talbotjem

Some really good information, Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. Thoughts now! My dogs are pets and I would certainly not breed them if there was not a demand for the pups. The dogs will live in our home and be kept seperate from the holiday guests, of course, they will be visible as they will be excersised regularly as they are in England. The property we are interested in has a fair amount of land with it should be relatively easy to keep the two concerns separate. Did I mention we have two cats as well! And Dave would love to keep chickens! (We'll put that idea on hold just yet!) We are quite near to the ports and had given some thoughts to kennelling services, but we ruled that out as we did believe there would be noise concerns. Our dogs are not big barkers. USP- We are child friendly and aim to provide an environment that will have hands on fun for the children, both ours and the guests, ie. weekly games evenings, egg painting mornings and a baby sitting service should the parents wish go for a relaxing child free meal. Any thoughts?    

Hi katie, I breed lhasa apsos, I have two girls which will have pups this year, Milly and katie. I also have two dogs which are just pets, Digby, a lhasa and Poppy, a rescue collie cross.

Hi, thanks for the advice, after reading the forums last night we realised we have a lot to learn! We don't think it is going to be easy but we are willing to take advice and adapt accordingly. The area of England we are relocating from has poor schooling for the children and an appalling crime rate- this is one of the main reasons we are coming to Normandy. We purchased a small cottage in Brittany in 2003 as a holiday retreat and are always saddened when we have to return to England as the French lifestyle is much more family orientated than the life we have in England.  At the moment we work very hard as we both run our own businesses, by running a ' hands on' business we will be able to share both the work load and spend valuable time with the family. We will keep the dog breeding and gite business separate and we believe webs sites are essential for the networking of our businesses.

We are hoping to move to the Ducey area of Normandy this summer to run a three bedded gite and two bed rooms in the main house as B&B's. As we breed dogs, obviously the animals will be a big part of our business and our advertising will reflect this. Also our USP will be that we are child friendly, having five children of our own this would be difficult to disguise! We would appreciate any comments, negative or positive, to help us with our initial set up and advertising. Are we making extra work for ourselves, do we need to be so diverse?