Piggybacking off Friday’s post about our two retiring girls, I’m thinking about the future. And you know me, I give you the whole picture and probably share too much sometimes. *insert cheesy grin*

We are getting down in the number of moms we have had in past years. As I’ve mentioned before if we keep raising Cavapoos, we have to replace moms and dads as they retire. So there are usually some youngsters growing up here getting ready to step in as others step down and move on to couch potato status 😉

With fewer moms we obviously have fewer litters and they are more spaced out, which is totally fine with me. Although sometimes it does make matching a bit trickier when people are looking for a certain color; F1 vs F1b or wanting a puppy at a certain time of the year.

The girls only cycle twice a year and if for some reason they don’t get pregnant or we skip them, then you wait another six months before that girl is eligible to be in the maternity ward again. We don’t breed a female until she had obviously passed her health clearances and is around two years of age. Then we usually retire them at around five. So there’s a short window for motherhood. The boys can be daddies longer of course. So obviously we have to plan ahead to keep going.

Right now we only have our two Cavalier youngsters growing up; Legend and Laney. Hopefully Legend will step up and replace both Dickens and Asher so they can retire. Dickens will stay here after retirement because he is older and I’m just not going to move him. Asher would be much happier going to a quieter, calmer household when he retires.

As for girls, my F1 producing moms are Shiloh, Lyric and Sasha. My F1b Cavapoo producing moms are Winter, Indy and Cami. As Porky Pig said, “That’s all folks!”

So my options are…

• A) keep raising Cavapoos with the remaining adults until they retire and then I retire.
• B) raise or buy more youngsters to raise and replace the adults when they retire and keep raising Cavapoos for many more years.

I honestly love what I do 95% of the time, but there are days when things happen and I just want to quit on the spot!

Things are different than they were a few years ago and even though we still have a substantial waiting list, it is harder to match puppies. The economy hasn’t been great and all of our costs have gone up; food, fuel, vet expenses and everything that relates to the dogs. But I also don’t want to raise my prices on everybody either.

What to do?

The wheels in my head are always turning. *wink

Leaning towards option “B” of course! Which means, to keep going we would either need to reach out to some reputable breeders to add a puppy or two to grow out or breed a litter of purebreds ourselves for future parent possibilities. I really do like the idea of raising my own because I know the history of my parent dogs already. But then I need to find homes for the “extra”purebred puppies that I wouldn’t be keeping. I just normally keep the Cavapoo waiting list and don’t have people lined up for Poodles. So if you might be interested in a purebred Poodle puppy, please reach out and let me know!

The planned Poodle breeding would likely be between Bonus and Lyric so they would be very colorful and probably on the smaller (mini) side.

Okay, now I’m getting excited about this possibility!