I want a harlequin; I’m willing to wait…
Great! So are we. We never put a timeline on how long you can “wait” with us for a puppy.
But if you aren’t open to your best match based on coat color, we cannot accept a deposit from you.
Whenever a litter has the possibility of producing harlequin, there’s a 50/50 chance that each puppy will be harlequin. The risk of the puppy not being show quality is increased with the additional risk of residual white on their chest or markings being unevenly distributed. For a program interested in producing successful show dogs, choosing harlequin pairings is actually a detriment based solely on statistics, but worth it if the match is right!
When building our wait list for these rare (for us) litters, we still can’t guarantee the number of harlequins that will be produced. There may be zero and that could mean half of our list is left disappointed. When building our deposit list, we have a better idea simply based on the number of harlequins, but, even then, we still don’t know about the personality matches. Then when making placement decisions, we are further restricted on making best fit personality matches solely based on coat color.
If we allow people on our lists to eliminate matches based on coat color, we increase the possibility of not being able to properly match all of our puppies at 8 weeks of age.
Harlequin litters are riskier for our goals and harder logistically to manage.
To counteract this, we are no longer taking deposits from any homes that are not open to either color. If after evaluations and placement decisions are made (7-8 weeks of age) there are harlequin puppies available, we will review our current open applications as a priority for placement. If still no match persists, then we will advertise the puppy as available and accept additional applications.
Just to reiterate – we’re happy to wait if you are! We just need to prioritize our processes to ensure every puppy finds their perfect home as smoothly as possible.
