26┆ The Easter Egg Problem in Puppy Buying

In this episode, I explore how a simple debate about Easter eggs reveals a much bigger problem in the puppy market. When the story behind a product changes, people start questioning whether it is still worth the money. The same principle applies when comparing puppy adverts online.

This is not about finding the cheapest puppy. It is about understanding the knowledge, responsibility and planning that sit behind a litter.

In this episode, we consider:

• Why price and value are two completely different things when buying a puppy
•  How puppy adverts often become a tick-box exercise rather than a true explanation of quality
•  Why breeder knowledge, stud selection and experience influence the future health of a puppy

If you are searching for a puppy and trying to make sense of the price differences you see online, this episode will help you look beyond the advert and understand what really matters.

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W: bulldogownersclub.com 

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One of the biggest challenges when buying a puppy is working out what you're actually paying for. The price is obvious, it's written right there in the advert, but the value behind the price is often harder to see. In today's episode, I want to talk to you about how buyers can start looking beyond the surface level claims and begin asking the questions that reveal what really matters when choosing a puppy. Welcome to the Bulldog Idols podcast, where I host a passionate conversation about pedigree dogs. I'm Sarah and here we cover the mix and misinformation to talk honestly about life with Bulldogs. So we are in the car, it's a car chat. I've got a half an hour drive home. Let's see if we can get this hot topic covered in the this short amount of time. So in the UK, Easter is on the horizon. Good Friday, which is a public bank holiday, then you have Easter Sunday and then bank holiday Monday. I'm not overly religious, but I totally get the sentiment of celebrating, having festivals, being close to the people that you love and all that kind of stuff, getting the family together, friends and family. And so I think all these kind of yeah, events, calendar events are good for that, regardless of your religion. And obviously, whatever your religion is, you will have days equal to that as well. So it's not anything that's only in the Christian calendar, it's pretty much in all religions' calendars that they spend time together. People spend time together. But I t I tell you this because my Facebook feed has filled up quite a lot of people responding to Easter egg posts. So the egg is a symbol of Jesus being born again, and yeah, it's just symbolic. And obviously, to do with Lent and fasting, that chocolate gets involved. I mean, I'm all for chocolate, um, but but not for any religious reasons. But the Easter egg uh has had a little bit of a backlash in some supermarkets, particularly the ones that have been made by Cadbury's, because they've tried to not write Easter on the box. I'm assuming it's not because they don't want to write it, but maybe it's but because they feel if they don't write it it will attract to uh more people. So people wouldn't just see it as a religious related treat that they would buy it regardless of the fact that it's part of a Christian celebration. So there's been a little bit of backlash that people have been concerned saying, you know, it should say Easter egg on it because that's what it is. And to be honest, some of them I've seen, but they just say like happy Easter on them. I mean it's the same difference, is it not? But I don't know. I'm not a person that gets offended by it. But also, there's been a wider conversation that there's they're so many on the shelves that no one no one is longer buying them. Now I've always found with like Easter chocolates, they've always been expensive before, haven't they? And then as soon as um Easter is underway, they seem to get massively discounted, but they're already discounting them. But it makes me wonder are they being discounted because are people not buying them because they're just really expensive? And there is a whole cost of living crisis in the UK. And is it important to be buying confectionery that's in an egg shape? And is there other things that people should be spending their money on? And so maybe they're just not being purchased because they're too expensive. And then there's another argument that maybe people aren't buying them because the ingredients have changed. So Cadbury's is renowned part of their brand, and the reason you would buy their product because of the quality is that it has a glass and a half of milk in. I think it's like in every pound of chocolate, but don't quote me on that one. And there's been recent changes that the ingredients have been altered, uh, no doubt for saving costs and improving improving profits. There's been a substitution, and actually, there's less milk now put into the product and more palm oil. Now I don't need to tell you all about palm oil and how like that's the biggest thing that concerns people nowadays in all sorts of products. Obviously, there's been a massive