What’s the deal with dog breeders in Japan?

9 comments

1. > am I missing something

   From the top of my head:

   – Managerial overhead, need to be registered for a license.

   – Dogs need to be taken care of before sale.

   – Not all puppies are born healthy or make it all the way.

   – Not all puppies get bought, and good luck selling a year old dog, which means extra disposal expenses.

2. If you let your dog have three litters per year, then you’re not a breeder, but a puppy-mill; double-plus-ungood.

   Apart from cost, there’s also supply and demand. Maybe your breed is in high demand.

3. Not all dog breeds have heat cycles multiple times a year. Larger breeds can often only have 1 a year. Just because a dog can have multiple litters per year, doesn’t mean they should or that it’s healthy.

   Every time a dog has a litter of puppies, the more risks and complications can occur. Some breeds like bulldogs require IVF-like assistance for getting pregnant and can require C-sections for birth.

   A good breeder will also do genetic testing before breeding a pair of dogs and also do testing on puppies before they are sold to ensure the health of the puppy and the breed.

   Things like dog food, vet visits, insurance, and other fees are also pretty expensive.

   Anyone who just allows a dog to have puppies as many times as possible is not a responsible breeder and should be avoided.

   What breed are you looking for? Try looking at pet-home or jmty. Often people need to rehome their animals and you can usually find purebreds. Our akita came from pet-home. We paid ¥0 for him and he’s purebred with papers.

4. 1000 万円 isn’t actually that amazing of an amount of money as a sole proprietorship. It’s not equivalent to a 1000 万 salary, if only just because of extra tax burdens and the like. Not the worst.

   Sounds like good money if you’re going to live in the countryside and then sell them in Tokyo, though. But it’s not like you can just throw it up on mercari. This isn’t Diablo, selling does take work and you gotta have a supply of people buying up those dogs (or lose a chunk of that to some middlemen)

5. 21 dogs? I am not a huge dog expert aside from one our family raised when I was a kid, but I’d imagine you’d need like at least 300 square meters of a yard to comfortably raise that amount of dogs? That amount of rent might take a good sized bite out of the 1000 yen revenue if you aren’t running it out of your inaka house.

6. Lotta puppy mills here. Stacked cages in smelly warehouses pumping out as many animals as possible and killing the excess.

   If you can find a legitimate breeder, get to know them, meet the parent dogs etc. go with that. Don’t buy from a petshop, please.

7. >Are dog breeders in Japan just earning ridiculous money to just take care of a few dogs or am I missing something?

   The cost of raising a dog here is also crazy high. Vet bills and food and just the property to raise a dog never mind multiple dogs.

   Also supply and demand, obviously there is enough demand to consume the supply at the cost given. It’s not their fault you can’t afford what you want and someone else can.

8. A delivery health girl I called once told me about her family’s puppy mill business. It was horrible. Overcrowded and shitty conditions. She saw nothing wrong with it. Then again, I’m guessing she comes from a line of people not making good life decisions.

9. Raising a full litter to 8 weeks takes a lot of time, care, and money. That’s assuming none of the litter dies and that you can fetch full price for all the litter. Even then it’s going to be nowhere near 1000 万円 especially in a country with space at a premium like Japan.