An online search of “How much does a Cane Corso puppy cost?” produced an interesting result. According to Google, the average Cane Corso costs between $1500 and $2000. We are not exactly sure where they got their information and would argue that it can vary by location. However, we can tell you without a doubt that when it comes to the Cane Corso, for the most part, you get what you pay for. Although there are countless advertisements on craigslist and other sites and Facebook pages that support the selling of “subpar” Cane Corso puppies at discounted rates, it is a wise decision for a potential puppy buyer to do their research. All that said, we were truly surprised to find out that our prices start right where Google “said.”
Vae Victis Cane Corso is located right outside Wichita Kansas and there are countless backyard breeders in our area, unfortunately the number is growing at a rapid pace. When we say it would be easy to play the “us vs them” game and list out all the things they don’t do, it is because that is how this post initially started. We had multiple items to discuss about the wrong doings of a backyard breeder, but then realized that is not the point of this blog post. The point is to provide some insight into why a Cane Corso puppy cost what it does, or at the very least why our Cane Corso puppies cost what they do. We’ll save the dreaded backyard breeder post for later, but truthfully, our hope is to eliminate backyard breeders, even if that is unlikely to happen.
This being the first Vae Victis Cane Corso blog post, we wanted to compose a post about something that is one of, if not the first questions people ask when looking into buying a new puppy, and that is “how much do your puppies cost?” Often, a follow up question is asked, “Why do they cost so much?” The answer to how much is simple, our pups start $2000 and go up depending on the pairing. We do not adjust pricing based on color, gender, or breeding rights. In fact, color is the last thing we look at when selecting a competition or breeding prospect for our program. We would rather keep a puppy in our home, despite the added expense of allowing extra time to evaluate it. The answer to why they cost what they do, compared to a backyard breeder, which as it turns out is almost the same, is a little more complicated. The answer requires much more detail. We hope this sheds some light as to WHY they cost what they do.
Let’s get to the answer, why do we charge what we do?
It all starts with our dogs. We do our best to select the most promising and healthy prospects for our program, that can cost thousands of dollars per dog. We raise our dogs in our home with our children. If we have people over, they are greeted by us and our dogs. If we make a run to the store, more than likely at least one of our dogs accompany us. Our children help with daily chores related to the dogs, feeding, cleaning, scooping poop, and socializing. Our “prospects” are constantly being evaluated, both physically and mentally. Beyond that evaluation, we put extensive time into our dogs assuring they will contribute to the betterment of the breed. Our dogs may be two years old before we even think about breeding them. We refuse to breed a female until she has reached her third heat cycle, that could take two and a half years. But before we breed them, we health test our dogs. At minimum, we check hips, elbows and for DSRA.
Pennhip is the organization we prefer for hip evaluations, OFA for elbows, and up until recently we used Vetgen for DSRA evaluation, now we use EMBARK. Just looking at those three tests, a breeder would easily spend over $1000.
If a dog passes our health screening process, we like to compete with them, occasionally we compete with our dogs prior to health testing. All our dogs are registered with the American Kennel Club. In addition, starting in 2023 we made it a requirement for all puppies produced by Vae Victis Cane Corso to be registered with the AKC. The good news is, we pay the registration fee. It would not be unreasonable to expect to pay between $300 to $500, between registering the litter and each puppy with the AKC.
Locally, in the Wichita Kansas area we checked pricing with four other breeders, including us, for a total of five to determine the average cost of a Cane Corso puppy in our area. The breeders in the Wichita area averaged $1500 - $2500 per puppy. As expected, the prices went up by $500 - $750 if you wanted “AKC registration” or breeding rights. In an effort to protect the breed from over-population and protect the reputation of Vae Victis Cane Corso, we do not charge more for breeding rights simply because we believe not all dogs SHOULD be bred.
Across the country we contacted two breeders on the West Coast. One breeder sells their pups from $3000 - $4500, another had a price set upwards of $5000. East coast prices were similar, although it was difficult to lock down an exact price. There are dozens of excellent kennels on the east and west coast, too many to name. The main issue being, getting the pup from there to here, which would inevitably add to the overall cost of a puppy.
Importing a dog is a whole different ball game. Currently, Vae Victis Cane Corso has three imported dogs in our program, and one dog that comes from Eastern Europe, but his mother was imported to this country after she was impregnated. When you import a dog from a foreign country, you’ve now got to account for transport fees as well as broker fees. (More on that in a later blog post.)