perception change and shift, hasn't there? That people no longer feel that the price that people are paying is worth the value and the quality of the product. There's been a big conversation about is that why people don't want them anymore? Is because, particularly Cadbury's, is that you're not getting the value they used to be. And I tell you that because this is something that people should probably do more when they're buying a puppy is looking at the price and comparing it to its value. Now, a price is just a figure, it's just a set of numbers that someone's labelled any particular item, including a dog. But the value is what justifies its price. It's the story behind why that's being charged. I'm sure probably Lindor chocolates probably do more milk than that, being Swiss, I suppose. But again, I'm not a chocolatier, so don't shoot me down. But that was a major part of Cadbury's story. The justification for their pricing was that you had a glass and a half of milk, and now you're not getting a glass and a half of milk, even though the picture still shows a glass and a half of milk, which would be questionable. So obviously, the price compared to the perceived value has reduced, and that's why people aren't interested. So when it comes to buying a puppy or any dog or any item, you kind of want to think about okay, that's the price. What is the value behind that price? No difference to right, why is a Rolex more expensive than a swatch watch? Well, there's a lot more value behind a Rolex because of the components that are used. It's all relative to the value of the watch, where a swatch will be some plastic watch that lasts a year or so, it will probably break much easier than a Rolex, and that's fine because even that's still good value for the money, because the justification of why you want that watch will be for a particular reason that meets the demand. So you're not going to get somebody that wants a Rolex that ends up buying a swatch watch and being happy for it, are you? They're two totally different types of people, or two totally different types of occasions at least. And so it is no different when you're purchasing a puppy. Now it's hard to work out the value, isn't it? Because it's easy to see the price. You can go on any puppy selling platform, and there's many out there, and you can stick some filters on by breed and by area, and it'll get returned to you quite quickly what puppies are available to you, depending on how far you want to travel. And then their advert is their way of trying to articulate the value of their puppy because you can see the price in the summary of all of them. You can scroll through and you can see how much every puppy is. So if you didn't care about value, you you wouldn't click on any advert, would you? You would just look for the lowest one or whatever one you feel is the right price, and then you would just phone them up and go and pick up the puppy. But the whole point of the advert is for them to get across the value, the justification of that price. Now, to me, there's tick box stuff, and then there's another level of value. And I think over time it's got a bit murky between which is which and which one actually justifies value and therefore impacts the price or not. So typically you click on an advert and you kind of think, okay, if if a puppy advert's telling me both mum and dad are health tested, and maybe they haven't detailed too much on the advert what the health testing is, so you're gonna have to contact them and find out. You say health testing, what do you mean a vet check isn't health testing? Them saying their vet said it's a healthy dog isn't health testing. If they reply to you and say, Oh no, she's a DNA, uh and again it's for what of the parentage? Is it for both of them, one of them, are they done at the same level? So they could reply and go, she's got an amazing temperament, and we've picked this really amazing stud dog. And basically, they've they've paid their money, picked a fully health tested stud dog, could counsel, could be bulldog precouncil tested, could be bow ass tested. So they're breeding up, which is something that I always recommend people do. When you've got a female, you always want to pick a male that's of better merit because you're improving what you've already got. So again, hopefully you're breeding away from faults and you're encouraging virtues. Now, to know what faults and virtues your dog has without them being health concerns, because if they're health concerns, then you'll probably know quite quickly it's a problem that you need to fix. But if it's not health concerns, it might be down to breed type or confirmation, then sometimes you won't know that unless you're educated to see that. So that's part of the reasons why shows exist, is that it helps people learn about faults and virtues in their dogs. And what you must never do as a breeder is breed two dogs that have the same faults. So if the female owner doesn't know this kind of stuff and this is all value, wouldn't it? If they knew all of that stuff, that would be all adding value to the puppy that you're interested in looking at, then you hope that they have found a stud dog, an owner that is able to make