Quote Originally Posted by kandyman View Post
The best dogs I have ever fed were bought as pups, for 250 bucks. They werent good dogs because of the price and i didnt purchase them because they were cheap. I did my homework and made an educated purchase. Lucky me, I can think of three very nice animals that apply to this situation. One of those being the best dog I have ever had the pleasure to feed. Now, the flip side of this coin. Ironically, I have culled damn near every single $1K pup I have purchased. Its just the way it has worked out for me and there is no logical reason for this. When I was purchasing stock, I followed the same guidelines for the cheap pups as I did the higher priced ones.

It is hard to discuss the significance of words like "best" without some names or references to go on.

As a beginner, the best, most important dogs I have ever bought were adults: Truman and Trinx. And they were priced at $2,000 apiece. The other was yearling in Coca Cola at $600. I only got 2 litters from Truman, 1 from Trinx, and 3 from Coki ... but the amount of winners and Champions that have come down from these dogs eclipses the production record of 95%+ of any active breeder today.

As an experienced dogman, the best dogs I ever had I bred myself, except for Ouch who was given to me because of what I have done as a breeder.

I have sold awesome dogs for pretty cheap, like Ch Mr. Serious ROM for $300, but that was because his mama and daddy were untouched at the time I bred them.
I have also sold $1500 pups who grew up to be Champions also like the cover dog Ch Vengence.

The difference in price was reflective of how game and awesome I KNEW the parents were (when I produced Vengence), rather than just making a breeding of two young dogs that were bred "on pedigree," but themselves were unchecked (when Mr. Serious was bred).

I have always sold "cheap pups" when I was experimenting with 2 untouched, but nice-looking young dogs ... and I have always had more expensive animals for sale. Towards the end of my breeding career, all of my "cheap pups" had a better chance of turning out (at least game) than 95% of anyone breeding dogs ... and most did so. Yet my customers who "bought cheap" from me ... and then bought one of my $1,000+ pups off of what I considered to be truly badass dogs ... ALWAYS came back for my more expensive pups. (Wildchild would be a prime example )

I agree that an experienced dogman can (through his knowledge / reputation) get some great dogs cheap ... or even given to him if he's good enough at what he does ... but most beginners do not have the sense to know which is what, nor the reputation to get anyone's best handed to him for free.

For a novice dogman, the best way to get a TRULY good dog (not what some guy who's never bred a winner "says" is a good dog) is to go with a proven breeder, who is honest, and then bring enough money to buy what he really doesn't want to sell.

Jack