Dog breeding over the last few years.

Dog Breeding:
In the last five years their has been an explosion of dog breeders.
When I was a child you had very few dog breeders, but they fell into different category’s. Breeders who worked their dogs on shoots, or did field trials, farmers who bred farm dogs and sold off cheap and breeders who showed their dogs at kennel club events. Then you had cross breeders whose dogs accidentally mated and had offspring which were sold for £10 or given away. Then the odd pet breeders who bred their dogs for money, but the prices were not very high. So it was never really considered an income back in the 1970’s or 1980’s. I think the rise started when it got to 2014 onwards.
Dogs were advertised in free ads papers and also other news papers. Their was no internet to sell dogs.

Then something quite unexpected happened, a man bred a poodle to a Labrador in Australia, and created the Labradoodle. This was the start of something which no breeder thought was possible, the huge price increases. Suddenly the £10 dog was being sold for £700 then £800 then £1200 and so on. Breeding anything with a poodle was the new craze and suddenly an explosion of mixed breeds dogs reaching huge prices, bringing in big incomes to the breeders. They were onto a good thing, as they weren’t also paying taxes on their high priced crosses. I met someone the other week who paid £1800 for his Cockerpoo. With cross breeds their was no high cost involved unless a dog needed a C section. The Kennel club didnt recognise these crosses as they registered pedigree dogs. So money in the pocket for those breeders. Not paying taxes drew in lots of people. But they forgot one thing. You have to pay tax on your income even if it is from dogs. They have no health tests required, no paper work, so minimal expenses, and all profit. Now with saying all this, I do know their are some very good cross breeders who ethically do all they can for their dogs including health tests, but they are in the minority.
With demands came illegal imports. Brought in from Europe. If you see an advert and you can have a puppy delivered do not purchase. If you see an advert and they will meet you in a car park and hand over the puppy, do not purchase. It is so important to 🛑 (Stop), promoting bad breeding practises. You may well say “But what does it matter”? These illegal imports come with fake paper work, taken from their mothers at 4 weeks, come with behavioural problems because they have been taken away too early, come with health problems. They have lived in filth, parasites, parvo-virus and more, and brought into the UK with out the adequate checks. DO NOT PURCHASE.
But then the next thing happened in dog breeding, lots of breeders jumped on the band wagon as trying to produce, rare, or designer dogs. Pedigree’s now were being brought up by these breeders and trying to create something which is a cross but charging big big money. French bulldogs were hit, pugs, small toys. They started mixing in different breeds but still registering them as pedigree, it created new coat lengths, new colours. With these colours came more health issues. The media like to say its show breeders who ruined the breed as its easy to blame someone, especially those in the public eye. But actually its the unrecognised colours which causes extremes. Bred to be extremes brought in more money. I recently saw in a vets an unrecognised coloured bitch who was going to be bred and she had no nostrils, they were slits and she couldnt breathe, but she was being bred because she was a lilac and tan colour and the owner said he could make big money from her. She couldnt walk, because she couldnt breath. This is just criminal to animals.
This escalation in high prices in 2016 made the government sit up and realise their was income to be made from these dogs so where were the people paying taxes? Hardly anyone was. Legal micro chipping came in, because then they could track dogs back to the breeding sources.
The kennel club have tried to get breeders to join the assured breeder scheme so that the buying public would have some assurances that they were buying from good sources. But this scheme was abused by breeders to the point we even dropped out of it.
The government have had to step in and quite rightly so, as too many dogs bred do not have good welfare. Corners cut in dog breeding means the dogs suffer. In OCTOBER 2018 the new law will be in for dog breeders. You are allowed 1-2 litters with out a dog breeding license. This maywell stop some people breeding in houses where they shouldn’t own pets, it may well help slightly the big problem. But it will not however stop it well enough. This breeding law doesn’t apply to just pedigree dog breeders but cross breeders alike. Some breeders are churning out huge numbers of designer dogs and they are licensed. So you have to do your home work if you are looking to buy a dog. I do not think the law is tight enough to make a big difference.
If you show your dogs their is no monetary gain so it is still classified as a hobby. Showing dogs costs huge money. In law we are allowed to show our dogs and deduct those expenses from our breeding. The cross breeder can not.
What also came to light in 2016 was when the R.S.P.C.A told the HMRC how to find out what breeders were charging for their puppies. This effected many breeders as many worked part time or full time and was dog breeding on the side, and they ended up realising that they had to pay taxes on their puppies. In the UK you are allowed to earn £11,000 tax free but anything over you must pay tax. So if you are working and breeding your going to be paying tax.
Dogs World newspaper was brought out by Our dogs and they wrote articles how it was effecting breeders. Breeders were being effected across the UK.
If you find yourself in the position of being contacted by the HMRC. Here is a link that will help you.http://www.lindsayhenson.co.uk/hmrc-get-in-via-the-cat-flap-never-mind-the-back-door/