Selecting a Puppy
Much has been written about how to pick a puppy
from a litter.
Unfortunately, much of this information, in our view, is wrong.
Selecting a puppy should begin not when a prospective owner appears at a breeder's doorstep, prepared to take home his or her 7- or 8-week-old puppy. Correctly done, the process begins much earlier, months before a litter is conceived.
Selecting a puppy should begin by selecting a breeder who shares the prospective owner's values. This takes time and research in the form of phone calls and letter writing.
If it's an American field-trial Labrador retriever, for example, that an owner desires, breeders who have successfully produced these kinds of dogs should be sought.
If instead it's a hunting-companion Labrador that is wanted — a dog that is as comfortable in a house as in a duck blind — then a different sort of breeder is usually required.
In our view, choosing the correct breeder represents between 70 percent and 80 percent of the puppy-picking process. Necessarily, then, picking a particular puppy from a litter is — or should be — reduced to a relatively minor role.
When interviewing breeders it's important to determine by as many ways as possible what type of dog the breeder attempts to produce. References should be sought from trainers who have worked with the breeder's dogs. Also, people who have owned and hunted over the dogs should be interviewed.
When someone inquires about dogs produced by britishlabradors.com, we tell them our dogs have calm temperaments, are easy to live with in the house and while traveling, have excellent kennel manners and are guaranteed to be healthy. We also tell them our Labradors are excellent in the field, as both upland and waterfowl dogs.
We also provide references.
Prospective owners also should attempt to determine as specifically as possible whether a breeder can successfully and consistently execute his or her breeding plan. Information about stud dogs is important and should be evaluated. More important still is information about breeding bitches, for it is the female side of the equation that usually contributes more to the outcome.
Prospective owners should ask a breeder how many females he or she owns and/or controls, and how many of these are bred in a given year.
Unfortunately, most retriever breeding in America is done by garden-variety backyard breeders who have one female they breed to a buddy's dog. This is generally a negative situation because while one or both animals may themselves be good or even excellent dogs (but usually aren't), the buyer has no way of knowing whether those traits are consistent with their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and littermates or whether they are the exception. If they are the latter, there is little chance the desired traits will be reproduced in the offspring.
At BritshLabradors.com, we have more than 30 female British Labradors from which to chose for breeding and typically will produce nine to twelve litters in a year. This allows us to discriminate in our choice of breeding animals, which in turn optimizes the chance we will successfully execute our breeding plan.
Assuming the correct choice of a breeder, a prospective owner should find comfort in the fact that picking a puppy from a litter is reduced, as mentioned above, to relatively less importance. It is true that one or two puppies might be genetically superior to their littermates. But determining which puppies these are in a litter is very, very difficult when the animals are so young.
In fact, the ultimate development of most dogs — assuming they are produced by quality breeding programs —depends more on the training regimens and home environments they enter after removal from their litters than whether they are fractionally better or worse, genetically speaking, than their littermates.
Because these last facets of the puppy-picking and dog-training process can be controlled by prospective owners, they deserve the most attention.