that assessment for them. The problem with that is like some stud dog owners, they're just going to take their money, provide the service, which is offering a fertile male and ensuring the breeding is done, and off they go. Some of them won't worry any more than that because they could possibly be like, well, that's your responsibility, not mine. I've met my conditions, which is I you've paid for service and I've given it to you. Any more than that, that's down for you to work out. There are stud owners out there that will highly vet who's inquiring about their stud dogs and they will decline people, but be under no illusion that's not the case with everybody. So that's a pocket of value or potential that could be missing out, that's going to add to your puppy. And what I tell people is that you've always got to remember that when you look at a puppy, anyone can go and buy a dog or a puppy, as I said, go on any puppy selling platform, put some filters on, find a dog, ring them up, go and pick up the dog. You probably could even have a dog by the end of today if you really wanted to. But what you need to remember is that you're not just buying a puppy, you want to buy a puppy that's been created from that breeder's knowledge. People have a massive uh problem about associating or admitting that they are a breeder. And I tell everybody if you bred one litter, you are a breeder, you're breeding. That's it. You've bred a litter, you are a breeder. Regardless of what scale you're breeding it on and how often and the frequency and all that kind of stuff doesn't matter. It automatically becomes a responsibility to meet some certain criteria. Now, some of them don't want to meet that criteria, so they will deny the responsibility, so they will deny the label of it, and others will happily claim it because they like to do things properly. What you need to remember is when you purchase a puppy, that puppy, that little ball of fur and cute little doughy eyes and little wet nose and super sharp teeth and all the wrinkles, that is a direct reflection of that breeder's knowledge. Without a doubt. It is a direct reflection. So I get it. All puppies look cute. The majority of puppies will seem like a fit and healthy puppy. I mean, you would hope that people wouldn't be selling ill puppies, but what that doesn't safeguard you against is in how will that puppy grow and in the future will it still be a fit and healthy adult? Now, anybody that has no longevity in their breed and longevity in the dogs that they own, they won't know that, they won't have a clue. So they're guessing as much as you are, basically, you probably could have gone and picked a stud dog as much as they can. And this is the danger I feel of when you buy from somebody that seemingly has the value. So they're saying, Oh yeah, parents are health tested, mum's got a great temperament, you know, we've reared them in a family home around the kids. So on the surface, that ticks all the boxes. But bulldogs are one of the most complex breeds, but you can't rear a bulldog litter like a Labrador litter. And that originally was one of the reasons of why they were one of the most expensive dogs that you could purchase, because they were so intensive in their rearing, because bulldogs are short in back, so they generally can't see where they're sitting, and they do have big beefy bums and thighs, so they could easily crush a puppy and not know it. Because of that, it would mean you'd be with them. The intensity of the first few weeks of that puppy is really high to make sure that they're safe. So some people like to manage that situation and they will separate them, and but then equally you've got to be there to make sure the puppies are getting fed enough at the right time. It's not easy. Where with a Labrador, not that any responsible breeder would do this, but effectively, a Labrador, if you helped her well, poquet, you could pretty much leave her for three weeks, and she and as long as you feed her well, she would get on and do everything she needs to do to keep those pups alive. Now, obviously, there are bad Labrador mums and there are good bulldog mums, so that's a massive generalization. But bulldogs are intensive, whether you like it or not, they are more prone to C-sections. They do suffer uterine and inertia, which means that their contractions can stop in labor, which means the risk of a C-section increases. And I don't need to tell you how expensive vets are. I mean, just to walk through the door, I think now it's 50, 60 quid to literally have a 10, 15 minute conversation. You know, crazy money. And, you know, they're justifying, well, everything's crazy. But obviously, we know there are big corporate businesses just buying up these vet practice because they know it's easy money. So always, always, always, if you can, stick with an independent vet, and even more so that it's an independent vet that actually has their own out of hours. Honestly, uh, if you're gonna pay a lot of money, at least line a human being's pocket and put their kids through school, then just giving it to some fat cat that's just gonna pay out a load of dividends to people you don't know. But anyway, I digress. Any bulldog person, any