Thoughts I Had Coming Home: Frozen Assets
BY CAROLINE COILE continued
As you might imagine, the horse world is somewhat more organized when it comes to the finances of frozen semen. Ann Egan runs a USDA approved semen export center for equine semen. She kindly let me see one of the contracts they typically use. Among the main points: They require a nonrefundable stud fee at the time semen is shipped. There is no “live foal” guarantee, but if no preg- nancy results, a return service for the following season only is offered. The return service covers only semen. The semen provided is for one pregnancy. If any remaining semen is used to obtain multiple pregnancies, the female's owner is responsible for the stud fee for each pregnancy. The contract cannot be transferred to anyone else without consent of both parties. Registration papers will not be signed until all fees are paid. Egan says the provisions are the same for deceased studs, but most owners are much choosier about who gets the semen because there is a finite supply. Egan brings up an additional concern: "Sometimes peo- ple will split doses and inseminate two animals but only pay one stud fee. It can be a real problem." Contracts must make clear who the intended bitch is. Which brings us back to contracts. Egan is concerned with the lack of con- tracts in the dog world overall. "I will never breed a dog without one," she says. And I never let canine or equine clients sell semen without one. I just got a call from a breeder who shipped semen to the US from Mexico. All kinds of issues. My first question was what does your con- tract say? It's sad." Egan also admits the live foal/puppy clause can be hard for some to accept. "There's a good reason for that. You buy semen from me. If the horse gets pregnant, the mare owner has 340 days to screw it up. Same with a bitch owner. You pay for semen. I am not Mother Nature and I can't control if a female ovulates. Or how she is taken care of by her owner during pregnancy. If a female gets preg- nant, the stud has done his job. And sometimes if she does- n't the stud has still done his job...contracts just try to make the murky clear." And that is why before you ever freeze your dog's semen---you need to consider all contingencies, write them down, and try your best to make the murky clear! Contracts don't challenge friendships---they save them... n Dog Writers Association of America Hall of Fame inductee Caroline Coile, Ph.D. has written 34 books about dogs, including the top selling Barron's Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds. Caroline holds a Ph.D. in psychology/neuroscience with research interests in canine behavior, senses, genetics and neuropsychology. She has breeder-owner-handled her Baha Salukis to Best in Shows, National Specialty BOB, HITs in both agility and obedience, and Best in Fields and is a strong proponent of multi-dimensional dogs.
any of your relatives really want to pay storage fees for your dogs after you're gone? Would anybody? Would it be considered part of your estate, or even subject to inheri- tance tax? Or would it, as happened in one case, become the property of the storage facility, to be used (and sold) as they deemed? These need to be decided before you take the leap. Or, as one friend of mine is contemplating, just have a "garage sale" when you get too old to breed any- more! Stud Fees But let's say all of that is settled, and you have an inquiry! What will you charge? There are two schools of thought here. The first is that the bitch owner is paying a lot of money for a very iffy breeding. She's paying for ovu- lation timing, semen preparation, shipping, and insemina- tion. Depending on location, this will likely add up to sev- eral thousand dollars. So especially among friends, or in low population breeds where stud owners are more involved in litters, there is the tendency to say "no puppies, no charge." If you have a live stud dog, and the bitch owner has paid for all expenses, this is an option. But if you have a deceased stud, then school of thought #2 applies: You are selling an irreplaceable product. Whether puppies result or not, you have used up one breeding opportunity. If you have more than you will ever need, you may afford to be more generous, but generally, you should charge for the semen, not the pregnancy. Remember also you have expenses in initial collection and in storage for many years; I have semen from 1992, so at about $90 per year storage plus $350 collection that semen has now cost me about $1700. Let me repeat: With frozen semen, you are not selling a stud service; you are selling a product. That means that, especially when dealing internationally, you have no con- trol over that semen after you sell it. They can split it up and inseminate more than one bitch, sell it to your worst enemy, or decide to save it themselves for whatever rea- son. It's their property. This becomes especially important with international shipments. Shipping overseas is expensive, so many semen owners send enough for a second try should the first one not work. But what if the first one works? Should the bitch owner be able to sell the remainder? I don't think too many stud owners will be happy about somebody else collecting their stud fee. Should the bitch owner be forced to, or allowed to, dispose of it? What if it is rare semen from your deceased dog? If you agree to store the semen overseas, who pays the storage fee? Basically, unless you can keep an international lawyer on hand, it comes to down to a wireless handshake and both your good words. Many years ago a friend sent enough semen for many breedings over- seas, and was told it was thawed in transit. She was to receive a certain price per puppy that resulted, but there went that. Only in subsequent years that breeder had sev- eral litters that strongly resembled my friend's stud...
82 • S how S ight M agazine , S eptember 2017
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