Buying a Puppy

Steps to becoming a LaTierra Vizsla Owner.

1. Thank You for your interest in LaTierra Vizslas. We strive to provide healthy and beautiful companions and show dogs.
2. Getting Started 
   • Do Your Research – If you haven’t already, be sure to check out information about the breed via our recommended vizsla information links.
     • A good short description of what to expect with a vizsla
     • The AKC site’s description of the breed
     • Vizslaforums.com a great place to learn from others’ experiences
     • A great description of puppy raising from Szizlin Vizslas
     • If you’re a first time buyer, it can help to read Puppy Buyer Etiquette to get a better idea of how breeders think.
   • Meet the Breed – If you haven’t met or been around a vizsla up close and personally, we suggest you attend your local dog show, or contact your local vizsla club. AKC has a searchable database to help you.
3. Learn About Our Vizslas – Read more about our breeding philosophy and our specific dogs.
   • Health – We breed for health first, then for show quality dogs. Provided you follow guidelines for good puppy health, we’ll guarantee your puppy free from genetic defects for 2 years. To read more about specifics, please go to the contracts page.
   • Doggie Well-being – It’s nothing personal, but we put the well-being of the dog first; We are just crazy about vizslas, but they aren’t for everyone. When you fill out an application for a puppy, we look for signs that you’ve prepared to take on this active breed. For example:
     • It helps if you’ve already owned or currently own vizslas; vizslas are a joy but can be challenging for some people
     • It helps if you have a 6 foot fence in place with space for the dog to play. Feel free to send us pictures. Vizslas are monkeys with prey drive at about 3 months, and will climb a fence. We don’t want a dog vs. car accident.
     • It helps if you have a job/lifestyle where you can take the dog out for two hours a day rain or shine and won’t leave it alone for hours at a time, or are planning to pay for doggie daycare.
     • It helps if you understand the importance of crate training and have picked out a place for puppy kindergarten/bird dog training so your dog gets proper manners/activity; Vizslas are incredibly smart, but will get bored and destructive without boundaries.
     • It helps if you can fit a new active puppy into your life, e.g. no major changes/family additions on the horizon
     • It helps if you like a vizsla’s “velcro” nature and have room in your house for a dog that won’t be happy being ignored.
4. Read the Fine Print – Review our puppy contracts for both show and pet quality puppies.
5. Ask Questions – Feel free to email us and ask questions. If you like …
6. Fill out the Application – We take applications even if there are no current litters. You can find more about planned litters under the Puppies menu. The application for puppy ownership is an online form.
7. Make a Deposit – If you are serious about getting a LaTierra Vizsla, read the deposit agreement and put down a deposit. This will ‘hold’ the next available puppy that is appropriate for your household. Deposits are refundable should something go wrong and we can’t provide you a puppy.  Deposits are half the total cost of the pup.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Do you ship puppies?
Currently, the USDA requires breeders with more than 4 intact females (either through ownership or co-ownership) and a professional listing (either in a breed club or website) to ship only if they obtain a license and get an inspection. We currently don’t fall under this rule, but we prefer to meet puppy owners in person. We’ve had great success with owners and we want to continue that trend. Puppies tend to be too big to go under the seat of a plane after 9 weeks, and are definitely too small to ship cargo until about 4 months old. Also, when weather is too hot or cold we won’t ship puppies in cargo or any dogs for that matter, so logistics and planning ahead are important. If local, you’ll be able to visit the puppies if you pre-arrange a visit. If you’re out of state, once we’ve gotten a deposit and we’ve evaluated our puppies for best matches, you’ll be welcome meet our V-family and bond with your puppy before driving or flying out.

2. Do you currently have puppies/older dogs?
We breed less than once a year and therefore have infrequent litters which (hopefully) have screened and vetted potential owners already lined up. We do take extra applications because it is very likely that genders/personality won’t align exactly. There are already many unwanted dogs in the world, so we try to contribute to the breed standard by placing high quality show puppies, keeping a puppy or two every few years to maintain our breeding lines, and also carefully making sure our puppies are placed with responsible, loving pet owners. When we plan to breed we will announce our litters via the Litters page and you’ll be able to follow the pregnancy and litter’s progress.
Because Vizslas are very social, and closely bond with owners, we tend to not keep puppies until they are older unless a pre-selected owner doesn’t work out, or weather hasn’t permitted safe puppy transportation. If you are interested in an older dog, we highly recommend your local Vizsla breed rescue. Vizslas are special, wonderful and challenging and many new owners have become overwhelmed and give the dog up to rescue. Our contracts state we have the right to first refusal, meaning we get our dogs back should the dog not be working out for whatever reason, but there are plenty of perfectly nice, perfectly healthy dogs in rescue that will be wonderful pets and companions.

3. What are your prices? Why are they so expensive/inexpensive? etc.
Pricing is a controversial issue for hobby breeders. Because we breed so infrequently, the cost of each litter is relatively high. Showing each dog to a championship requires the dog traveling with a handler for several weekends plus training, boarding and care. Shipping or driving the dam to the sire, stud fees, supplies, vet bills, oxygen monitoring during the birth, food, etc. It adds up. But, we’re not breeding to make money, we’re breeding for health and to improve our lines and improve the overall breed standard. That said, we want our puppies to be adopted to households that can reasonably afford the cost of a new puppy: training classes, food, your iPod being chewed. We estimate this is $1400 – $3000 the first year barring no disasters. Puppy prices are set in the low end of this range. This is well below the actual cost of each puppy and low enough for responsible homes to afford, but high enough to make sure that whim buyers are dissuaded. We tend to watch pricing of other high quality (champions with champion lines) puppies and set them so we’re relatively in line with other responsible puppy sellers. As a result our prices aren’t set but are unlikely to fluctuate too much, and are litter/current market dependent.