Breeder red flags - is this right?

[Beaujangle]

We went to view a litter of labrador puppies at the weekend. Both mum and dad were there, and it was clearly the mums litter as her teats were swollen. What raised a flag with me was that mum wasn’t in the pen with the puppies, and we didn’t see them interact. In fact the breeder seemed to be pulling the mum away? She commented that mum wasn’t really bothered about the puppies now. They are 5 weeks old - would this be normal? I’m fairly confident mum wasn’t sleeping in with pups at night as they were in a barn in quite a small pen and mum was a big dog. When we left the mum followed the breeder back into her house with puppies left in the barn. Is this right?

Re the barn setup - I have a working spaniel pup who is from a nationally renowned breeder (we were on a waiting list for months) and they kennel their dogs in barns as they are all working gundogs. He was born in the barn and raised there but it was scrupulously clean and the pups get a lot of fuss and attention (they employ a lot of kennel staff) and they ensure the pups are exposed to noises of TV, vacuum etc as well as meeting children, lots of people etc. He slotted into family life really well and isn’t fazed by anything in the house. So I wouldn’t say a barn-reared pup is an automatic no, but it depends how it is done. In this case, lack of health testing is more of a red flag imo.

When I bought my old boy (currently snoring on the sofa) the house was chaos. Breeder owned both Mum and Dad and a couple of small children. It was fairly clear they lived in the kitchen from the fencing all around to attempt to contain 5 lively terriers, but the small children were making short work of that. As a result it was a blur of puppies, kids, a disinterested looking dad dog, a bitch who was just glad of the break and a breeder desperately trying to keep an eye on where pups were peeing 😂

Trust your gut.

I think if the OP was in the market for a working dog she would probably not be posting about viewing dogs not reared in a domestic setting. My last two Labs are working (and my spaniel) but all were well-socialised indoors too, by the breeders.