Dairy Star • Second Section • Saturday, March 10, 2018 • Page 7
ConƟnued from DALMATIONS | Page 3 everyday. This requires more training by the owner. “Dalmatians were fairly popular in the 1980s and ‘90s, but then [the Disney movie] ‘101 Dalmatians’ happened and it almost destroyed the breed,” Josie said. “The movie portrays them as the perfect kid dog in an apartment in the city, which is the opposite of what they need.” The Peterses currently have four adult Dalmatians: two females and two males. So far, they have already had two litters on their farm and are expecting their third in the near future. “With our rst litter of puppies, we learned there are people looking for show-type dogs. We didn’t expect that,” Wayne said. Because of that, Josie said they invested in one male that has high quality genetics. While most Dalmatians are black and white in color, there is a recessive gene that emits liver, or brown colored spots.
One of the Peters family’s females is liver colored. When puppies are born, their dew claws are taken off at 2 days old. Then Wayne and Josie are hands off until the young pups reach 3 weeks. “Unless the mom isn’t good at taking care of them. Then we might be bottle feeding pups every two to three hours every day,” Josie said. At 3 weeks, the puppies start to be dewormed on a twoweek schedule and begin vaccination protocols. At 6 weeks old, the pups visit a vet, followed by going through the hearing test at 7 weeks old. Also at 3 weeks, their pen needs to be cleaned out every day. “One of the benets of raising dogs is that [our son] John, who is almost 4, is completely hands on. The cows are so big so he’s pretty much just watching. With the puppies, he can feed, water and put new newspapers down himself,” Josie said. “He’s started to
KRISTA KUZMA/DAIRY STAR
John Peters plays with two of the DalmaƟan puppies his family is raising on their farm.
KRISTA KUZMA/DAIRY STAR
This is one of two female DalmaƟans the Peters family has on their farm. She has liver colored spots rather than black, which is a recessive gene in the breed.
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learn animal husbandry.” Josie and Wayne hope their other two children, Ruth, 2, and Oliver, 7 months, will follow suit in the future. A lot of time must also be dedicated to talking to potential buyers. The Peterses like to make sure the people buying the puppies can handle having a Dalmatian in their home. “Initially, Dalmatians are very stunning so people are excited about their looks; But we need to bring them back to reality that this is a high maintenance dog,” Josie said. They have also spent a lot of time marketing their puppies – on their business Facebook page, through a dog web-
use this business to give back to the community, especially to the re department. For each upcoming litter, the Peters family would like to donate the prots of one puppy to a local re department. In the future, they would also like to help the community in other ways, such as using the prot from one puppy to help a cancer benet or something similar. Simply put, whether the Peterses are producing milk in their herd of cows or breeding puppies, their purpose is black and white. “We want to make a difference,” Wayne said. “We want to help other people.”
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site, with advertisements in newspapers and through word of mouth. Raising dogs is one way the Peters family is diversifying their farm, not relying solely on the milk check for their income. Right now, it is a side business as Josie also works off the farm and Wayne manages the dairy. Eventually, they would like to grow the business to have about four breeding females with the potential to build a kennel with a dog grooming station. “My life would be complete by selling one of our Dalmatians to Budweiser,” Josie said as a goal. They would also like to
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