourself from your competitors. People have no idea why they should pick you over another breeder except for the color of the puppies, when the puppies are available, and the price. If you’re only competing on those three criteria, then yes, you’ll be leaving money on the table and you’ll be irritated with your buyers and your program.
Sometimes we don’t need to raise our price, but rather we need to make our marketing work for us in a way that it costs us less to produce and sell a puppy, creating a higher profit margin for us.
Next, which is a spin off to the Ideal Puppy Buyer problem, is that your marketing isn’t distinguishing you from your fellow breeders in the breed. You aren’t attracting and repelling buyers with your marketing. Sometimes people don’t know to do this–which is okay, it happens–but it’s something you’ll need to tackle to have a successful program.
Sometimes you know all the things about your buyers, but you haven’t put it into practice. You don’t know the technicalities of how to put it in your copy, how to use your pictures to speak to the right buyers. You didn’t know that branding was important. All of these things will help you be more successful and minimize the annoying buyers while attracting more of the amazing buyers.
All of this information is what I teach inside the Dog Breeder Society. If you’re on the verge of quitting dog breeding because it’s been difficult to sell puppies, I’m here for you. It’s exactly why I have been putting so much focus on marketing recently. If you have great dogs, you owe it to the world to market them so that people know they’re available! There are families whose lives would be complete with one of your dogs. You need to share your pups with those people.
Given the “Covid Dog Boom” and the subsequent normalization of the market, there are many breeders who have been breeding over a decade who are on the verge of quitting because it’s no longer easy to sell dogs. And they’re right, the market has changed. But the solution is the shift in your marketing. Maybe you need to update your brand, maybe you need to update your messaging, maybe you need to refresh your website, add an email list. It isn’t your dogs, it’s your marketing that needs to catch up. You have the hard part done, you have built the bloodline, you know how to help your buyers after the sale, you just need to bring your marketing up to par with the newer world. Let me help you! I would hate to see you exit the industry over this small potatoes problem.
You can learn more about me, the Dog Breeder Society, or even working with me one-on-one, at these links.
Thank you for being one of the Honest Dog Breeders! The world needs more breeders like you! If you enjoyed this podcast, I would love it if you could do me a small favor and leave a review. It helps other breeders find our supportive community.
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 busy day to spend with me. I wish we could swap stories over a few cups of coffee. Can’t wait to see you in the next episode!
