Do Breeders ask for a deposit?
Deposits are completely normal. Some breeders even ask for them in order to be put on the waitlist. They help the breeders to know who is serious and to know that the puppies definitely have a home.
What about collecting too many deposits?
In theory it is possible to collect too many deposits. This would be a situation where people are waiting multiple years to get a dog. If you’re in a situation where your dogs are very sought after and you are starting to have more people on your waitlist and a year or two’s worth of puppies, you might consider holding off or decreasing your marketing. For me, when I’m pretty full on deposits, I stop posting on Instagram anything from my ranch, this seems to slow it down.
At the very least, I recommend that you be very upfront with your buyers about WHEN they can expect to get a puppy. They will probably ask, but you should definitely have an answer. Walk through your females, their cycles, and their average litter size to get a rough estimate. This will help you maintain yourself as an honest breeder, because it feels really dishonest to collect deposits and the buyers don’t know it’ll be over 6 months, or even a year, before they can expect to take a puppy home.
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This one is a little tricky. The whole point of a deposit is to lock your buyers in on your program, so making refunds super easy, is not going to work toward that goal. However, there is a little bit of legality to it, for example if you take deposits with a credit card (which is super easy with something like stripe or square), then by law, if they back out, and therefore they paid $200 for a product they didn’t receive, then they can report you to their credit card company and get that money back.
I actually had this happen once, they pulled the money right out of my bank account without notice, when I didn’t get a deposit back to him in time, you know me and mailing things…ugh, thankfully there is Venmo and Zelle now.
To protect yourself from this, you can write it so that the deposit pays for their place in line, although it will be a little sticky in court. My solution to this is to tell them a certain portion of the deposit is refundable, so for a $300 deposit, I would say that $150 is refundable. This way people will think more before placing a deposit, so the people who do place a deposit will be more likely to follow through with getting a puppy and generally prevents them from making more trouble for you down the road by asking back out when a litter is almost ready to go. Most people don’t feel like you are taking advantage of them if you allow for a portion of the deposit to be refunded, they’ll be satisfied getting some of it back and it will leave your reputation as an honest dog breeder intact, which is important.
It is also nice because you do get to keep that money, and consider it payment for managing them on the waitlist, the time spent working with them, and potentially the difficulty in placing a puppy later in his life because they backed out.
There are exceptions to keeping part or all of the deposit. For example, if you have only a litter a year and the person wants a female and you have 5 males born and no females, well, if she wanted her deposit back, I would give it. Generally, if the reason they want the deposit back is your fault, as in you missed a heat cycle for your bitch or a puppy died from an injury, as well as Acts of God, like not enough pups were born, then I will do a full refund.
If they are asking a refund because they got another puppy somewhere else, or decided not to get a puppy after all, well then, I don’t refund more than half. Remember, people will give you lots of sob stories when they want their money back, it goes back to money being so personal, you just have to play it by ear and do the best you can. I had a puppy that was born in the color this woman wanted, she was stuck on a color—if you want to learn more about accommodating color with your buyer requests, be sure to check out Episode #7. Well, she wanted a female solid puppy and one was born, however, the puppy had a cleft pallet and it was struggling. I ended up losing the puppy to aspirating milk after tube feeding for 3 days, I told the buyer and after telling her, I told her the potential for when I would have another puppy of that color, in this case it would set things back 8 weeks. She was fine, told me to bump her to the next litter, and then the very next day goes on about being absolutely devastated about losing this puppy—mind you she only saw a single picture of the puppy—and follows up with wanting her deposit back. It just didn’t fit, didn’t make sense, which usually means that they are wanting to go elsewhere. If you think the relationship with that buyer is busted and the trust is gone, by all means refund, you don’t want to work under that difficult of a relationship for the entire life of a dog, but if you can get them what they need, especially if it’s relatively soon, then remind them of your policy on refunds and let them pick. I told her I could refund her half. After a few minutes she messaged me back that she wanted to wait until the next litter.
Be careful in these situations to keep your cool, sometimes you’ll want to call buyers out on their dramatic comments, but it doesn’t go anywhere, it just creates tension, so keep it cool, set your ego aside, and stick to your policies. This way it is fair for everyone, and maintains the relationship with your buyers as best as possible.
A simple trick to make this easier, cover the information before it’s a problem, and make sure that you don’t forget to explain it, is to put these stipulations in your contract, but to not accept a deposit until they sign the contract. This simple step makes it a whole lot easier to set those boundaries.
If things get tense or you feel things will escalate, erring on the side of refunding a deposit, is usually your least difficult route. Play it by ear, but believe me, fighting over a deposit is NOT worth the pain in the butt, seriously.
Should You Wait Until You Have Puppies to Collect Deposits?
Some breeders wait until they have puppies on the ground to collect deposits. The idea behind this is that we don’t know for sure how many puppies we will have until they are born, we also don’t know their sex, or anything else. Many breeders suggest it is dishonest to collect deposits on puppies that you don’t even have yet.
I can see this the first few litters, it may be hard to convince people to give you a deposit without puppies on the ground. It might also feel awkward collecting deposits and then not having enough puppies to fulfill the deposits.
If you only have 1-2 litters per year, I can understand your hesitation, and you may want to put people on a waitlist, then collect deposits once the puppies are born. If this is the case, be very clear with your buyers about the process, so they understand they are on a waitlist until you know what you have, then you’ll be confirming with a deposit once they are born.
If you have 3-4 or more litters per year, then I don’t think this method is helpful, since you have enough puppies coming that you can reasonably fulfill your deposit list with upcoming litters should not enough pups be born in this litter.
So if you feel more comfortable waiting until they are born in the first few litters, or while your kennel is small, I believe that makes sense. However, once your kennel grows, I would opt for collecting deposits all year around.
All Darlene Wanted Was a Doodle!
Breeders will often ask for a deposit before they will add you to their list and often it’s legitimate, but before you hand over your hard earned money, make sure all details are very clear, especially if the pups have NOT been born yet.