| WYSIWYG Welsh Terriers Acquiring a Wysiwyg Welsh Terrier |
| We welcome your interest in WYSIWYG Welsh terriers. We hope this information will answer some of your questions about why and how we breed, what we expect of our puppy buyers, and more. If you are interested in acquiring a Welsh terrier from us, please read each section carefully. Then feel free to e-mail or call us with any questions you might have. If you are just beginning your search for a canine member of your family and your heart is not yet set on a Welsh terrier, your local shelters are full of wonderful puppies and dogs, purebred and mixed breed, waiting for homes. We believe that these dogs are much better pet prospects than the overpriced purebreds in pet shops which are produced by cash crop volume breeders. Consider adopting a shelter dog. In St. Louis, we recommend the Humane Society of Missouri. |
| FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Q. Do you have any puppies available? A. Only occasionally, and when we do have puppies most of them will go to homes that are already on our waiting list. Q. How much do your puppies cost? A. We sell them for $1200.00, and new owners have an opportunity to earn $500.00 back by training their dog in specific ways. Q. We just want a pet – how much do you charge for a pet? A. All of our puppies are priced the same. Q. Will we be able to see the litter ourselves so that we can pick one that is not too shy? A. You may see the litter (and in most cases both parents), however we reserve the right to select a puppy for you. You will find that we select our breeding stock and raise our puppies with such care that you are unlikely to find one that is shy. MORE Information: Why we reserve the right to choose a puppy for you and below "How We Match Puppies to Homes." Q. I have a male and I am looking for a female to breed to him. May I be on the waiting list for a female only? A. Our puppies are intended for pet homes, not as breeding stock. All of our puppies are spayed or neutered before going to their new homes. Q. I am interested in a show dog, so I would not want my puppy spayed or neutered. Can that be arranged? A. As wonderful as we think our puppies are, we have not reached the point where they are all show quality! We usually keep the “pick of the litter.” By special contract we would consider co-owning a puppy if the new owner was interested in showing in AKC conformation events. Then, if the pup grew up to be a better specimen than either of its parents, we would cooperate in any future breeding decisions. Q. How can I find out more about your policies and procedures for acquiring a Wysiwyg Welsh terrier? A. Read all the topics below! Steps for Prospective Owners While You Are Waiting How We Raise Our Puppies How We Match Puppies to Homes When We Have a Puppy for You Training Refunds (or Can We Really Earn Some Money Back?!) Our Goals (or Why We Do It This Way) What You Get With a Wysiwyg Welsh Terrier |
| STEPS FOR PROSPECTIVE OWNERS Step 1. Read all of our information. Contact us if you have questions that this material did not answer. We will be happy to clarify anything! Step 2. Arrange for a visit. Come meet our dogs and make sure you like them. Come meet us and make sure you have all your questions answered. Decide whether you would like to have a Wysiwyg Welsh terrier join your family. Step 3. Complete and return an Application for Prospective Owners. We will read it over carefully and contact you with any questions. If your application is accepted, we will add you to the waiting list for the next litter of puppies and let you know approximately when that litter is expected. If your application is not accepted, we will let you know. Step 4. Wait, wait, and wait! If you are on the waiting list, we will let you know when the next litter arrives. Until then, we are happy to have you keep in touch with us and follow our dog activities. If your plans change and you no longer wish to be on the waiting list, please let us know. |
| HOW WE RAISE OUR PUPPIES After WYSIWYG puppies are born, we evaluate them daily for individual physical and behavioral characteristics. Our puppies are conditioned from the day they are born to become well-adjusted pets. This process starts with providing each tiny puppy with special handling, which has been proven to improve their responses to training by humans as adult dogs. The puppies are kept with their mother until at least seven weeks of age to benefit from her lessons in canine social behavior. They are provided with separate sleeping and playing areas in their pen, so that they begin to discriminate as young as 4-5 weeks between areas to sleep in and areas to eliminate in -- the beginnings of housetraining. There is a wide range of inborn personalities in each litter of puppies. At seven weeks of age, each puppy is given a formal temperament test to help us decide what types of homes will best suit them. This test also provides information, which helps us work out specific training strategies for each puppy, which we pass along to each new owner. From this point until the puppies begin to go to their new homes at approximately sixteen weeks of age, WYSIWYG Welsh terrier puppies are all given important training and conditioning. Puppies are started on paper-training and housebreaking. They begin to learn to wait at doorways until invited through, instead of rushing ahead. They learn to sleep at night in dog crates, and to rest quietly in crates for short periods during the day. They are introduced to walking on leash. They begin to learn the commands "sit," "stay," "come," and "down." Usually, puppies are started in puppy training classes for socialization as well as training. Most importantly of all, we teach our puppies to inhibit their bite when mouthing humans, an essential skill that must be learned early in puppyhood if it is going to be learned at all. Wysiwyg puppies are exposed to a variety of surfaces, toys, textures and obstacles from a very young age, in order to give them a variety of early learning experiences. They ride in cars (confined in crates for safety). They play outside on grass, weather permitting. They begin to go up and down a few steps. We rotate puppies in pairs to our different houses, where they become socialized with children, bigger dogs, and cats, as well as learning the valuable lesson that they can safely go to new places without their mother or all of their littermates. They are placed on a grooming table and learn to be handled all over while being gently groomed. |
