I want a puppy. I found a litter. Where do I start?

[MyVIsForVendetta]

I’ve owned dogs before but for the first time I want a puppy.

I have not owned a puppy before, previous have been rescues.

I have found a reputable person with both parents seen in excellent condition and ticks lots of boxes.

I will take the dog to puppy training classes and read lots of books as I did before when I got my very first dog.

There is someone home 24 hours a day.

I know I will need to toilet train it as well and I’m also aware that it’s harder than looking after a newborn for the first few months.

please can I have any further advice, any good books (it’s likely to be a Labrador)

and no judgement on the fact that I am this time choosing to go for a puppy over a rescue.

Just to give an idea - I think there were something like 100 litters on champdogs when I was looking after filtering on a fairly large geographical location. Out of those there were only 3 that met my requirements. (Some were ruled out on gut feeling or down to the way the advert was written even though they met all my other criteria).

You should not be looking at any breeder that is posting ads.
I wouldn't necessarily agree with this. Sometimes a breeder will be let down by people on the waiting list. And some very good dogs are produced by people who don't have waiting lists - new breeders, someone who has four puppies spoken for but is expecting 8, whatever. And some breeders don't put the word out until they've mated the bitch.

There are so many things to think about when getting a puppy, and you have to decide which things really matter to you, and which matter less.

I have another question.

Do puppies really need a crate?

I’ve never had a crate with previous dogs. But the youngest I’ve had was 8 months and came to me wonderfully trained already.

also

LOOK AT HER FACE!!

.

OP, I think you need to think very carefully about what you want in a dog and not rush into it. I know it's exciting, but if you move to fast and just get taken-in by cute photos you seriously run the risk of getting a dog that you are not equipped to deal with. You also run the risk of getting a dog that isn't healthy or happy or comes from a good background. I know you've said you've had dogs before, but puppies are a different beast - and how you deal/respond to a puppies quirks does impact the rest of it's life. Finding the right puppy can take weeks, or months, or for some people even years.

That bitch in the photo you have shared (the mother of the puppies) has had four litters. That's disgraceful. No one should be buying a puppy from that person - and that's why they have puppies left, because lots of people have swerved them. She had three litters within a year.

So please, take my advice, and do not rush into this.

@EdithStourton I think perhaps I missed some of the nuance in my point. An entire litter up on Pets4homes, or one of those websites, is a big red flag to me. KC? Less of an issue. But some a random breeder who is doing it for the first time, probably comes with a whole host of issues that OP would be best to avoid - if only to ensure she can get the healthiest, happiest puppy.

@LandSharksAnonymous I look at it in the round. The best dog we've ever had came from an ad on Pets4Homes. I did a lot of due diligence, and the breeder wanted to know a LOT about us. But yes, if you're new to the process, and don't know really what you want or what to look for, you're probably better off with a cautious, established breeder who will vet you well before the litter is due.

And whatever anyone does, don't pull the trick my SIL did and get your puppy from the back of a van after meeting the 'breeder' at a motorway service station...

Reads like a puppy farm 😬 Possibly even kept in kennels so pups not raised in the home. I wouldn't get a puppy from here if that were the case

That website screams out puppy farm to me … and I don’t believe those health scores are genuine either. You need to find a breeder who Breeds for show or working, good health scores, KC registered. Very few decent breeders also own the stud dog, most travel to find a good stud dog to compliment their bitch.

And it looks like they are a limited company

Puppy farm. Never, EVER get a puppy from ANYWHERE besides a breeder found via the KC website

We rescued a lab from a puppy farm. She was a darling girl but had the worst coat I've ever seen that even the Vet threw his hands up in despair with. She was riddled with arthritis by 7 and cost us an absolute fortune in vet bills in her last 6 years of life. It's horrifically cruel how these dogs are bred.

We got our subsequent dogs from local FB pages. Our first cocker came from a family who had bred their dog with a friends - and he'd been returned at 16 weeks as the old couple couldn't cope with his energy. Both Mum and Dad were pets and not working gun dogs. Our second sprocker came from a local family whose dog had stayed with a friend while they went on holiday and came back pregnant. She's a gorgeous girl - raised in a family home like our first and without too many working genes (family pets).

Be very careful getting from a working line. They're not meant to live as pets pottering around the local park once a day. My eldest was a f*cking nightmare in his first 3 years, couldn't be let off a long line and had incredibly selective hearing. His prey drive is still off the charts and he's 12 with a bad heart

Great post by LandSharks - I am nosy and had a look at the site and it would be a red flag for me that they have acquired two sisters and bred them asap. Also that they have registered a company to run this as a business and are not planning to register the puppies although the parents are meant to be KC registered.

if the puppies are genuinely eligible to be registered the only reason to not register them (and charge a lot more money quite rightly) is that you are planning to breed the mum multiple times possible in between registered litters and so not want there to be records as the KC only allow you to register 3 litters. It is something like £25 to register a litter I believe if you are already set up as a kennel.

Personally I would not be comfortable with a breeder willing to do this as would guess this is a puppy farm/backyard breeder. I wouldn’t want a puppy from a breeder willing to pump out more litters than is recommended for the mums health or have multiple litters on the ground at the same time.

After a lot more research and my original love of Whippets, I went to see some today.

And I’m sorry BUT LOOK AT THIS PRETTY GIRL!!!

Okay, so folks have gone down the route of checking out the breeder etc. I know nothing about breeders and kennel club etc!
We got our lab from a family and the pup had lived within the family home all its life so was used to household noises, being handled, pretty much completely toilet trained etc. The owner checked us out as much as we checked them out!
Anyhow, pup came home, she cried a couple of nights, benefited from someone sleeping in same room as her. We were up every 3 hours overnight for garden time, and during the day she would come nudge us from very early on to say she needed out.
We should have taken her to lots more places as soon as she got her jags. She is very well socialised, but can be nervous at new things and places.
Make sure you get the exact food that pup is already eating so as to not upset tummy. Our pup's mum gave us a wee bag of unopened food for her.
You already know that your life is going to be upturned by the new arrival, so that's good! We didn't realise and oh my word it was hard!!!
Good luck with your new pup when it arrives.

You also asked about crate training @MyVIsForVendetta
We did with ours, but as their safe quiet space. Very rarely did we actually close the door fully, having it pushed to was enough. We've put it back up for each pup we have had and found that both older and younger dogs headed in it (we now have several sizes of crate)!
When one of our dogs was poorly and needed quiet, we hadn't had a crate bed up for quite a few years. We put up the crate and his bed inside and he went in and settled down no problem. It also meant that our younger dog didn't inadvertently knock him etc.
It's definitely worth having a crate bed and getting them used to one when young.

@MyVIsForVendetta with regards crate training, I would so no - you don’t have to crate train. It’s quite a divisive issue but I think that’s because some people abuse them and leave pup in there most of the day etc.

I have used a crate with mine, but the older he has got (he’s still only just shy of 4 months) the less I have used it to be honest. He only sleeps in there in his overnight stint now - which last night was only 3 hours because I fell asleep on the sofa with him until 3am 😂

I have found it useful on occasion, for example when I know he has needed a nap because he is overtired (and we know how they can be when they’re overtired) and I have tried everything to get him to sleep, I have put him in the crate and draped a thin blanket over the front and he’s sparked right out! I think once I can trust him to sleep downstairs without either toileting or destroying anything I will get rid of it to be honest.

I listened to a lot of good advice from the regulars on the adolescence thread and opted for a baby gate between my living room and kitchen instead which has been a god send and my pup has had free roam of all of downstairs and garden since I first got him home. No major damage thus far!