Congratulations on your new puppies! What fun you are going to have over the next 12 weeks or more. I LOVED having puppies! I did not really want to let them go and wound up keeping mine a little longer than 12 weeks.
I think if you need to advertise, the vet's office is a good place, groomer's are another source of referrals. They know who takes care of their pups. If you have to resort to newspaper ads, then have a written script to go through to ensure the people are meeting enough requirements to even go through with a meet. Then require vet references and find out what has happened to previous pets.
If it is not feasible to keep the puppies long enough to spay them, and it can take awhile if the puppies are extra small..... then a refundable spay deposit is a good alternative. But make it large enough to "hurt a little" if they don't go through with it. If you find out there is a local economy spay available for $50 -- make the spay deposit still up around $200. That way you have done two things -- ensured they had some money to take care of their new pup, put extra money aside in case the pup does need vet care and the new owner winds up not having the money and you make it worth their while to take the pup in for a spay when the time comes. Also make it clear that this is to be done BEFORE the first heat! If they do not do it by that date -- no refund! All of this needs to be written in a contract. Look through some of the good breeders' websites and most will have a sample contract. All I contacted were very kind about sharing the contract wording and did not mind if I used parts of their contract.
You want the health guarantee to be very specific. Again, check wording in other breeders' contracts and decide what you are going to go with. I was very lenient in that I wanted the new owner to be able to keep the pup if they wanted. If they came up with a congenital defect or condition within the first year, I agreed to pay vet fees up to the price of the dog. You will also want to include an initial vet check that they must have done within so many days..... Florida has a very lenient Pet Lemon Law so most of my conditions were also conditions for the State even though I had bought dogs in Florida that had contracts nowhere near the way the State law required.
As far as a price ... like you I would NOT want to give them away. Even though they are not registered, you want to make sure the new owners equate a value to them. So, I would find out what registered Yorkies are going for and then go from there. You are going to have to make some very subjective judgements about your dogs -- why are they not registered? Are they mixed breeds? How much do they look like a standard Yorkshire Terrier? How far off standard are they? Once you ask all of these questions, you should be better prepared to come up with a price in comparison to registered prices in the area -- and don't forget to add on the spay deposit. No one can come up with one price to fit all non-registered yorkie pups. It all depends on their quality. We might be able to give some advice once we can see pictures of the mom/dad/ and puppies after they grow a bit. Hard to tell anything for that first 6 weeks or so. |