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The cost of a puppy is something that at times comes up during
the course of placing puppies into new homes. Don't get me wrong, most all of our Prospective Families realize that
a Quality Breeder is not going to sell a high quality Westie or any other quality bred puppy for what you probably would pay
for a puppy that is "labeled" as the same breed, at a "Pet Shop". There is a excellent reason why
a pet shop sells that "labeled breed" puppy at a cheaper price then a "Quality Breeder" can/will.
I'm sure you noticed I keep referring to "Pet Shop" puppies as "Labeled Breed". There's an excellent
reason for that also!
Let's start at the beginning. To create Quality Puppies you must start with
Quality Parents. When we purchase a potential breeding male for our breeding family, we know, to receive the high quality/pedigreed
puppy we want, so we can pass those qualities on to you, we will be paying in the neighborhood of $2,400.00 to $2,8000.00
for a 8-10 week old male puppy. If this puppy should be a female, out of fine stock, the price we may pay could
be $2,600.00 to $3,200.00. If she carries some super qualities she may sell for up to $3,600.00.
All our puppies are individually assessed, by us, as to their Breed Standards, personality, temperament, intelligence,
outwardness, attentiveness, disposition and agility. They are raised in our home (with us 24/7) not in some remote
out-building where the only time they see a human is when someone feeds, cleans-up or if their lucky, comes to play
with them a little. We always assist the mother in delivering each and every puppy even to the point of tearing
open the fetal sack and tying-off the umbilical cord in every case, checking each and every puppy to be sure everything
is perfect, cleaning birth slim from their noses and being sure the afterbirth pulls free from the mother and she
eats it. That part may sound gross but, it's important that she consumes it. Our puppies are handled
form the day they are born until we place them in your hands or ship them to you. We expose them, during their entire
young life, to every situation and noise that normally happens in our country home. They even learn to sleep
through a vacuum cleaner being used around their puppy pen and if it make any difference to you, they are raised from birth,
even before, on country music.  As they begin to grow older, we have a form on which we evaluate each and every puppy on all those attributes mentioned
above. This procedure begins around 4-5 weeks and continues at least until you take them home or they reach the ripe
old age of 12-14 weeks. During this time, we work on lead training, potty training and grooming begins, in our regular
grooming shop, at around 4 weeks of age and continues every week.
So, you see, we expend considerable time and
effort bringing our little white darlings to the most socialized point we can prior to entering their new home with you.
What we have talked about here, and much more, is what a Quality Breeder is all about. That's what we are all about.
Now, for the other side of the coin.
Back to the pet shop and the "Labeled" Westies or other
dogs. I understand, you may be able to purchase one of those "Westie" (if you want to
call them that - in most cases) from a pet shop for somewhere in the neighborhood of $500.00 to $750.00. Now, think
about this. If a store/shop purchases any item for re-sale, they normally pay about 50% of what they
plan to sell it for. That's the normal "mark-up" stores use. With animals, they may
pay less than 50% realizing that they will have to feed, water, clean-up after, put-up with puppy poop smells and other things.
If you happen to be in a pet shop or several of them, you may notice that seldom are the water dishes kept filled. Withholding
water for a portion of the day, will create less pee to smell and clean-up but, this could also
be promoting possible kidney, liver and dehydration problems. That's not worth having less pee to deal with! Soooooo, if the shop is
willing to sell a puppy for, let's say, $500.00, they probably paid around $200.00 (40% of their retail price).
They probably bought the entire litter at a very young age, 5-6 weeks (we don't place any puppy until he/she is
at least 10 weeks old), in any case they paid about $200.00 for eachpup. What does this say about the breeder?
PUPPY MILL. A puppy mill is the only way anyone who breeds Westies could/would sell a pup for $200.00. They can
do this because they use very low quality breeding stock with usually several or more, of the following negative conditions:
Thin hair, long ears, long noses, long bodies, long legs, bad skin, tails that hook way over the back or twist, thin
bones, lacking muscle mass, poor pigmentation, bad mouth bite, genetic problems that may/possibly will shorten the dog's
life or a host of other things. The females are generally bred constantly, every timeshe comes into
heat. This starves the mother dog down of all the nutrients in her body and therefore the puppies she carries will be
lacking those needed nutrients and not develop properly and, this forcing of a female to constantly have puppies
will surely shorten her lifespan. She will die at a young age from being starved down by having puppies constantly. To
a puppy mill owner, her death is not a major problem. They will just take one of the puppies and breed it
back to her father or brother or any male that is handy. In-bred dogs are surely going to have a host of problems you
don't even want to know about or experience. Puppy mills are also well known for their very dirty and tightly confined conditions.
If you receive a health warranty with a Pet Shop Puppy, it probably will be for less that a year. Warranty covered
problems usually do not manifest themselves fully or at all until the second-third year or more.
WE
OFFER A FULL FIVE (5) YEAR GENETIC HEALTH WARRANTY WITH EVERY PUPPY WE PLACE AND WE DON'T WANT YOU TO GIVE US BACK THE
DOG THAT HAS THE PROBLEM CONDITION, IN ORDER TO RECEIVE AN EQUAL OR HIGHER QUALITY REPLACEMENT,
LIKE SOME BREEDERS DO. AFTER ALL ---------- YOU WOULDN'T WANT TO GIVE UP YOUR HUMAN CHILD IF HE/SHE BECAME ILL, WOULD
YOU?
So, you see, you have some choices. PUPPY MILL,
another quality breeder (be sure to check them out VERY well), or you can contact us and we'll be more than happy to
pass on to you the names and phone #s of over 20 of our present families who now own one or more of
our puppies. Feel free to contact any or all of them and ask as many questions as you may have about us, our puppies
and our service.
Should you wish to learn more about Puppy Mills and how the American Humane Society
fells about them, you can Google their webpage: stoppuppymills.org
Thank you for visiting our website,
Rodger & Joyce Morales
| Joyce and Friday |
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| San juan Islands 2006 |
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