We’ll use Bugatti, our first delve into the world of importing dogs, as an example. We purchased Bugatti from her breeder in Sicily for around 2500 Euros. We paid approximately 2200 Euros more to have her flown here. About a week or two before she was scheduled to arrive, we found out we “needed” a broker, that cost approximately $350 USD more. But wait, there is more. The closest international airport we could have her sent to was in Houston Texas. So, add several more hundred in hotels, food, and fuel. And then there is the airline handling fee that no-one tells you about until you arrive at the airline to pick up your dog, that was another $150 if memory serves me correctly.
For us to purchase Bugatti and get her into our home it cost us over $5000. But it does not stop there, we registered Bugatti with the AKC, UKC and IABCA, that was an additional few hundred dollars. We also entered Bugatti in several conformation shows, she even earned her International Title. She earned a BCAT through AKC and was ranked the third fastest Cane Corso in The United States in 2022. Currently, as of August 2023, Bugatti is ranked 5th fastest Cane Corso after only running 4 times this year. The “topping on the cake” is that a few months ago, we had Bugatti’s hips evaluated by Pennhip, they are terrible. After all the money and time, we invested in Bugatti, she will not be bred. We made her breeder aware of her test results, even sent him the x-rays. She will not be replaced, no health guarantee will be honored, the monetary investment in Bugatti will bring us no return. It’s a risk we took, and we learned from it.
One might think, “they are dogs, let them have their pups, nature will take care of them.” The truth is that there are countless things that could go wrong. Your dog needs an emergency C-section in the middle of the night, on a holiday weekend? (Because that’s when things will go wrong, ask how we know). You are looking at several thousand for that C-section. Don’t forget about your pregnancy sonogram or X-ray to get an accurate puppy count, that’ll be a few hundred. Add in hundreds in routine care, for each dog…
We haven’t even gotten into the cost to compete with your dog. You’re looking at hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in cost, just to earn your title. Now if you want to enter competition from another kennel club, you are once again looking at registration fees and show entry fees. Currently, our dogs compete in the AKC, UKC and IABCA.
Let us not forget about the intangibles. Those things that don’t cost money, that you can't even begin to describe, such as everything going wrong. You lose a pup; you lose several pups during their birth. Or even worse, your female dies. There is no exchange rate for heartbreak into dollars.
But what if you don’t even make it that far? That part I mentioned about our dogs being a part of our family, here is where that comes into play. Our family bonds with each of our dogs. The disappointment of a dog we have built a bond with failing health tests is indescribable. Many breeders would simply remove the dog from their breeding program and send the dog off to live with whoever wanted a dog at a discounted rate, with the knowledge that it will have health problems for the rest of its life. However, for us that is simply not an option. As we mentioned, our dogs are part of our family and that means
they stay with us for life. Those dogs will not contribute to the program, they will be pets. And at the end of the day, that is 100% ok with us, because we did not get into this to “make a quick buck.”
So here we are, full circle: “Why do they cost so much?” The answer as it turns out is quite simple. The puppies bred by a reputable breeder such as Vae Victis cane Corso cost what they do because the kennel owners spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on health tests, hundreds if not thousands in show entry fees, and possibly thousands of dollars just to import a dog. They also provide high quality food and veterinary care for their dogs. They will gladly take a dog back rather than allow it to go to an animal shelter. All the while knowing, some of their prospects may fail their health tests and be eliminated from their breeding program. With all this in mind, a reputable breeder will also provide their clients with a defined and specific health guarantee, anything less than two years should be unacceptable. As a rule of thumb, if a puppy has health issues covered by the health guarantee, the reputable breeder will provide you with another puppy, at no cost to YOU and even allow you to keep the first puppy, we will. Again, another loss a reputable breeder is willing to cover.
When you go with a reputable/responsible you are getting a quality puppy from health tested parents, that more than likely have earned their own conformation titles, they come from true champion bloodlines and have solid temperaments. You are getting a health guarantee, that should last a minimum of two years. You should also be gaining friendship and lifetime support for you and your puppy.
It is ironic, that while composing this blog post we discovered our health tested, titled, and guaranteed puppies, cost just about the same as non-health tested, non-titled and non-guaranteed puppies…
In future blog posts, we hope to continue to cover topics that affect our day-to-day life as a Cane Corso kennel located in the Midwest and go into detail about our experiences dealing with “dog people” and the Cane Corso. Our true goal is to supply our clients with a healthy, stable dog that will give our clients years and years of companionship.