THE DOLLAR COST OF A DOG ---- WHAT DO YOU GET FOR IT?

The cost of a puppy is something that sometimes 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 that quality on to you, we will be paying in the neighborhood of $1,800.00 to $2,8000.00 for a 8-10 week old puppy. If this puppy should be a female, out of fine stock, the price we may pay could be $1,800.00 to $2,200.00. If she carries some super pedigree she may sell for up to $3,000.00.

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 tying-off the umbilical cord in many cases, 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.

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".   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 they don't have to be concerned with with, let's say, a bag of dog food or a puppy pen. If you happen to be in a pet shop or several of them, you may notice that seldom are the water dishes kept filled. Withhold the water for a large part of the day and you have less pee but, they are also promoting possible kidney, liver and dehydration problems. That's not worth having less pee!  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). Sure, they may have 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 $200.00 for that pup. 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: Thin hair, long ears, long noses, long bodies, long legs, bad skin, tails that hook over the back, 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 and they generally constantly breed a female every time she 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 develope properly and, forcing a female to constantly have puppies will surely end in her life being shortened.  She will die at a young age.  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 mill are also well known for their very dirty conditions.   If you receive a health warranty with a pet shop puppy, it probably will be for a year or less. Warranty covered problems usually do not manifest themselves fully or at all until the 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 some 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

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