Questions to ask and things to look at when you go to visit a dog breeder/pick a puppy.

[Slubberdegullion]

I'm currently on the search for a lab puppy. I've done a fair amount of research on the 'bare bones' questions I need to ask the breeder (Health checks, worming, KC registration, socialisation, age of dam/no of litters etc) all that kind of stuff which has been great in helping me to decide whether to go and look at a litter at all or give it a wide birth.

I have a visit planned tomorrow to see an accredited breeder who not only ticks all the boxes but sounded lovely and gave me a proper grilling too (which I know is a good sign). She has two bitches who are due in 2 and 4 weeks respectively.

So what else do I look at and ask? Can I just say 'what are their temperaments like?' and expect a response above 'they are lovely'.

And when the puppies arrive and I can go and choose form 3 weeks (is it from 3 weeks?), well how on earth do you choose between one small little bundle of yumptiousness and the next one?

I am in serious overthink mode atm

Hi Bella,
the ones who died were Irish Terriers. My son has lost his heart to them, but I am now thinking about a rescue dog.
Do you have any advice re books to get for training? I have been reading your opinions on dominance etc. At the moment I am confused!

It isn't just my opinion re dominance - the whole idea has been disproven for many years but unfortunately it still makes good tv and sells lots of books Dogs can be dominant over each other - dominance is a relative term - but they do not have a rigidly fixed hierarchy and the idea that any undesirable behaviour is down to the dog attempting to 'dominate' the owner is bonkers, quite frankly. Attempting to remedy that by rank reduction techniques can actually be very harmful.

Thankfully there has been a huge shift towards positive, reward-based training (like the clicker training which Minimu is an expert in) and 2 very good books are Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson and Don't Shoot The Dog by Karen Pryor. Steer well clear of Jan Fennell and Cesar Millan.

Enough of my soapbox

What made you choose an Irish Terrier? Do you like feisty little dogs?

Thank you so much, will order those. I downloaded the clicker thing from an old post, and could nor remember who posted that, thought it was Minimu, so thank you for that too, and thanks Minimu!

It really has been so helpful to read the opinions on the 'dog' threads. You, Valhalla, Minimu (and everyone I can't remember),very grateful.

Irish Terriers, yes I do like the feistiness! Daunting though! However I have had great difficulty finding a breeder, so am going to seriously think about rehoming. It does seem a bit self indulgent to go for a puppy when there are so many unwanted dogs.

I do feel scared though, it's such a big part of the family

Rehoming really is a safer bet than a puppy: if you get an adult dog from a really good rescue then it will have been fully assessed and you know exactly what you are getting in terms of character and temeperament. Puppies can turn out in all sorts of ways

I have a rescue dog whom I got as an adult and she is just fantastic. I used to work as a homechecker for a rescue and good rescues will work very hard to find the right dog for you.

And yes, there are so many needing homes. Not because they have 'issues' - some do, yes, but many are simply there because of marriage breakdowns, economic reasons or because people bought a puppy and didn't really know what to expect.

Anyway, do stick around - there are lots of very knowledgeable people on these boards and a few nutcases

Yes, have noticed a few!
Will come back when ready, and ask your opinion on specific rescue places if I may?

When we got our lab pup, now nearly 6 years ago, I found a breeder local to me on the KC website and went along 'to have a look' (this means return home with puppy), the lady lived on a farm and when we got there the puppies mum just plodded over had a sniff and plodded away again. There were 5 puupies only 2 were leftto take I think and the one we picked was sleeping, in fact she slept the whole time didn't wake up once.

When I mentioned that we hadn't seen her awake the lady just said well come back tomorrow she may be awake then and you can make up your mind.
I really liked the fact that there was no 'hard sell' adn she didn't say well, if you don't take her someone else is coming to see her....

Also, she had kids around 6 and 8 years old and while we were there they were picking the puppies up and cuddling them which I loved as I had the dd's who were 3 and 4 at the time and I thought that was great as the pups would be used to kids.
And they were running ina nd out of the house so they were sort of house dogs rather than farm 'working' dogs.

She also arranged to meet us at her vets where she had made an appointment for her next injections and worming (or whatever it was) which I think was a way to check up on us.

