Consider a Cash Crop

By Dorothy Lockard

It was once the custom for newlyweds to receive a milk cow as a wedding gift. Bossy then supplied the couple with a reliable source of nourishment and some pocket money until they got themselves established in a life of their own.

One mother I know, though, has put a new twist into that old tradition . . . she presented each of her married daughters with a proven bitch—a registered female dog who's already whelped at least one good litter of puppies—in place of the old milk cow. The dogs gave those new families the initial source of income they needed, and have since continued to provide them with both much-desired extra money and loving companionship.

If you're in need of some supplemental earnings, you might also think seriously about acquiring a canine cash crop for yourself.

My husband and I raise Cocker Spaniels. The dogs pay for our Christmas, vacations and dinner out now and again. They also add welcome padding to our savings account and—when our breadwinner was laid off last year—the Cockers helped us over the rough spots unemployment checks couldn't quite smooth out.

Another couple I know saw a Miniature Schnauzer and liked it. They went to a few dog shows and introduced themselves to the lady who seemed to be winning most of the ribbons with that breed. The couple bought a Schnauzer from the woman and the dog made them over $1,000 a year clear profit for six years.

Encouraged, the couple—Ben and Annette—got into dog breeding on a somewhat bigger scale . . . but not too big. They never owned a stud dog and never raised a puppy. The most Schnauzers they ever had on hand for an extended period were three bitches (the proper term, legally and technically, for a female dog). Ben and Annette never advertised a dog for sale . . : but they did sell those Schnauzers and put all the "puppy money" in the bank for the education of their two daughters. One of those daughters has toured Europe and South America and is now working on her Masters. The second is in college . . . with no sign of the dog money running out.

Jay, a Navy veteran, has also done well with a Miniature Schnauzer. When he was home on leave for Christmas '68, his mother told him, "You have three more years in the Service. Buy a good dog for me to raise and I'll send you all the money she makes above expenses."

It was a deal. Little Gretchen, bought by Jay for $150, had $775 worth of puppies four months later. Before Jay's Navy hitch was up, the dog had produced litters worth over $2,000. Gretchen kept Jay in plane fare home, bought all his Christmas presents and helped him through many a financial emergency. She's his ace in the hole now that he's home and unemployed.

Golden agers Charley and Gladys—who live on Social Security—use puppy money to pay their taxes and finance an annual trip to Florida.

Joy has Quarter Horses . . . her Bassett Hounds support them. Mimi raises Morgans . . . on money brought in by Dachshunds. Amy keeps Hunters . . . on dollars raised by her Dalmatians.

None of these people are big breeders. They fit their dogs right into their homes and their family life.

Dog breeding has much to recommend it. One of the nicest things about the business is that it has a beginning and an end. Once a bunch of pups is sold, you're on vacation until the next breeding season comes around. People who live a frugal life might well support themselves entirely by selling the offspring of just three or four good bitches . . . and still have months of work-free time between litters.

The business of breeding dogs offers fringe benefits, too. People who know that you like the animals will ask you to board theirs while they're away from home. This pays $1.00-$2.00 a day easy money. Even better yet, if you're free to do it, is babysitting a dog right in the owner's home. One young man I know is spending this week sitting two Dachshunds . . . with a house to live in, food to eat and a stereo to listen to as his payment. He likes the job.

Some breeders also enjoy the requests they get to judge local pet parades and otherwise appear as "authorities" on canines. Then too, the enterprise allows you to meet many really grand people and make them very happy with one of your puppies. Yesterday a couple stopped by to make a payment on a dog. "We couldn't go to sleep last night," the wife said. "We stayed up for hours trying to think of a good name for the pup. Hope we settle on one soon . . . I'm so tired!" Sharing such excitement is fun.

That beautiful registered bitch you have for a pet can even serve as collateral at the bank. I borrowed money for my Volkswagen on a prospective litter of Cocker puppies!

It's easy to get started raising dogs. That cute little gal you got as a birthday present can put you in business within a year, as can the puppy you just bought to keep your first child company while he's growing up.

