Selecting Your Puppy… Part I
Very few subjects are more controversial or problematic to both the breeder and the client than that of how and when to decide on which puppy you will take into your life. There has been much written on this subject and almost all of what has been read by the writer seems very questionable or totally non applicable, at least to the Llewellin breed. Let’s start with what age should the pup be?
In the State of Pennsylvania at least, the state law prohibits the sale of pups under 7 weeks old. This is a good law–there is no good reason to take the pup away from it’s siblings before this time and plenty of good reasons to allow it more time with them.
It has been written by more than one author that the pup should ideally be a certain number of days old. The popular number is 49 days or seven weeks. I’m not sure what is supposed to transpire after 49 days! You can however rest assured that this is pure nonsense.
Dogs, especially hunting dogs, are opportunists. If you place them into an environment where they see the opportunities they can settle in with remarkable speed and grace. This can be true after ten weeks or ten years. We place aged dogs into family homes all the time and usually after only a few weeks they don’t even recognize that we exist when they come to visit. The bent egos are almost always the prior owners not the dogs.
True, the Llewellin is very much a bonding dog and makes the perfect personal or family companion and will be happy to serve you for a lifetime if you are kind and considerate. But don’t ever believe that you are irreplaceable.
This is all good news because trained and started dogs can often be 18 months to two years old before going to their eventual homes. This has never been a problem. At the puppy end of the life have no concern that the pup is “too old”. In fact you miss some of the charm but also quite a bit of the frustration and work if you get your pup at anything up to 6 months. This is about the time when meaningful “yard” work begins. If your prospect is over 6 months he should have started into routine and regular training.
Many of our eventual clients have a real hang up on the subject of “pick of the litter” By this is generally meant that they want to make a selection from the entire litter before anyone else! This is almost an impossible request for most professional breeders to abide by. For one thing not everyone has equal opportunity, some clients may be at the other side of the U.S., some the other side of the world.
Most clients have no idea on what basis they will select a pup in any case. This often results in passing up the dog which the breeder recognizes as superior in favor of one with “cute” markings or some feature unimportant to the future of a great bird dog. Mr. Llewellin said, ”A great bird dog is always the right color”. Don’t forget that.
However, having said that, no one can pick out the best prospect in the litter at 7 to 8 weeks. No one. Yes, one can perhaps get the best pup from a conformation view point but what’s between the ears sometimes takes up to 2 years or longer to really show. What you are buying is potential, hopefully based on sound breeding practices derived from proven field performance.
KHS
November, 2005