Steps for Starting a Pomsky Business
The purpose of this article is to help you:
Find out what it takes to be a breeder (AKA social media expert, website creator, genetic expert, salesperson, and vet tech)
List of self-examination questions:
Kennel goals, building your kennel
Basic animal husbandry knowledge
Environment requirements
Budgetary concerns
Legal and business requirements
Social media and other steps to take to establish your business
Picking appropriate dogs to avoid costly mistakes
Below is a list of questions you can ask yourself in order to have a better understanding of your needs BEFORE you purchase dogs. While there are additional questions that can be asked, we hope this helps clarify a list of basic needs you will have as a breeder and what you still need to research. It is not all-inclusive; the goal is to help jumpstart the process and help you develop your kennel goals and “eye”. Not understanding the full scope could easily result in costly mistakes, and cause frustration when unknowns pop up. We hope it helps.
Have you spoken with at least 1-2 reputable Pomsky breeders in detail and asked for their assistance in mentoring you? Be upfront about your desire to breed.
Do you have a business budget/plan? Associated costs can easily be $15,000 for one pair, and that does not include the cost of living quarters, medications, vet bills, insemination costs, whelping supplies, reproduction tests, etc.
How much experience do you have with dogs? Specifically with Huskies, Pomeranians, and Eskimos? Are you aware of their training and exercise needs?
Are you aware of Pomskies’ temperaments and behavioral concerns? Do you know how to handle them when its exacerbated with their hormones?
Do you plan to breed for temperament, size, or color?
Do you like particular looks in Pomskies? Just because you may like the looks of a particular dog doesn’t mean that customers find them equally beautiful (For example, dilute blues are popular among breeders but are not in high demand with clients.). How will this affect your bottom line?
What is the market demand locally and nationally?
Do you have a good repro vet and orthopedic vet near you?
Is your regular vet supportive of breeders?
Have you taken the time to learn Pomskies’ structure so you can pick a dog that is well-formed? A dog that is not well-formed will affect your kennel for 2-3 years or even longer. Not well-formed dogs could also indicate structural issues with your dogs, such as hips or patellas, and thus could open you up to potential financial accountability if you sell puppies that have structural issues that require expensive surgery. This is a very important decision! You may pay 2-3k more for a nice structured dog than a poor one, but that better quality puppies will quickly make up that difference down the line. (APKC Breed Standard)
Are you well educated on the necessary testing to ensure you have quality lines? OFA (or Pennhip) hips, elbows, patellas and CERF eyes are considered necessary by dog breeders as minimum health requirements. CHIC Certified is another goal of many.
Size requests vary regionally. What demographic area do you plan to focus on? What are the size needs of your area?
If you take vacations, do you have provisions for a trusted dog sitter? How will you handle the situation of your dog whelping during your vacation times?
How do you plan to get puppies to their respective homes? What do you need to do to get those delivery networks formed?
How will you socialize your puppies? Many breeders use Puppy Culture, Early Neuro Stimulation, AviDog, and similar programs.
Are you aware that you can socialize your puppies in such a way to cause them to have separation anxiety issues?
Do you know how to temperament test to ensure that the puppies’ personality match their new home environment. For example, you would not want to home a puppy with low tolerances to a family with young children, or an overly hyper puppy to an older family with limited mobility.
Have you researched the nutrient requirements of breeding dogs, what supplements they should/should not have, additional dietary requirements of your stock dogs, expectant females, puppies, and more?
How will you handle it if the dam dies and you’re responsible for a newborn litter? Do you know what to do? (Bottle feeding, fading puppy syndrome, SubQ fluids, tube feeding, etc.)
Have you educated yourself on Canine DNA panels? It’s an entire field that should be semi-understood before you get your dogs. (This website is your new best friend.)
Are you aware of the diseases prominent with Pomskies that you should be cautious of?
How do diseases and recessive disease carriers show on the DNA reports? How do you handle this in your kennel?
Do you have basic emergency care skills for whelping, dog fights, wound care, and knowing if a dog has a fever or infection?
Do you know how to tell if your female is coming into her cycle? When her fertility starts? When she is to be bred and how you can tell?
Do you plan to have 1 female and start off slow, or get 3-4 to start off with a small kennel?
If you plan to have only females, how will you pick your stud male to best complement your female?
If you plan to have in-house males, how will you handle more than 1 intact male (or visiting stud boy)?
How will you separate your male/female when you should not breed your female (like 1st heat or to a different male)?
Do you plan to use guardian homes? Do you know where you’ll get guardian contract templates and appropriate homes?
Do you have pee-proof and chew-proof and puppy-proof areas to raise puppies?
What about your yard? How will you handle the digging? (Yes, they dig and love mud!)
Do you have secure fences? What if the dogs climb over or dig under the fence?
Do you have a tracking plan for your dog if/when they escape (GPS collar/video surveillance)?
How do you plan to house your dogs?
How do you plan to climate control (A/C and heat if needed)? What is your township’s requirement on this?
What are your whelping facilities like? Have you researched what works best for other Pomsky breeders? What is required by law?
Do you have storage space for the whelping supplies when it’s not puppy season?
What are your plans should your dogs not get along? (many fight viciously due to hormones, some have even killed others)
Do you have kennel space available to isolate sick dogs or returned dogs?
Do you know what the biosecurity contaminate control measures are?
How to handle visitors during puppy season
How to keep from tracking Parvo and other deadly things in your home.
How to sanitize to prevent Parvo in your kennel
Are you aware of the symptoms of the different diseases to keep aware of your kennel’s health?
