This FAQ page is for those inquiring families with questions concerning the purchase of a SunChime Skyes dachshund puppy.
1. Prices
Currently our puppy prices are between $1500 and $3500, not including shipping. A lot of factors go into our prices, starting at the purchase of future parents, showing them, raising them to the appropriate ages to be health tested and bred, to costs for our litters’ vet care, puppy packs, paperwork, lifelong support and many other costs, including inflation. However, our prices do fluctuate down as well.
2. Non-Refundable Deposits
Sometimes we have higher costs, due to outside influences on our program costs, and sometimes we have lower costs. If you place a deposit towards the future (All deposits are $500) during a high price time, you will get the new price if it lowers. If you place a deposit towards the future during a low price time, you lock in that price, so even in the future, when costs are hirer, you get the price you placed a deposit at.
3. Refund Policy and Waitlist
A deposit guarantees your spot in our waitlist. Each litter we go through our list in order. If you place a deposit and end up as #10 in litter A, and there are only five puppies born, you may make the choice to transfer to a future litter, B, or perhaps a litter from a specific Mama, before anyone else, for any reason, you become #1 in litter B etc. Deposits are transferable to future litters indefinitely. However, we have a “No Refunds” policy. Placing a deposit guarantees our time will not be wasted sending updates, with no intention to commit. For cute pics follow our Instagram @SunChimeSkyes.
Again, our deposits are non-refundable, set at $500 and are applied towards the full purchase price at time of pick-up. Our deposits are non-refundable because they are a guarantee that the purchaser is committed, a puppy is a life long commitment!
If you’d like to move forward with our deposit process please read our Purchase Agreement and our Puppy Application, both of which will need to be filled out prior to deposit acceptance. We are very particular who our puppies go home with, and we consider everyone who has one of our puppies a part of our family, so we would like to get to know you as much as possible.
4. Accepted Forms of Payment
For the Non-Refundable Deposit we accept personal checks, Paypal, Venmo, Apple Pay, and Cash. It is easier to use the digital options, since we do not allow anyone on the premises until the puppies are four weeks old, for our puppies' safety. However, we still accept cash because some families like to wait until after they can visit to place a deposit. We can't guarantee puppies will be available after four weeks of age, since we accept deposits for future litters.
For the rest of the payment price, we accept cash, and money orders from the Post Office, Bank and Grocery Store.
All puppies must be paid in full by 8 weeks of age, or by the age at which we send them home (sometimes we keep promising puppies or litters until 12 weeks so that we have a better idea of breeding quality prospects for our program). If a puppy is not paid in full by 8 weeks of age (etc), the deposit is forfeited and the puppy will be listed for sale again unless other plans have been made (just communicate with us, we aren't a corporation, we are real people who understand! You can always ask to be transferred to a later litter too!)
We usually send puppies home between 8 and 12 weeks, but never before 8 weeks, as it can be detrimental to their mental and social growth. If a family needs a puppy to stay a little longer than 8 weeks, we charge $25 per week up to *12 weeks. We MUST be notified before 6 weeks so that we can make arrangements.
*If we are keeping puppies for a longer period due to our own concerns or purposes, we do not charge for the extra weeks, and we also include further training in basic commands and potty training, as well as extra vet care if necessary, free of charge.
5. How do I know you are a legitimate breeder?
The price of our puppies is, honestly, a lot of money. We don’t down play how important it is that we are ethical people, not just ethical breeders. We have references from the 50+ puppy families we have acquired over the last decade. We welcome families to come see their puppies after 4 weeks of age. We have a legal contract to protect both our program and our puppy buyers, because we care about where our puppies are going, and we care about the families who adopt them.
Personally, we’ve never had a negative experience when finding homes for our babies, however, we have heard horror stories about families backing out, families canceling their Paypal payments after obtaining the puppy, horror stories about "breeders" (scammers) lying about even having puppies, and scammers using stolen images from real breeders.
We can proudly proclaim we are not one of those people, and we do not send our puppies to families we have not thoroughly checked. Our dogs are our lives, they are our babies and sending them to new families is a big, stressful time for us, because bad things can and do happen. But that is why we are so open and up front with our families. We are here to be honest, ethical, responsible, and to provide amazing, healthy, sweet puppies.