This is quite funny when you think about the cost. We pay it and go on but there are a few ways to help out. First learn to groom your own dogs, order and learn to give your own shots, learn to do your own tail docking and help some of your friends learn how.( Kimberly) Get to be very good friends with your vet, so you can call him in the middle of the night at his house..... I always give Dr. Shimek gift certificates for his favorite resturants and I bring the girls in the clinic treets. I refer all my clients to him. I have a relationship with my vet I can walk in the back door at any time and he is there for me. Somestimes he doesn't even charge me. The exrays are only good for you if you can not wait to see how many. I have heard vets many times say the heads are to big, when they have not been.
But now we can go on ...what about the car we need to go to the shows, of corse we want to finish the dogs before we breed them. And we need to pay handlers until we learn how to do this ourselves . If you are lucky between 2,000 and up. So now we have learned to show our dogs ourselves , now it get crazy.. we need the clothes and our nails done, make up yes it can go on and on. It all has to factor into the price we charge for our puppies. If you bought your dog for 750.00 you are so much father ahead than me. I am amused by this thread and it does make you think. Thanks for the great idea!! :)
Debbie Ray
www.sumtoiyorkies.com

TashasMom - I thought I'd better get back and apologize to you if I made you feel that your post wasn't a good one or an important one.

You mentioned that you are new, and I should first have welcomed you to YT. I didn't and I'm sorry about that.

I was getting ready for work, read your post hurriedly, and only meant to make two quick points - which were:

(1) The expenses you listed for your mother dog are much the same as we all have -- whether we breed or not. It was for this reason that I said I wouldn't include these as part of the expenses we incur when we breed.

2) And, I agreed with you totally about it costing a lot to raise a litter of healthy puppies.

With these two points being made - I was off to work knowing that others would be on sharing their experiences with you.

***** When we get on a forum like this - there are hundreds of people from all over with different opinions. Never take anyone's opinion personally. Most of us are responding to ideas and words -- not to people personally. If you don't like a post or a response, just think "Yuk!" and go on to the next one.

Re-reading your post and all the responses (mine may have been quick and "bong" - I was gone), I think you got a lot of great responses and interest in your post.

Please keep posting. I think I'm speaking for all of us when I say that we want to feel free to state our own opinions and occasionally disagree with one another. Each of us has a lot to offer. I have learned a lot from many people here who have disagreed me.

I'm sure we were all a more sensitive when we first started posting - but stick with it, and you'll get used to all sorts of opinions about almost everything. I think that this is what keeps YT lively, interesting, and fun.

Good luck - and please keep posting!!!

Carol Jean

All I will say here as so many others have said allot is that people do not realize what all really goes into breeding. Some on here have about said it all, but lets not forget the things we as breeders go through with all this and sometimes it is a heart ache.
I have only been asked one time in the 8 years I have been doing this why are they so expensive, and the lady asked in a very rude way. My reply to her was come for a visit and stay a while and you might get a clue.

Whew! Glad we got that settled. Big Group HUG. OK I feel better now. :D