If you don't already have a dog, talk to someone who raises your favorite breed. If the individual thinks you really want an animal AND will take good care of it, he'll probably try to see that you get one. You might be able to buy a bitch on terms . . . or even trade some work for a pup. Many breeders have a leasing plan, whereby you're given a puppy or pups (sometimes even the mother) in exchange for taking care of the adult female while she whelps a litter.

You can occasionally find another "no money" entry into dog breeding by talking to your local vet and animal shelter. Tell them to keep an eye out for the breed you want. Our vet remembers me whenever someone has a Cocker to give away. If it's a decent female, I take her and pay the owner the price of the best pup in the dog's next litter, or (if he prefers) give him one of the puppies.

Beware of taking just any giveaway, though. If you're going into the dog business to make money, don't get waylaid by a mongrel . . . no matter how cute. Mongrels eat as much as purebreds and the money goes only one way . . . OUT. Registered purebreds bring money IN.

Of the purebreds, I've found that a medium-sized breed is the best bet. Tiny dogs have only two or three puppies per litter . . . and they often have to be delivered by Caesarean. The stud fee and vet bills can easily eat up your potential profit. It's so easy to become attached to individuals in a small fitter too . . . "OK, we'll keep Butch, but next time we sell every pup". Wanna bet?

On the other hand, the very large breeds often whelp huge flocks of pups . . . too many for the mother to properly nurse. The books say to drown all over seven. Can you do it? If you can't, you'll be worn ragged trying to feed the mother and babies enough to keep them healthy.

You'll also quickly learn that it's more than twice as difficult to find customers for ten new dogs than for five . . . especially if the area's already flooded with puppies produced by females of the litter or two you sold last year. A neighbor of ours wasn't able to sell all the babies whelped by her Great Dane. Now her house is full of the animals. Just seeing that they each get a daily romp is quite a chore. Large dogs need large exercise.

The answer is a medium-sized breed that whelps four to seven pups without a vet's help. Best of all—especially if you have children—is a dog with good disposition and sturdy conformation. Pups can receive a lot of abuse from kids so you might as well stack the odds in favor of your dogs early in the game.

I'd say that feeding a medium-sized dog should cost you less than a dollar a week. If you have small children, their leftovers will do a pretty good job of maintaining one canine. Just go easy on starchy foods like potatoes and watch out for bones that could splinter and tear a dog's intestines (no bones for my bowsers except for the huge ones the grocer gives me free). And make sure your animal or animals have enough water. A crockery container in the kitchen, basement or under a shady tree (always within easy access of your canine crew) will keep that water cooler and fresher than metal or ceramic pans.

We seldom notice the cost of dog food when we buy groceries except for the last 14 days before pups leave us at six weeks of age. The canned milk, baby cereal and hamburger I feed them three to five times a day does add up then . . . but we already have deposits on the whole litter by that time so I don't mind.

If you keep a lot of dogs, you might qualify for the "breed er's plan" offered by some dog food companies and the occasional vet. It's worth inquiring about. I buy Purina Dog Chow in 25-pound bags, save the circles on the sacks and—once or twice a year—mail the emblems to Purina for a one-cent-per-pound refund. My veterinarian also gives me reduced rates on his services.

Your dog will probably have her first heat period when she's about 6-8 months old . . . but she shouldn't be bred until her second heat (or, in the case of extra large dogs—such as the St. Bernard or Irish Wolfhound—her third). Mate her to a healthy, well-formed registered stud of the same breed.

Most bitches come into heat twice a year. A female dog becomes uneasy and nervous when her heat starts and a pinkish discharge will seep from her vulva. The discharge gradually becomes bright red, changes back to pink and—finally—turns straw or wheat colored. Keep checking the animal's genitals with a tissue. When that straw colored, almost clear discharge appears (usually about nine days after the onset of the period), she's ready to breed.

