PUPPY PRICE

I like to be transparet and clear in my life in general.
I know people who are not woking in dogs’ world have no idea about costs that are involved into a breeding, this is why I decided to create this page, where I try to let you understand how is determined the puppy price.

Let’s start from the general cost for breeding:

  • registration of kennel name in Italy cost about 700€
  • authorization from ASL (veterinary healthcare company) for breeding and realization of specific spaces for dogs
  • membership of Italian Shetland Club costs 25€/year
  • dogs must all be fed with high quality food, plus of course vaccination and deworming

Health selection:

  • eyes check: it is necessary a first visit in early age and then for adult dog in reproduction a series of check during all life.
    This visit must be done by a specialized vet and recognised and the price is usually 60€ each dog. (+ costs of trip because this specialized vet is not near home usually)
  • xray hips and elbow: every dog about 250€ with also officialization of the result in ENCI (italian dog club)

Morphological selection:

  • dog shows: entries fee costs between 30 and 70€ euro (more or less), depends on the class (age of the dog) and on countries. + prices to sleep and eat. We should consider also that competitions are not near home and lot of time you move abroad for example to San Marino, France, Swiss, Slovenia, Croatia…
    I was almost forgetting this, usually we must also pay 10€ of parking everyday!
  • if you need to call an handler for one of your dog, this cost at least 50€ for the first entry and 20€ everytime you enter the ring again

Character selection:

  • if you dont breed only show dogs you should also dedicate time and energy to sport/activities with trainings and competitions.
    Every training lesson cost between 20 and 30€ each dog, every competition cost about 30€ each dog. Competitions are mostly far from home so you need to add prices for trip and sleeping.

Let’s talk now about specific costs for a litter.

Before birth of puppies:

  • mating costs between 500 and 1000€. It can be free if you use one of your males, but this happens very little time because to breed very well you should travel and go also abroad to use new lines.
    We should consider also very long trips in other countries for the mating, with hotel etc. If the only goal is choosing the best male you dont have limit on kms but you just go for your best choice.
  • when you make a litter, timing of mating is so important and for this you should use progesterone tests from a vet. It usually takes between 2 and 5 tests. Costs are about 20-40€ every test + price for taking blood
  • to check if the bitch is pregnant you need to do an ultrasound: 80-100€. We hope to do it only twice: one 1 month after the mating, and second 1 week before birth. It can be necessary also a xray or more ultrasound and in the worst case you will need also a c section and this costs so much especially if it happen during night or weekends! (usually dogs likes to give birth during night!)
  • when a bitch is pregnant, food change a bit and you should use best quality

After birth:

  • registration of puppies in ENCI, cost is about 30-40€ each puppy
  • microchip 40€ each puppy
  • eyes check 60€ each puppy + trip
  • vaccinations 30-40€ each puppy + deworming
  • weaning of puppies and maybe also artificial milk
  • we should consider all we need for a litter such as whelping box, heat lamp, instrument like thermometer, puppy scale , towels and cloths. Most of them you can reuse it but first time it is expensive.
  • think also how many washing machine you need during a litter! And also costs to keep the room of puppies hot.

You should consider that the vet is not your neighbour and you try to choose the best one, not caring the distance, even if this means to make tens of km, so again lot of driving and time everytime I go to the vet.. so again money!
Last but not least the value of the huge amount of TIME the breeders spend with puppies! This makes the biggest difference between a “breeder” and a “Breeder”. Time is so precious, every hour spend with dogs had its own value.

I hope this gave you a better idea of the origin of the puppy price.
Of course all depends from the breeders, how they breed. There are costs that every breeder has, and others not, depends how you breed.

If you want go to read the page “how I breed” to go deeper in my breeding idea.