[MRM]

As a favor I took on a dog breeder as a client. I can fill you in on the business a bit. Most breeders insist that their dogs are spayed/neutered as a condition of selling them, so you have indeed been chosen when you received one with encouragement to breed it.

You would be classified as a hobby breeder if you had only the one dog and bred a litter at a time. You probably wouldn't have to worry about getting business licenses as a hobby breeder, but you'd want to check it out. You would want to join the AKC and any local pet breeder's club. They have invaluable information and enthusiastic members who are eager to help new members. The AKC has good resources and will have an inspection regimen to make sure you keep up their standards.

Breeding and raising a litter of puppies is much more and harder work than you can imagine. Hobby breeders do it for the love of the animals. You can make some spending money, but the money won't be enough to be your primary motivator. In my opinion the secret is having the right facilities. Puppies are chewing poop machines and anything they chew on can get stuck in their stomachs and kill them. So you have to have a place that is completely safe, can be cleaned, all indoor surfaces have to be impermeable and able to wash clean with a bleach solution. All outdoor areas need to have a surface that can be cleaned by removing the poop with enough of the topsoil that no contamination remains - like loose dirt, sand or pea gravel. They are dirt magnets, so you need to bathe them often. A good hose facility would make cleaning them a lot easier.

If you had your house set up to handle the sanitation and exercise conveniently, you could do well and make a little money and make it more enjoyable. If you are interested I would really encourage you to invest in good equipment with an eye toward work saving because it will make the experience more enjoyable and the dogs will be happier. Good luck and let us know how you get along.