A bitch usually remains receptive for approximately another five days and the 11th through the 13th days after the heat initially started are generally considered the best time for mating. Be very careful with your dog during this fertile period. She'll be excited, anxious and willing to entertain the advances of just about any male dog that approaches during that time. If she mates with any but the proper stud, the litter that results will be worthless.

Sixty-three days after mating, your dog will present you with puppies. While most medium-sized bitches will whelp without outside help, you should be on the alert for possible trouble after the pups are born. The mother will have a discharge for the next week to ten days and if that discharge is red or dark red, everything's OK. If it's greenish, call a vet immediately. A green emission could well mean that all or part of a placenta has not been expelled, which could result in serious infection and loss of milk.

A canine mother can also suffer from eclampsia, or milk fever. The symptoms of this disease—which is really just a lack of calcium in the dog's body—are very high fever (103°-108°F), excessive panting, nervousness, a stilted walk, collapse and convulsions. The only cure for milk fever is an injection of calcium so, if you suspect that your dog has the ailment, call a vet right away,

A warm corner of the basement is the best place for your new mother to set up housekeeping, although we've raised many a litter of puppies in a nook of our kitchen. An airline packing crate makes an ideal whelping box (airlines also sell the best dog cages for the least money). Put in some old towels, blankets and newspapers for bedding.

As the pups grow and need more room, you can transfer them to a homemade pen of three 1 x 12 boards or old screen door sections hinged together. Give them lots of newspapers, old towels and blankets for bedding and use an electric heating pad to keep them warm during the first week in their new home. Take care to protect the babies from drafts . . . which can so easily cause pneumonia in young dogs. Many breeders use playpens—elevated off the floor—to hold their growing pups.

Mother dogs need lots of soft food and plenty of water while nursing . . . the food must be soft because the quantity she'll consume would make her mouth sore if it were hard. If you must feed dry rations, soak them in water and add milk and—perhaps—some hamburger. Vitamin and mineral supplements might be a good idea at this time too, although I've raised good pups without them. If your vet likes you (as mine does), he may give you the sample vitamins he receives from drug companies. Once, a druggist even gave me loads of outdated codliver oil.

The first few weeks of new puppies' lives is the only difficult part of the dog business. This is where the hard, messy work comes in. We keep our pups in the basement and I get plenty of exercise running up and down stairs to change papers, wash bedding, put down food and let the dogs out to piddle. The grind goes on at night, too: if I hear a pup squeaking, I bounce out of bed and check up on him . . . even a day-old baby can crawl away from the warmth of his mother, get cold and die.

If you only have one mother to care for, the whole operation will probably seem like a lot of fun. Two dogs whelping at once will begin to seem like trouble. With three or more fitters on your hands, you'll spend a lot of time running around muttering to yourself. Breeding dogs is hard work when the pups are young . . . but I've found it to be very rewarding work, too.

If you specialize in a breed that requires clipped tails, you can do the job yourself and save the veterinarian fees. Cutting tails is not as difficult, nor as painful to the dog, as you might think. It's really more of a pinching than a cutting and most puppies won't even yelp once. On the third or fourth day, just clip the tails with a pair of dull scissors. Ask your vet for details.

While the operation won't bother the pups, it's sure to upset mom a bit. Since she'll likely still be a little messy from birthing anyway, tail-clipping time for the young'uns should be bath time for mother. Give her a good sponging off in another part of the house and, if she misses her children, splash her a little and give her lots of attention. Then towel the new mama good and she should relax and enjoy herself until it's time for her to rejoin the litter.

By the way, cropping ears is NOT a safe and relatively painless process like clipping tails . . . and I don't recommend the practice. While most show dogs in the U.S. are cropped, the practice is illegal in many states such as Pennsylvania (where it's not even taught in veterinarian schools). England has banned the practice altogether and dogs are shown there uncropped. Since you'll probably be selling pups about six weeks old (too young to have their ears done), the decision will be up to the purchaser. If you have strong feelings on the matter, then, pick your buyers with care.

