Pleasant Ridge Doodles

We have heard a lot of people say our puppies are priced too high, and some have questioned why we are priced below others in the Midwest area. But as we have tried to explain to those with questions, we put so much into our puppies, not just money, but time and love. So I am going to explain a little of what we put into our dogs.

We are very particular about the timing of each litter, we have picked the dogs that we add to our family not only for their looks and size, but even more important their personality and how they will fit in with our family dynamic that includes our other dogs. We have fulltime jobs and only have one female that is not spayed, we do not breed fulltime and all of our dogs live in our home.

We spend a lot of time handling all of our puppies. We start with just holding them and talking to them, as they get older we do play-time every day, sometimes hours of playtime, where we take them into the yard and let them explore, play with momma, and of course play with people of all ages. When weather doesn’t permit we let them loose in the kitchen or living room and sit with them and let them go wild!

Our dogs have regular vet visits, when we decide it is time to breed we make a choice whether to use Jupitor or find an outside male to use, and in the case of using a stud that is not ours that costs more than most people think. After breeding we increase the food for momma, and also spoil her a little extra. When it is puppy time someone is with her at all times, we never leave a momma alone when she is having puppies. Often one of us misses a day of work for this. After puppies are born we have to set a vet appointment (another half day of missing work), and we purchase specific wormer and make sure we have the dates for giving that on our calendar. We change bedding and clean and sanitize where the puppies are daily, sometimes twice daily nearing the 2 week point, at 2 weeks we clean and sanitize twice a day every day, at 4 weeks the puppies move to a bigger area as they are getting a lot more active and we change bedding each time we scrub down that area twice a day, as they hit 6 weeks we increase that cleaning to 3 times a day until they go home to their new families.

Another aspect that is very time consuming is taking pictures as often as possible. This is so much harder than people think because puppies do NOT like to hold still. Then we add pictures to Facebook, and build the page for the litter on this website and add pictures, descriptions, etc. as well. We spend a lot of time getting as much information as we can to potential families so they can make the best decision for them. And with this aspect we also have the inquiries to respond to that we like to do in as short amount of time as possible. After listing info and prices when puppies are 4 weeks old we get Facebook messages, emails, texts and phone calls. Responding to all of these is difficult when our weekdays are spent outside of our home. (Sometimes I have to take a long lunch to run home and gets pictures and/or video from a potential family.) We often list puppies on puppyfind.com also, and occasionally we will use a ‘puppy concierge service’ to place our puppies. Looking at the prices other breeders are setting for their puppies of similar size and color also helps us to determine the right price, this research is very time-consuming because we have to include several states in the search.

Sometimes raising puppies is exhausting, (and sometimes downright overwhelming) but we think it is well worth it to be able to produce such amazing family members that we have placed all over the United States and Canada!

We hope this helps to explain a little about how we price our puppies, there is a lot more to the work of raising healthy and happy puppies of course but this overview will hopefully help.