I’ve been thinking about updating my stud service contract lately. It’s been four years since we lost Hugo, and now that Hunter and soon Potter are “of age” for stud service, it’s time to revise and reflect. To help me figure out how I want to change my contract, I’ve been surfing through other contracts that breeders make available online. I should know better by now, but I find my self constantly surprised at the outrageous demands some stud owners make of bitches that come to them for stud service.
I’m not talking about health testing requirements or the demand that the stud dog owner be given the contact information for everyone purchasing a puppy. I can understand those requirements, even the ones that go over the top. The biggest issue for me is what some people charge as a stud fee. Of course we all have different ideas of what’s a reasonable fee, and the market plays a role to some extent. (Although, honestly, some people probably are able to get higher stud fees simply because they charge higher stud fees — the old “if it costs more, it must be worth more” marketing trick.) I’ve seen a few people state that the stud fee is the price of a puppy — but for me, that depends very much on the stud and on the puppy price. (I’m going to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean pet puppy price here.) My puppies are priced on the high-average end of the spectrum for this area; that price would be too high of a stud fee for either of my boys at this point, even if they were proven and had finished their Championships. A friend of mine charges about 2/3 my puppy price — that would be an appropriate high-average stud fee, IMO, for a finished Champion that had Champion offspring of his own. (I’ve paid a tiny bit less for a stud fee on a Champion, Sire of Merit, Top Twenty dog from a long line of Sire of Merit and Legion of Merit producers.) The point being, “stud fee equals puppy price” is not a hard-and-fast rule, and many variables come into play before determining whether the one should equal the other or not.
On a so-outrageous-it’s-funny note, I heard tell of a puppy that, had both of his testicle descended, would have cost $10,000 — because that’s how much the stud fee was. Now, first of all, who in their right mind would pay a $10,000 stud fee? Supposedly this was frozen semen from the top-winning dog in a South American country, but still – $10,000 is insane. Secondly, even if one was daft enough to pay that kind of stud fee, the whole “stud fee equals puppy price” thing is meant to determine puppy price, not to determine stud fee. If that was an average-sized litter, the breeder raked in $70,000 on those puppies, plus the “pennies on the dollar” that the undescended-testicle puppy brought in. (I’m not sure of the exact price; given the story, I’d guess he was $1,000-2,000 — still higher than average for a pet puppy.) I’m not opposed to a breeder sometimes not losing money on a litter, but not when the puppy buyers are being extorted to get there!
Even more perplexing to me is the stud contract that requires pick of the litter as a stud fee. I’ve asked for a puppy back from a breeding as a stud fee before — that concept makes a lot of sense to me. What I don’t get is why a stud dog owner would demand the pick puppy — and more so, why a breeder would agree to it. Bitch owners, why are you giving away your best puppy? Shouldn’t that be the one you keep? You’re the one that has put in the time, money, research, work, lack of sleep, etc. studying pedigrees, choosing the right dog, caring for the bitch, stressing over the whelping, raising the puppies, screening buyers, choosing homes, etc. Shouldn’t you, at the very least, be able to keep the best result of all your efforts? I think second pick puppy as a stud fee is reasonable, and if the breeder or co-breeder isn’t keeping a puppy then the stud dog owner would get first pick — but demanding and agreeing to pick puppy out of the gate is just senseless to me.
