Dog breeding is an interesting experience. I bread dogs both successfully and unsuccessfully. It was enjoyable and unenjoyable. If you like dogs, this may not be for you, but here are some things to consider: Of course there is an initial cost. You have to buy the dogs. Even if you already own the dogs, there will be cost. Not so much substantial cost, but you really need to take care of your dogs. I mean REALLY!
For starters, you should always do research when attempting to start something on your own. The best place - the internet. Now, I will let you see what I mean. My husband and I were throwing around the idea of breeding, and we determined that small dogs would be best, they eat less, they take up less space, and they poop less, therefore it would be easier to take care of 3 or 4 small dogs rather than 3 or 4 big dogs. We had a friend that lives right down the road and he had a Boston terrier. I really liked him, and thought that others would really want that dog so the puppies would be really easy to sell. Well, I did the research. I went to the library, and surfed the web. I researched different breeds and found out that certain dogs are man-made, sort of bread into creation. Basically it is like this, someone took 2 different breeds and bread a different dog and kept breeding them until they created a standard. That standard had a large head and small hips, ergo a c-section was quite common for this type of dog.
When my husband and I decided on the breed, we decided on pugs. After we bought the dogs, we thought, alright, we have some extra money, we can buy a couple of females and a male and we'll be set. Well, we had to take the dogs to the vet, and get them their shots. Now, what you can do to save money is to administer the shots yourself, but I'll get to that later. What you still need to do, is take the dog to the vet because you need to get the dog a check up. It doesn't matter if the breeder you bought your dog from says they are vet checked, they are only as good as their word and chances are they took them to the vet, they were only just looked at. Let me elaborate. When you take a litter to the vet, the vet will just check their eyes, watch them to see if they look healthy. The vet most likely will not test the puppies for worms, and parasites unless you ask them to. At least that is my experience.
We started out by taking our dogs to the vet. He said they looked nice, but a couple of them had small nostrils, and they may have to have a surgery so they won't suffer breathing problems in the future. He also said they look a little wormy. He had done a fecal exam which basically he looked at their poo under a microscope and he told me that they had worms and a parasite. I honestly cannot remember the parasite name, but at least all dogs get some type of worms or parasites at some point in their lives, and further more to what information I have gathered, at least 80% of puppies are born with worms. At the very least, worms can cause intestinal blockage and as a result die from them.
When my husband and I bought our dogs, we bought from a man who had two male and several female. He was a good man and in no way am I trying to say that he did a bad thing. He showed me how to give the shots, and gave me extra vaccinations and syringes. He even said that he guaranteed his dogs and that they were healthy and that if they developed any hereditary defects that he would refund our money. I had one male and two female. Within a month, one of the dogs seemed kinda sickly, and wouldn't eat or play. Since this was after regular vet hours, I figured I'd wait until the next day. That was a bad decision. Had I known that there was an after hours emergency vet clinic, I may have been able to have saved her. Now when I called the man, he said that that the pup may have been stung by a bee. Because the way I described the pup to him, he said it sounded like anaphylactic shock which wasn't his fault. After my own research, I discovered that those were the same symptoms of parvo which could have been from his litters, if he didn't give his adults yearly boosters. I doubt this is common, but it can happen.
