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Jul 16, 2009 10:50 pm US/Central
Good Question: How Can A Dog Be Worth $30,000?
(WCCO)
Inside the bankruptcy courtroom, we learned about the extravagant expenditures made by Denny Hecker. Among them: two German shepherds valued at $30,000 each. How can a dog be worth $30,000? Good Question.
"They must be gorgeous, or very, very well trained," e-mailed WCCO viewer Dale Reid. "What would make them worth so much?"
"It's the training. Everything involved in the effort to make the dog what he is and what he can reproduce," said Chuck Delaney, owner of Armstrong Ranch in Anoka.
Delaney and his wife Laurel I. Delaney breed and train top-shelf dogs, and have done so for decades.
"For a good dog I look for desire, brainpower, cooperation, nice personality," said Laurel I. Delaney.
"There's not a lot of people with that money to put on a dog, but there are some that do," said Chuck.
According to the Delaneys, a high price tag is a combination of training, pedigree, and demand. For example, Annabelle is an 8-year-old yellow lab, with a family pedigree that has her puppies selling for $1000 each.
"If you had to put a price on Annabelle?" asked WCCO reporter Jason DeRusha. "She's probably produced $70- to $80,000 worth of dogs in her 8 years," said Chuck Delaney.
For breeding purposes, females are worth more than male dogs. Delaney has a male lab that get a $1000 stud fee for every time he breeds, but he'd have to do that ten times to create the income from one female litter.
Dogs that win the major competitions, can get $10,000 per puppy, which adds up to 100 thousand per litter.
Chuck knows a dog that went for "half a million dollars," and he said he believes the dog was worth the money.
Well-trained guard dogs and hunting dogs can easily sell for $10,000 because of all the time and money invested in the training process.
"It's all of his qualities that you want in a labrador are there," said Chuck Delaney.
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