Cost of pups

[Alice]

It's supply and demand with HPRs though, isn't it? I mean, at this time of year I reckon I'd have a sporting chance of buying a half-decent springer or cocker without too much bother or searching, but aren't there significiantly fewer HPRs bred (especially registered ones that are used for shooting rather than ones used by bird of prey people) enough to hike the price up?

[trekmoor]

Unless I knew the B.o.P. person very well and fully trusted him I would not buy an HPR from him. I have seen too many B.o.P. folk buy or be given a failed HPR gundog, at rock bottom price, that is either hard mouthed or gunshy or just too difficult to train to gundog standards....... and then breed from it !

B.o.P. folk do not bother too much about hard mouth or being gun-shy and when they breed a litter they don't bother too much about selling the pups to gundog folk. Such a pup may be cheaper to buy but it's buyer is betting against the odds.

Think of it this way. If a spaniel or a lab was not much good at gundog work and was sold or given to a pet home and then had a litter of pups , would you want one of those puppies ?

Anyone wanting to purchase an HPR pup should check very carefully that the sire and dam both work to a reasonably good standard . It is very common for the pups of these breeds to be sold as "suitable for work, show and pet." Some of them certainly are but not all of them !

I took HPR training classes for 22 years and it was heartbreaking when the owner of a family pet/show bred dog just was not any kind of a good hunter or retriever . That "type" of dog turned up in every new intake of dogs and handlers every year. Something very similar can sometimes be seen in retriever and spaniel gundog classes too.
You only get what you pay for if you know what you really need.

Wullie

[Rothievale]

Unless I knew the B.o.P. person very well and fully trusted him I would not buy an HPR from him. I have seen too many B.o.P. folk buy or be given a failed HPR gundog, at rock bottom price, that is either hard mouthed or gunshy or just too difficult to train to gundog standards....... and then breed from it !

B.o.P. folk do not bother too much about hard mouth or being gun-shy and when they breed a litter they don't bother too much about selling the pups to gundog folk. Such a pup may be cheaper to buy but it's buyer is betting against the odds.

Think of it this way. If a spaniel or a lab was not much good at gundog work and was sold or given to a pet home and then had a litter of pups , would you want one of those puppies ?

Anyone wanting to purchase an HPR pup should check very carefully that the sire and dam both work to a reasonably good standard . It is very common for the pups of these breeds to be sold as "suitable for work, show and pet." Some of them certainly are but not all of them !

I took HPR training classes for 22 years and it was heartbreaking when the owner of a family pet/show bred dog just was not any kind of a good hunter or retriever . That "type" of dog turned up in every new intake of dogs and handlers every year. Something very similar can sometimes be seen in retriever and spaniel gundog classes too.
You only get what you pay for if you know what you really need.

Wullie

Hear hear

I'll only buy an HPR puppy from someone who I know and trust and whose judgement is 100% and not blinkered. We paid £900 for a GSP dog from a FTCh bitch and I thought that was reasonable......after all there's a lot less ftch GSP bitches out there than there are FTCh labs or spaniels. We haven't regretted, he is a total natural, we haven't had to train him really apart from the obvious boundaries/obedience, he ran and pointed from an early age with great ground treatment. You just can't teach that sometimes!

[Cambusvale]

IMHO I would be prepared to purchase a pup (GSP) at the high end as long as it met my suitability or matched my dog lines I prefer. It has held me to the good over the years and only let me down when I strayed from dog lines I had previous and did not fulfill my expectations but that is always the risk you take.

It is getting harder to find these past lines and in one case nearly a year searching. I am now firmly in the camp of breeding my own pups as I can confirm what I have with their ability to meet my needs. As per cost what is the price compared to having a puppy for its life and with opportunity of being able to do what it was bred for so price does matter in some cases (from poor stock) but a pup that is suitable for you to train on is important as well and must be worth the top end. So it is buyer beware in many respects giving poor stock the cash on purchase. Do some background and research into your breed of choice, I would not purchase anything without research so pup purchase is no different, we all have preferences and you can make your own mind up what floats your boat.

