Hello everyone. I am so pleased in having found this site. I am so impressed with the volume of information as well as the great people who offer encouragement and support. I wish to bring into my home, and family a GSD. My hopes were to become involved in schutzhund for the tremendous mental and physical benefits it provides to the dog...as well as owner! However, I must be honest...I have the financial means to support the "new addition" and am very excited about providing the best in terms of a raw diet, involvment in training and fun/exercise/close time it takes to invest. However, I cannot seem to get past the high initial purchase price. Does anyone have suggestions? I have done the research and know you get what you pay for (health guarantee etc...). I may be naive, but is there any flex in terms? Does anyone know of a good breeder that has a GSD that may not be a top competitor, or a competitor at all, but could benefit from being in a great home which encourages full potential of all its members? All help and suggestions would be appreciated.

Welcome, Linda.

You'll get lots of great advice here, from members with far more experience than me.

But my two-cents---the initial purchase price of the dog is a drop in the bucket of what you'll end up spending on the dog over his lifetime (even in just the first year!). So try to keep that in mind a bit when looking at dogs. A few hundred dollars difference between puppy A and puppy B would be negligible after the first couple of vet visits.

All that said---there are great dogs to be had that don't cost many thousands of dollars. I'm not sure what the sticker prices you've been looking at are...you might just be looking at over-priced breeders, or you may be shopping for more dog than you really need. ? I think you can find a high-quality, well-bred pup from proven healthy parents for in the neighborhood of $2 thousand, give or take.

In my opinion it goes like this with pure breed dogs..

First, you have the SPCA. You can hunt around and find a GSD from a pound, but you have no idea of what you are getting. You could be getting severe behavioral problems or improper breeding, or both. Next up is buying from a shoddy breeder, same things apply that I already mentioned. The third solution is to research, research, and do more research to find a suitable breeder. You are going to pay one way or the other. For a well bred GSD, hip guarantees, and such, yes the initial purchase price is high but you'll spend more in vet bills by going with a shoddy breeder or adopted dog many times. So my opinion is that I'd rather pay a higher initial purchase price than pay for tons of vet visits.

I found a local breeder that knows what they are doing. They import most of their sires and dams from Germany, and lineage charts are provided along with hip certifications, etc. I was just there as I'm getting my GSD tomorrow from Germany (Breeder is picking my pup up from the airport and getting her through customs) and they have a nice male looking for a good home. The website is:

http://www.gerdeshaus.com if you are interested. Good luck, and spend your time researching to find a good breeder.

Are you looking at the show lines or the working lines? In my experience the working lines are normally more reasonably priced then the show lines.

Either way find a few breeders that you think you may be able to work with and start talking to them. I have discounted pups before in order to get them in the home I wanted them in.

Please see
http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=220089
for duplicate O.P.