bulldog breeder knows there is a potential risk of a C-section. So they need, by default, at least two to four thousand pounds. So that's a lot of risk to be taken, isn't it? And so, yeah, the puppy price is gonna go up, isn't it? Because you don't want to not put the price up and then squimp on how the puppies are reared and looked after and cared for. The cost gets passed on as it does in any business, and yeah, I'm not saying that um people breed as a business, but ultimately it's it's a cost nonetheless to breeding, and so that the money has to come from somewhere, doesn't it? So hence ultimately it comes out in a puppy price, whether you like it or not. But all of this needs to get factored in the price of a bulldog, and so that's why they have been more expensive than most, but that that sort of baseline pricing, how do you know the difference? If you see two bulldog puppies on the platform, one of them's £3,000 and one of them £6,000. How do you know which one is the one that you should be picking? How do you know that the £6,000 one actually has a genuine value that warrants it being £6,000? How do you know the £3,000 one is the right person for its value as well? So what is the value different? And as I said, what you'll find on the puppy platforms is it is a little bit of a tick box exercise because, well, it's following the sheep basically. So you'll see people say they're health tested, like how detailed is the health testing? That's what you've got to find out because that will impact the value of the puppy. Okay, they say they're raised in a family home. Really, to me, that's not good enough nowadays because if it's not structured socialization that's beneficial for the breed, just because you got your puppies in a house, and though I do feel that is better than have rearing bulldozed puppies in a kennel, to be honest, because they are a companion breed. So there's some dogs that could be reared in a kennel. If I had working labradors and I reared them in the kennel, I wouldn't have a problem with it because working labradors are pretty much going to live in a kennel their whole life. However, should you be selling the littermates of that litter to families where they're going to be in the home without any correct socialisation for them to be able to adapt to that? No. So bulldogs are a companion breed to me. They should all be reared in the house. But even that's not enough because what, just so they've heard the TV and the Hoover, if the breeder doesn't have an awareness to when their fear phases are, when they should be putting in breed-specific socialization. So I find the breed quite motion sensitive, quite sound sensitive. So are they doing any sound therapy that's structured and organized because you can make a problem worse by trying to do something and not do it right? You can then cause a problem that didn't actually exist in the first place just because you don't actually know what you're doing. And likewise, if somebody's breeding poodles, they should be doing some basic grooming introductions to them into face trimming, brushes, all that kind of stuff. It's no different with bulldogs. All my puppies leave and I give them nail clippers and I say, I've trimmed these puppies' nails every week. You need to carry on doing this. So when they're an adult, they don't have a phobia of you cutting the dog's nails because a lot of dogs have a phobia of that. That's another level, isn't it, of value? Because it's not just saying, Oh, I've kept the puppy alive and I've fed it, it's I've actually kept the puppy alive, I've fed it, and I've already started to condition it into seamlessly transitioning into your home and also to be a healthy, adaptive adult. All of that makes a difference. So just because someone says a read, a litter in the family environment, is that good enough? Is there enough justification to it? And like I said, value, they should be able to justify their price. So to me, if they're just charging more than what everyone else is, what's the justification for them to do that? And equally, they could be overcharging. You could be thinking you're unrealistic for the effort that you've put in and your knowledge. Again, it's the lack of knowledge, you're overcharging, which I think there are a lot of people that are overcharging on some of the platforms. And also, what you need to remember is just because just because that's what puppies advertised at doesn't mean that that's what it's actually sold at. So I think some of these numbers are a little bit pie in the sky as well. As I say, it all comes down to value. I built the Star Puppy plan, which basically is a six-point assessment of how I feel you can find a decent puppy. And it covers the puppy itself, which is the health, temperament, and type. And again, that's what you, as a puppy seeker, are trying to work out the value of. And bulldogs generally, they're a companion breed, they have a very good temperament, but it's not a given. They can be reactive, so they can be put into situations where they react inappropriately, and that is the whole point of correct puppy socialization and owner education to ensure that those kind of situations don't happen in the first