There are many ways to go about selling pups . . . and they'll sell themselves if they're seen. One breeder I know owns a drive-in sandwich stand and puts her dogs in a playpen out front where they sell fast. If your bitch and the stud she's bred to both came from good breeders, word of mouth alone will move the pups for you. Still, I prefer to advertise a little.

Newspaper ads are good, especially if you place them the night before payday . . . and don't forget weekly papers and shoppers: they reach a lot of people and their space is usually pretty reasonable. Radio stations often have "swapshops" which will mention your dogs free and bulletin boards in laundromats, grocery stores, magazine stands and schools are great places to hang posters or placards. Do such displays up fancy and bright and they'll attract attention.

Use your imagination when advertising puppies. A barmaid in a motel put a notice for her animals in the men's room . . . at eye level over the urinal. She told me, "Those truck drivers have more money than they know what to do with, so I made sure they saw my ad."

The best pup promotion, though, isn't worth much if you don't sit home by the phone until the whole litter is sold. It may mean missing some fun, but you'll have to do it . . . otherwise, folks who call and get no answer might very well take their dog business elsewhere.

Observe the prevailing prices in your area. Other breeders won't take kindly to being drastically undersold and might retaliate by saying some pretty nasty things about your dogs and you. I always charge just about the average for most of mine and price one a little less, one a little more and a good bit more for the best female in the brood (if I can't sell them all, I'd like the one I'm stuck with to be the best).

If you're raising an expensive breed and decide to lower your prices some to get rid of the last pup or two, don't let your final customer know you've come down . . . trade him out of something for the difference. If the dog normally sells for $125, give it to him for $100 and an old spittoon. The buyer may think you're crazy, but he'll be happy with the bargain . . . and think he paid what you (in your demented condition) consider full price for the pup. That'll help you sell the next litter without being bombarded with demands for discount house markdowns.

Yep. Dog raising can be the source of many a smile . . . and a pretty good income too. Farmers used to say, "Hogs pay the taxes. Good times or bad, hogs pay the taxes." Now dogs are paying some of those taxes, too . . . and—for some of us—they're a lot more fun than hogs.

ILLNESSES

Illness is no great problem for a well-cared-for dog . . . but, just like people, even the healthiest canines sometimes do become sick. Prevention is usually the best medicine. A wise owner or dog breeder remains alert for signs of the four most common canine ailments.

The most dangerous of the four is distemper, a viral infection of the membrane tissue that results in respiratory and nervous disorders, diarrhea, emaciation and—often—death. Puppies that have had their mother's colostrum are immune (if their mother is immune) to the disease for one week to four months. Make very sure that all your dogs are given distemper shots by a veterinarian and follow his advice explicitly. The vaccine may not take properly if it's given before the pup's initial immunity wears off. This makes the timing of the shots extremely important. Distemper vaccinations are not permanent, by the way. Blood tests will indicate when booster shots are required . . . or a booster can just be given to a dog automatically every year.

Rabies is an infection of the central nervous system caused by a virus in the saliva of infected animals. Thus, if a dog of yours is bitten by another animal (of any kind) he runs a risk of rabies. The disease is really quite rare . . . but, once contracted, always fatal. All dogs should be given a rabies shot at about six months of age.

Canine hepatitis (not the same virus that causes hepatitis in people) is another viral infection with symptoms—listlessness, inflamed tonsils, diarrhea and vomiting—very similar to distemper. There is a vaccine for the ailment.

Leptospirosis, a bacterial disease which affects the kidneys and liver, is marked by jaundice and some distemper-like symptoms. It can be immunized against.

Distemper, rabies and leptospirosis can be transmitted to humans. Seek proper treatment immediately if your dog exhibits indications of the ailments.

Dogs are also susceptible to the same minor bugs that plague people . . . colds, upset stomach, etc. Such discomforts are about as serious as when contracted by humans and can be treated—if at all—in much the same way.

I won't go into worming here. Even the vets have differing ideas on the subject. Consult yours.