Your first litter in 10 minutes

This tutorial takes you all the way through the core workflow with one example litter. Follow it start to finish — every step is designed to succeed. You can delete the example data afterwards.

By the end you'll have added a breeding animal, a litter, a pup and a buyer, and created a deposit link you could send.

1. Add a dam

1. In the left menu, open Sires & Dams.
2. Click Add animal.
3. Enter a name, choose the role Dam and the species, then add a microchip number if you have one.
4. Click Save.

You'll see her profile, including a lifetime litter counter that helps you stay under your state's caps.

2. Create a litter

1. Open Litters and click Add litter.
2. Choose the state the litter is bred in — this decides which rules and deadlines apply.
3. Pick the dam you just added (and a sire if you have one).
4. Enter the mating date and, once the puppies arrive, the whelp date.
5. Click Save.

Note — The whelp date is the one that matters most: it sets your legal deadlines (like microchipping and first vaccination) and the earliest go-home date.

3. Add a pup

1. Open your new litter and click Add pup.
2. Give the pup a name or label (even "Green collar" is fine), and a sex and colour if you know them.
3. Click Save.

Open the pup to see its own page — photos, growth, status and a Generate listing button for later.

4. Add a buyer

1. Open Waitlist & Buyers and click Add buyer.
2. Enter their name and email.
3. Set a pick order if you're ranking buyers — this is private and never shown to them.
4. Click Save, then assign them to your pup.

5. Take a deposit

1. To take real deposits you first connect Stripe in Account & Settings → Payments & deposits (a one-time setup). You can skip this for the tutorial.
2. On the buyer or pup, click Create deposit link, enter an amount, and Whelpkeep generates a secure payment link.
3. When the buyer pays, the deposit lands in your Stripe account and Whelpkeep marks it Paid — which unlocks the buyer's private puppy page.

You've done it

That's the whole loop: animal → litter → pup → buyer → deposit, with records and compliance tracked alongside. From here:

• Add health records and photos — see Records & photos.
• Set up your state breeder ID — see Set up compliance.
• Generate a ready-to-post ad — see Generate a listing.