(frequently asked questions)
Answer: We price our puppies according to their demand. We get the most requests for our merles and puppies with blue eyes. So in general we price our Female Merles at $600. Our Male Merles at $500. Our Tri-color puppies at $350 and our Bi-color puppies at $250.
A puppy with unusual markings, blue eyes or a particular bloodline may be priced higher.
"I get asked this question alot so I thought I would give ya'll my reasons and opinion"
Answer: We usually dock the tails on half of our ACD puppies at birth because 75% of our clients will only buy a dock tailed dog for working cattle. If I don't dock the tail when their dewclaws are removed, the new owner usually has it amputated at an age that requires an expensive and painful major surgery.
Our dogs work in very harsh terrain. The dogs with tails come in with burs, fox tails, stickers, thistles, mud and wild forage attached to their tail. It is very painful to remove the mess and usually requires a complete tail shave. A local rancher emailed me and said I should note that he now docks tails because he had a cow step on his old dogs tail. The tail eventually needed to be amputated.
There are many working breeds that are born bob tailed, like the Australian Shepherd. I have never felt this or the other dock tailed herding breeds lack balance. If fact many of the highest selling dogs at the world renown Red Bluff Stock Dog Sale in California are without tails.
FYI: I have docked the tails on my Border Collies when requested for the same reason..
In summary:
We have been breeding ACD's for over 25 years. We have exported and imported working cattle dogs from South and Central America. The dogs we sell to ranches are usually spayed or neutered. We dock the tails because our buyers want docked tails. I am happy to say we have never experienced any genetic problems with our ACD's and our clients are very happy and usually repeat buyers.
I am familiar with the AKC rule about tails on the ACDs. But I believe AKC has ruined many working dogs by breeding for appearance over brains. My Border Collies are both AKC and ABCA registered. I do not register my Border pups with AKC because once a dog is named an AKC champion the ABCA will void their ABCA registration and not allow any of their offspring to ever be registered with ABCA again. I have Aussies that are AKC registered but don't register any of them with AKC either.