| WHILE YOU ARE WAITING We do not breed often. You could wait a year or more for a litter to be born. From experience, we can tell you that timing is quite unpredictable! Also, problems may arise and we may end up without any puppies. Or there may be a small litter and not enough for everyone on the waiting list. Therefore, we encourage you to keep looking at other possible sources for your new puppy. Possibilities include: * Putting your name on waiting lists with several good breeders * Adopting a rescue Welsh terrier through WTCARES (the Welsh Terrier Club of America Rescue Service) * Considering other dog breeds * Visiting your local shelter where many wonderful puppies await homes. After the next litter of puppies is born, you will be invited to visit them. Remember, we match each puppy to the individual home we feel best suits that puppy's personality and needs, so don't get your heart set on one particular puppy! In fact, we do not guarantee that we can provide you with a puppy from any particular litter. After visiting, be prepared to wait as we go through the process of raising the puppies! |
| HOW WE MATCH PUPPIES TO HOMES As the puppies grow and their personalities are revealed through formal temperament testing and close observation, we review our applications to determine the characteristics of the homes available. We talk again with the prospective families and select a home for each puppy that offers an environment closest to that which we believe will be ideal for that individual. All things being equal, we select the home that has been on the waiting list the longest. The first pups to go to their new homes will be those who we will not be including in our breeding program. We make these decisions when the puppies are approximately sixteen weeks of age. We will notify you as soon as we believe we have a puppy suited to your home. If we do select you as the home for one of the puppies, we will give you a book to read about puppy-raising, and all the time you need to purchase equipment and prepare your home for the new arrival. |
| WHEN WE HAVE A PUPPY FOR YOU When you come to pick up your puppy, you will read and sign an individualized agreement and pay for the puppy. The regular price of any WYSIWYG Welsh Terrier is $1200. This cost is at the low end of the usual prices charged by reputable Welsh terrier breeders. And new owners of WYSIWYG puppies have the opportunity to earn up to $500 back by training the pup in specific ways within eight weeks after the time the puppy joins your household. Note: If you feel you would be an excellent home for a WYSIWYG Welsh Terrier but financial concerns would make that impossible for you, please discuss your individual situation with us. We do not produce many litters, and when we do breed a litter, our goal is to breed top quality Welsh terriers, not to make money. A great deal of planning and money go into each litter with the hope of producing even finer dogs in each new generation. Our puppy-raising and placement process does not allow us to do any more than break even financially. This is a labor of love for us. Therefore, we are very careful to do our best to evaluate each individual puppy we produce and place it in the home that we feel is the best match for its personality and needs. Take your new puppy to your veterinarian for a checkup within 48 hours. Immediately notify us if the veterinarian is not completely satisfied with the health of the puppy. Then, raise your puppy with love and care. Continue the training that has been started. Begin training of your own. We expect all new puppy owners to do their best to explain to their puppies, in a way that the puppies can understand, exactly when and where they are allowed to urinate, defecate, bite, bark, chew, dig, run, jump and do everything else that normal healthy puppies do. Puppies need to do these things. As a new owner, your job will be to teach your puppy when and where you want it to do them. If you want or need guidance in teaching these things, we are always happy to help. At the beginning of your relationship with your puppy, and throughout its life, if any communication problems between human and dog occur please contact us for assistance. It is our experience that Welsh terriers learn best when positive training methods are used, lots of praise and encouragement is given, and reasonable limits are set for the dog and maintained by all members of the family. Bring the puppy back after eight weeks to earn your training refund. HAVE FUN WITH YOUR WYSIWYG WELSH TERRIER! Let us know about any special achievements or adventures. Make appointments with us for grooming. Inform us of any health problems that may arise, even in old age. If, at any time the owner of a dog of our breeding is no longer able to keep a WYSIWYG dog for any reason, we require that the dog be returned to us. We will provide the dog with an interim home until the right new one can be found. |
