25A – What’s Next?

Existing Market
In my current market we are breeding dobermans. My brother has training experience and trains our dogs. My customers regularly ask about whether or not we offer training-most people want basic or advanced obedience and occasionally we get a customer that wants protection work. I'd like to get a boarding kennel license so I can take in customers' dogs because currently we are limited to training puppies before they are placed. This is tough because when people call and ask about trained dogs it would be a couple months before I could train one for delivery. By then they tend to have moved on. When I've trained dogs before they're ordered in the past I've always ended up keeping the dog longer than is ideal by the time I place them.

I always get approached by people that have seen my male and by customers asking if I'll train their dog. The customers I talked to about this both think it's a good idea. One customer in NY thinks it's such a good idea he wants to move here when he retires and start a kennel to breed, board, and train. It was unclear whether he wanted to do it with us or on his own. I didn't ask because I assume if he wants to partner up with me he'll tell me because we talk on the phone a couple times a month. If we do decide to go in that direction it will most likely be in a year or two due to the economic uncertainty-while they say the pet industry is recession proof, pet services such as boarding declines sharply during economic downturns. While I am not interested in just boarding a customer that used to be in the business told me that boarding covering expenses enables training income to be mostly profit.

New Market
I've considered expanding to shepherds or rottweilers because dobermans, shepherds, and rottweilers are the 3 breeds Jack Healy bred and trained at his USK9 facility. I believe jack did this because the working breed market is pretty much split up between the 3 depending on customer preference. I have mixed feelings about this however because I chose to get involved with dobermans because they are the breed I prefer. Although we have been lucky to generate revenue doing what we love with our favorite breed, I'm not sure I'd have the same passion if I did another.

Customers I've talked to in the past have not really been into this idea. I think in this case asking doberman customers about another breed is probably not the best way to measure because they are likely to be biased. One customer thinks I should breed shepherds because coincidentally her and her husband have a ddr shepherd. While they are the 2nd most popular breed and my business model would be successful with them or rottweilers due to the long list of health problems common in both, I don't think I will go this route for a couple reasons: One, I think part of the reason we've been so successful with dobermans is the passion we all have for the breed. To do another breed, it would feel like we were in it for the wrong reasons. Two, every penny that I invested venturing in another direction would be resources my dobermans would be missing out on. 

For those reasons I think I will explore expanding my current market once we get through this economic uncertainty.