Buying a new puppy? How to tell if you’ve found a responsible breeder
December 3, 2008 by Chloe Findlay-Harder
Filed under Pets
Bringing home your new puppy is incredibly exciting! You’re beginning a life-long relationship with a great companion. But before all that, you need to find a responsible breeder. Buying from a responsible breeder is the best way to find a puppy that’s healthy, well adjusted mentally and a good representative of it’s breed.
But how to tell if you’ve found a reputable breeder?
Well – you need to do your research first! Buying a purebred puppy can be a slow process, taking months or even years if you’ve fallen in love with a rare breed.
You need to meet adult dogs, read books about the breed, attend a dog show or other competition and talk with owners of other dogs. Do you know the care your breed takes? What health problems are they prone too? Are there genetic tests for the health problems?
The better educated you are, the easier it will be to pick a responsible breeder. There’s no one right place to find a good breeder, but I personally recommend talking to the national breed club – most of them have breeder referrals.
Here are some basic tips – remember, there are no hard and fast rules!
- Does the breeder offer a health guarantee?
- Do they perform genetic tests on all their breeding dogs?
- Will they share the results of the tests with you (for the mother and father of your puppy)
- Are their dogs clean, healthy and happy?
- Do they show their dogs at dog shows or compete at performance events (obedience, agility, breed-specific events)?
- Is there a health guarantee on their puppies?
- Are they a member of their national kennel club? Local kennel club? National or regional breed organization?
- Do they have referrals available from people who have bought their puppies before?
As an example, I bought my show dog from a first time breeder, so she didn’t have any referrals available, but she has health tests done on the mother of my dog (and the owner of the father of my dog had done testing as well). The breeder showed her dogs, was a member of the national kennel club and my dog was sweet-tempered and well adjusted. That was enough to convince me that I would be happy buying a dog from her.
image: Stock.xchg
A friend of mine went through the process of getting two labs last year. Through her experience and what she told me, I learned to be leary of people who only have one parent…and try to sell the story that the other parent just died or ran away, etc. Usually that means the dog is not full bred and they are hiding something…apparently. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know..but something to think about.
That’s an excellent point Diane!
While lots of responsible breeders use male dogs who are owned by other people, they will be honest and have information about the dog and his owners. If someone says “oh, the father ran away” with no other information – you should run away too!
Ah! I never thought about the fact people may use the same male dog, but you’re right — they should be honest about it!