What if your breeding potential puppy tests with a disease, bad knees, undescended testicles, etc - how do you handle this?
What if your female has an emergency costly c-section, do you have funds set aside?
Do you have your business budget set up? Do you have room in it for emergencies or missed cycles, or returned/refunded puppies?
Breeders do not generally make a profit until after their 3rd or 4th litters, can you handle the expenses until that point?
When the market falls (and it will), is your business set up to survive when puppy prices are $1500-2500 each?
Have you researched the ways that scammers are stealing money from potential puppy customers, and how can you combat that? You will want to because this creates skeptical people who will decide to purchase dogs from pet stores out of fear of being scammed.
Do you know which vaccination protocols and microchip companies you’ll use for your puppies?
How will you keep your family/dogs safe from potentially harmful people that focus on breeders?
Do you have a good security system? (Stolen dog cases here. Brutal murders here.)
How will your neighbors handle you being a breeder? Is there an HOA? Are there noise ordinances?
How will you protect yourself from “Adopt-Don’t-Shop” people in your home and in public situations? When do you tell people you’re a breeder and when do you not?
How will you prevent yourself from getting scammed? There are some scammers that focus on breeders.
There are many more questions, but we hope this helps you consider facets that you may not have thought of before.
To be a breeder, you need to be a legal business owner, even as a “small hobby breeder”
IRS Website: “Is it a Business or a Hobby? A key feature of a business is that people do it to make a profit. People engage in a hobby for sport or recreation, not to make a profit. Consider nine factors when determining whether an activity is a hobby. Make sure to base the determination on all the facts and circumstances.”
Below are the things you need to do in order to be legally established. If you have questions on this very important topic, please visit your local SBA office for your state and county’s specific guidelines:
Research your state, county, and individual township’s requirements for kennels and be sure to abide by them
Create your unique kennel name. Be sure that it is not already taken or too similar to another’s kennel name to prevent legal issues
Get your business registered in your state
Get your Federal Tax ID number
If you need to trademark your business name, do that here
You must file taxes. You must submit quarterly forecasted sales and monthly reports, and then actual taxes. Tip - work with a CPA to avoid tax pitfalls
Get your business bank checking/savings account to keep your business and personal money separate to avoid IRS issues
Business software like Quickbooks is a great tool to keep your accounting and taxes straight
Work with your local attorney to create a puppy contract. Here’s the sample template to provide a jumpstart and reduce legal costs. Please note - this is just a sample and should be reviewed and approved by your local legal representative for your own financial protection. Additional contract samples are located on the login section of Breeder Hub for Breeder members.
Let’s look at some of the other business steps you need to take:
Create your business Facebook
Create your business Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social media pages as desired, like MeWe, TikTok, YouTube, etc
Start posting to your social media platforms 1-2 times a week
Create your hosting supplier and build your website
Create your logo - this is added to each of your pictures to help prevent scammers
Learn how to create watermarks and watermark each photo uploaded to the internet
Create your Google business presence http://business.google.com, get the verification process completed, as it takes a couple of weeks
Once you have considered and researched all of the above things, THEN you should look at getting your dogs.
90-95% of Pomskies are not breeding quality. Let us say that again…. MOST POMSKIES ARE NOT BREEDING QUALITY.
If you are not educated on all of the above, you may not realize that. There are far too many unscrupulous people that sell dogs with rights that absolutely should not be considered breed quality. For a quality female, it should be a minimum of $4,500 and it can easily be upwards of $10,000. Just like you would not buy an old junker car with 300,000 miles to take a trip cross country, you do not want to cheap out on your breeding dogs. It will cost you more in the long run as you will have lower quality puppies (less money), for the same amount of time, effort, and annual expenses invested. On the other hand, just because they are expensive, that doesn’t mean they are a great quality breeding dog either. This is where your great, ethical and reputable mentor can help you determine a good quality puppy.
To be a breeder, you should be motivated to get the best dogs you can get. The nightmare stories we hear where someone tried to save $1000 by buying a lesser quality dog and the dog not being useable due to DNA results, or due to bad hips/knees, or undescended testes have been repeated again and again. Breeding quality is not the cost alone. Are the parents fully health tested? What are the temperaments of the parents? What do the adult puppies from the pairing look like? Can you get an unbiased opinion on the structure of a potential puppy? Don’t just buy on genetics alone, there are many “perfect DNA” ugly and not breed standard dogs.
When looking at breeders, if they allow any/all puppies in the litter to go as breed quality, simply if a breeding right is paid for, then you should avoid that breeder.
Placing a deposit on a breeder puppy waitlist is the best way to get the best puppy for your program’s future. Choosing from currently available puppies, the breed quality puppies are often already chosen by breeders who have been on the waitlists for months for specific parents.
Your mentor should be the person to help you find dogs from their kennel, or others they feel comfortable with. You are “borrowing” against the kennel reputation that you purchase your dogs from, and this can help your kennel succeed, or cause you to work doubly hard to gain a reputation against.
Also, don’t just choose based on quality and genetics alone. What is their temperament like? Aim for calm and laid-back puppies to make your personal experience more enjoyable and also that of your puppy owners. A nightmare puppy will cause you frustration for years, and it’s simply not worth it, regardless of how pretty they are.
Need opinions on puppy quality before you buy?
Feel free to reach out to us for our opinion. Send a detailed email with the puppy details, with lots of pictures, especially side stacks (not just the cute face pic), a video of the puppy in motion, the DNA and OFA testing information of the parents, pictures of parents, and adult siblings, and we will provide an unbiased opinion on if it seems like a good puppy or not, as a foundation to build your kennel and reputation on. Email Us.