place. But then the also the other three points I talk about, which is owner, vet, and breeder. And so the breeder is a massive one for adding value or establishing the value and the quality of their puppy. I will one day break those down in a bit more detail. But what I wanted to get across in this podcast episode is that price is just a number, value value of a puppy is the justification of that number, but you need to dig deeper than just skin surface level. If you compare all the puppy ads on a puppy platform, you're just comparing apples to apples, and really you need a holistic picture and be able to compare apples to oranges because obviously you don't know what you don't know, do you? Which is why I like and encourage that people build a relationship with their breeder when in advance, and it shouldn't just be I put my name on the wait list and that's it. They should be trying to teach you and educate you on what they're doing and why they're doing it. So any breeder should be able to articulate why this female, why that male, and why now? Why have you done this breeding and why of these two dogs did you put them together? They should be talking about faults and virtues. They should be talking about health, temperament, and type, and they should be talking about what they expect this litter to produce. If they can't do any of that, then they're just chucking two dogs together because they want to chuck two dogs together. And you're probably overpaying for what you're paying, regardless of what the price is. You you've got to be digging down and working out what's the health, what's the temperament, what's the type. I mean, the type comes into a little bit into the why now, because less so with bulldogs, but for instance, for a Labrador, they might say, Oh, I breed working type, or someone might say I breed show type, someone might say I breed just pet quality dogs. When someone says pet quality to me, that you're saying temperament is more important than health and type. Um show people, you could say historically they've leaned towards type as the most important than health and temperament. Though, as I've already said before, you can't show a dog if they haven't got temperament, you wouldn't be able to take them into that environment. And obviously, nowadays we have such high levels of health expectations. Health is most certainly up there now. But you really want to try and work out what order are they putting these in. And equally, you will find some breeders that they're breeding for health, but health isn't just breeding one generation of health. You can't say my main focus is health, and I'm putting this breed council health tested dog to this one, because that's just one generation. You just that's a risk. Historically, that's no evidence, knowledge, or experience. Really, someone can only say they're breeding for health when they're, I would argue, at least 10 years in. Because if they bred a female, kept a puppy, then the mum by then, the damn, would be 10 years old, and they would have possibly bred the daughter. So then they would have had three generations of direct um descendants to be able to form a pattern of the health of their actual line. Up until then, you're just guessing, you haven't got a clue. Like you literally haven't got a clue. You're hoping for the best, you're doing the tick box stuff, hoping you avoid stuff. But as I said, bulldogs are complex and there are certain bloodlines that when put together won't produce the ideal puppy or adult that you want, or you might you might just do a breeding and think, oh, every time I put these two together, I'm getting this certain trait that I don't want. So that takes time. You can't shortcut any of that. And so I hope, I hope that's clear, clear as mud may be. But I hope that's clear that I just want you to make sure that when you're looking for a puppy, you see a price, but you want to be able to ask the breeder the justification, what value have they provided, what knowledge, what understanding to get to that price. And the tick box stuff of saying the parents are health tested, the puppy's been reared in the home, and we're doing vaccinations isn't enough. I mean, I don't even sell puppies vaccinated because it's not in the best interest of the dog. So when I see that, sometimes to me, that actually shows more lack of knowledge and education more than anything, or the fact that they just want to make sure they sell the pups so they're happy to sell a sort of ready now product rather than educate owners on vaccinating and what's the best protocol to follow. So I hope I haven't made you more confused, but think about puppy value and how that breeder is providing that value in that puppy that they're offering you at the price that they're offering it to you at. So that's it. I've literally just pulled up in the driveway. So I hope you have an awesome um week and I'll speak to you next week. There'll be another exciting podcast, hopefully on something less confusing, but we'll find out. Okay, then bye! Before you go, head over to bulldogownersclub.com if you fancy a bit of support of your dog, help fighting the puppy, or joining one of our fortnightly informal chatty community calls.