As it happens our yellow lab is the most brilliant dog her temprament is fantastic, never shown one bit of aggression towards anyone in the whole time we have had her, she is great with the kids and was great when ds came along.
Apart from the hair that falls off her, I couldn't fault her. I don't think she would win any 'best in show' prizes as she's quite fluffy for a lab but we're not showing her and she's been spayed so not breeding from her. She's just a brilliant family pet.

Anyway the point of this rather long story is that you will probably get a feel for the breeder and the puppies when you see them.
If something feels wrong, then walk away.

Thank you for that, it is all a bit daunting at the moment, but exciting too.

UndomesticHousewife, yes I know what you mean. I was getting so disheartened with the whole process having phoned loads of breeders with my list of questions only to say "thank you for your time, goodbye" at the end.

When I went to visit the first 'proper' litter I was beside myself with excitement, only to say no thank you as things still weren't right. Ditto number two.

My last visit everything was perfect and I had lots of warm glowing feelings (the cake helped I'm sure)....now I am just having to wait to see if a black little girl is born.

I second the fact that black labs are the bestest dogs in the world

Our oldest will be three in June, and she was a bargain basement puppy. Her dad and uncle live in the house that backs onto ours, and her mum lived three doors down (I say lived, as very sadly she was hit by a car and killed on her first walk after all the puppies left - such a tragedy as she was lovely). We didn't even know they'd had puppies until next door got one of her brothers and we saw him in the garden - she hadn't advertised the pups because she already had friends and family lined up waiting for the boys, and intended to keep the two girls for herself. But she could tell we'd fallen in love so let us take her home, and only charged us the princely sum of £150! She's a great dog and we've had no problems with her at all (apart from nervousness, but this emerged after our house caught fire when she was six months old, rather than any genetic issues). In comparison our expensive, fully-checked, accredited-breeder, waiting-list puppy has racked up thousands of pounds in vets bills during the last few months with elbow dysplasia

I think your answers to why you want a bitch were very good - for me, I simply couldn't handle that pink lipstick poking out at me all the time!

So sad about your dog's mum being hit by a car , and gah about your vet's bills MrsL.

I understand the hip/elbow scores aren't a guarantee of a healthy dog, but my father (the ex sheep vet ) was insistent that I asked them.

I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of the tests - or just see 'hip scored' and leave it at that, rather than asking what the score actually was! In our case the parents had great scores, and none of her littermates have been affected (all registered at the same vet) so we think it was caused by her jumping out of the car at 4 months old and landing badly (DH didn't lift her out quick enough so she decided to disembark on her own!). When she was operated on a couple of weeks ago, the vet found a fracture on the ball part of her elbow joint, which had cut off the blood supply to the surrounding bone and caused it to die. They don't know whether there was a problem with the bone in the first place to cause it to fracture so easily (she didn't jump very far) or if we were just unlucky, so it's a bit like the chicken and egg situation. But hopefully it won't reoccur!

I think you've done your research really well and at least if anything did happen in the future (touch wood it won't), you'll know you did everything possible to prevent it. It's just a pity that more people don't put as much effort into researching the puppies that they buy (says me, with the bargain puppy - but in my defence I did know both parents!).

So sorry to hear about your dog's elbows. The whole protecting them from jumping business for the first year is a bit of a tall order for a breed that naturally wants to leap about like a loon .

After being a giant nerd with all my research (and my nagging dad) I decided that I was just as concerned about ED as HD, hence saying "no thank you" to so many breeders as they had only done hips and eyes (saying that I also initially wanted one of the parents to have a clear on the optigen test but I quickly realised I might have been waiting YEARS before I even got to have a look at a puppy).

As you say, more from a peace of mind 'I did everything that I could' pov'

Hiya,

This might not be useful to you, but if other people are reading this as well, then I can really recommend a rescue charity that specialise in labradors, the Labrador Rescue Trust: www.labrador-rescue.com/

We got a great chocolate lab bitch from them 2 years ago and they were really helpful with care advice and so on. They're based in W and SW England - I think there are other similar breed-specific rescue organisations around the country.

LRT do ask that if you adopt from them, that you get the animal neutered, so as to avoid creating any more unwanted dogs.