All you then need to supply is ability as a trainer to bring out what best in your choice. £800+ over a lifetime is not much at all for the right breeding or Sire and Dam with ability you desire.

[crackerd]

Hear, hear, Ally. Question: As HPRs are often known as "continental breeds" in N. America, would it not behoove you all to import from the respective countries in Europe where many of the breeds originated? Or if not, why not other than additional expense of transport? Especially for our competitive dogs in the US and Canada, retrievers in particular, many are flown from one part of the country to another to get what quality breeding (and pedigree) we're looking for.

Also, in another instance of two people separated by a common language, much of that quality is produced by hobbyist breeders; our disparaging terms for the baddies' output would be "backyard breeders" and "puppy mills."

MG

[Cambusvale]

Crackered for myself I would rather now breed from dogs I know or own. To bring in other blood from the continent would have pitfalls as well as advantages. Their is nothing wrong with well chosen lines in UK so I do not need to see why we need to go anywhere, it only requires proper research and cold judgement on what you see from dogs in competition or working in front of you to be able to select good stock.

For myself I was never a breeder of choice and was more than happy to buy in my training stock. On hindsight I made a mistake as I had over my 45 years of owning and training GSP let a lot of good genes be lost. In my defense I was never a breeder at heart and though my father (Greyhounds) and sister (Weimaraners) bred dogs I never thought their was a need for me to get active. It was not until the 90's that I felt it was a mistake on my part having encountered my first dealings with medical issues in hips, but let it slip due to work and family commitments.

Coming up for retirement I now see breeding as one avenue I need to take on board to supply me more of what I wish to train. I have been particularly fortunate with my present three dogs, though I have always been fortunate in this respect in my choices and had a finished gundog in all my dogs, just some were better than others in natural talent. Only one of my present three has foreign lines in its make up and is only on the stud side but I am including Eire as being UK going through their lines pedigrees which is present in all my three current dogs along with Scottish/English lines. I prefer to give importance on my dam line, in this regard all my dogs go back to dog lines which are same as my past dogs. Though I regret one line has passed out of existence due to non registration.

So to answer your question no I am more than happy with what I have at present without looking to cast my net further afield.

[Nickheref]

My wife does not really understand dogs but does understand people. Those on here have a pretty good understanding of what they are buying and the chances you take. I do not breed very often and for the past 30 plus years have been in a small group of fellow spaniel enthusiasts with whom I passed pups to and received from at mates rates, partly to avoid having to deal with idiots, mainly because we wanted to see how they turn out with someone who has the experience and ability to train them. I was the baby of the group being nearly 30 years younger than the oldest member. Sadly two of the group are now dead and two others are getting on a bit. So I may have to sell a few pups on the open market which to be honest I am dreading.
My wife's view is quite simple - if you charge someone you don't know very little for a pup they will automatically assume that it is not as good as one twice the price and that is why it is cheap. They do not assume that they are getting a bargain.

[Cambusvale]

Nickheref a very smart way of getting what you want from lines you want. Who ends up with a pup to train on is very important. It also as you state keeps cost downs in your syndicate of pup breeding.

[hprfan]

Just to put some prices into perspective there are people out there who do not earn 900/1k a month. I understand that breeding is important but at the end of the day, picking a pup is pretty much a lotto, there are no guarantees that the dog will turn out to be a topper and so the ever increasing prices of pups put are beginning to put the normal"rough shooting joe soap" out of the game.

[trekmoor]

We used to do something similar in this area. Me and a few mates had very similar blood lines in our GSP's so we often got our pups from each other. It meant we had a good idea of what we would be working with. For some years our dogs tended to be hard going hunters that were responsive to training and which were usually soft mouthed.

Wullie