| TRAINING REFUNDS (OR CAN WE REALLY EARN SOME MONEY BACK?!) Learning certain behaviors early in its life can make your puppy an easy dog to live with and a wonderful companion to enjoy. For this reason, we encourage new owners to train these behaviors and offer money back for each training success up to $500 -- half the purchase price of your puppy! Here's how this works. We assign five specific behaviors to be trained by each new owner. Individual assignments depend on the age and temperament of the puppy, previous training already provided (especially if this is an older dog rather than a young puppy), and training we feel this particular puppy or dog needs in order to work best in its new home. We will show you how to teach these behaviors. Eight weeks after the puppy or dog goes to its new home, its new owner makes an appointment to bring the pup back to us, to demonstrate its training. The owner will earn $100 for each behavior performed successfully. We want you to succeed! You can call us for help during the eight weeks if you are having any problems with the training. Our hope is that you will not only find it easy to train these behaviors to the puppy, but that you will enjoy the process enough to want to do more training on your own! Each family is given different training assignments based on the needs of the individual puppy and the circumstances in the new home. Some examples of behaviors we have assigned in the past are: 1) The new owner walks the dog up and down the sidewalk for a period of up to two minutes without the dog pulling on the leash. A one-minute practice will be allowed before the test begins. Occasional tightening of the leash is permitted, as are giving the puppy one or two treats, but the owner is expected to use voice and body language to keep the dog with him. The leash cannot tighten repeatedly during the exercise. 2) The new owner tells the dog to lie down and stay, and it does not move from that position for 5 minutes. The owner may provide occasional praise, pats or treats. Three tries will be allowed if needed. 3) All members of the new owner’s family can play actively, even wildly with the puppy, but can interrupt this play three times with a command to sit, and the dog stops and sits. The sit command may be repeated twice if the dog does not respond on the first command. 4) All members of the new family’s immediate household demonstrate that they are able to call the dog back and forth in the back yard, with the dog completely approaching each member of the family and allowing that member to grasp its collar. The dog will be wearing a collar but not a leash. Each person must call at least twice. Every family member must be able to control the dog in this way. 5) The new owner shows proof of completion of a training class (usually a 5-, 6-, or 8-week session of weekly classes). A photocopy of a certificate from any established training facility will serve as proof. 6) The new owner demonstrates that the dog will touch its nose to the end of a stick on command. This is called "targeting," and should be taught by first teaching the dog to associate a sound with a treat. Then the sound and treat are given when the dog happens to touch the end of a stick with its nose. At that point, a command is introduced to let the dog know that now is the time to touch the stick and get a reward. The end result is: owner gives command, dog touches stick, owner makes sound associated with treat, owner gives treat. This targeting behavior is a wonderful starting point for training many commands and tricks. 7) All members of the new family’s immediate household demonstrate that they are able to grab suddenly for the dog’s collar and hold onto it, and that the dog will accept this action without shyness or resentment. Each individual may have up to three tries. The dog is not to shy away, duck, cringe, growl, whine, or bark. |
| OUR GOALS (OR WHY WE DO IT THIS WAY!) As breeders, we believe that bringing more dogs into the world when so many cannot find homes is a major responsibility and commitment. It is very important to us that each puppy we keep has the potential of improving our breeding program, and that each puppy we sell will lead a long, healthy life as a member of a loving household. Our dogs compete in shows and performance events, but they are also house pets and part of the family. Since we expect the puppies we sell to be beloved house pets as well, temperament is our top priority as breeders. A dog with a poor temperament is no good as a show dog and a disaster as a pet! While our dogs will be terriers, not sporting dogs or herding dogs, we expect to produce only Welsh terriers with stable, appropriate terrier temperaments. We follow the above procedures in order to set everyone up for success. We want the transition from breeder to new owner to be smooth for the dog. We want the new owner to be well prepared to guide the dog toward becoming a well-mannered pet. And we want the relationship to last a canine lifetime! We welcome applications from admirers of Welsh terriers who have similar goals. |
| WHAT YOU RECEIVE WITH A WYSIWYG WELSH TERRIER A puppy that has been carefully bred and raised and selected especially for you. A healthy, normal puppy, with all vaccinations appropriate to its age. A pet that has already been spayed or neutered. The following materials to get off to a good start with your puppy: Puppy raising manual Health and shot record Growth chart Pedigree AKC registration papers Collar A bag of puppy food that the puppy is used to eating Advice regarding diet, training, management, grooming, parasite control, etc. Grooming - we will groom each puppy by appointment at no charge until its first birthday. This is not only a service for the new owners, but also an opportunity for us to evaluate the breeding as the puppies grow. Advice and encouragement - as much as we can give to anyone interested in participating in any type of training or performance events. Please take advantage of our years of experience with Welsh terriers! Ongoing support - we will be available to answer questions and provide advice throughout the life of every WYSIWYG Welsh terrier. |
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| Puppies Taly, Gryf and Moose - four months old. |
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