Meeting the Puppy

So the puppies were born, and our breeder kept me updated throughout the labour.  Eventually the litter was complete, five puppies, two girls and three boys.  She sent me a picture of them all curled up together, so sweet.

When they were about two weeks old she sent me a video of them all wobbly-walking about in the whelping box, under their heat lamp, clumsily playing with one another.  Right away i really liked the look of one but i held my feelings on the matter pretty tight.

I had asked the breeder to choose our puppy.  That's another move that can be contentious - people think, "well, i'm paying for it, i want to choose it myself".  But be honest - how much do you know about dogs?  About the specific breed you've chosen?  About the dog and bitch of that breed who are the parents?  About the puppies in front of you?

In our case the breeder owns both parents and had been with the puppies almost every minute of their lives, having been sleeping on the sofa in the room where they were born for weeks.  She had known the parents from their own young days, and had seen how each puppy had grown and developed since they were born.  She knew what we were looking for in a puppy, what our family looked like and what our lifestyle was like.  So for us she was the best qualified to choose.

We got the video when we were on holiday.  Rather than try to take a young puppy away or kennel a young puppy we decided to have our "main" holiday at Easter this year, and spend the summer at home getting the puppy socialised and trained.  If all goes well there will be a holiday either in late August or early November with our hopefully-maturing-well dog.

So once we returned home from our holiday the breeder said we should come and meet the puppies.  We arranged childcare.  Some people will take the whole family to meet a potential puppy but we decided not to.  I wanted to make the choice of whether the puppy was right for us with my head - i know for a fact the kids would have fallen in love with WHATEVER puppy we took them to see, and would have wanted it, no matter what and it would have torn at me heart to walk away at that point, knowing how invested they were.  So just me and Mr Kaboodle went, the kids stayed with their grandparents.

I had already seen the set up so it was familiar to me, but Mr Kaboodle hadn't been before.  When we arrived the puppy deemed most suitable for us by the breeder was put straight into our arms and we went to sit with him and the breeder and her husband and get to know him a bit.  By chance he was the dog i'd liked the look of best from the start.  In total we spent about an hour there, cuddling the puppy, meeting all the other adult dogs (there are lots besides the breeding stock) and puppies, and chatting, and we came away completely certain he was our boy.