How to Help Clients Reduce the Stress of Finding a Puppy and End Up With the Dog of Their Dreams

Deb M. Eldredge, DVM

If we are lucky, our clients will ask us for guidance when they decide to add a puppy to their family. The perfect match can lead to years of wonderful companionship. The wrong match can lead to unhappiness for both the dog and the people or the dog being rehomed, left at a shelter, or turned over to a rescue group. As a breeder myself as well as a veterinarian I can tell you that my daughter and I agonize over puppy placements.

What Prospective Pet Parents Should Consider

The first step is to get families realistic about what they expect from a dog and what they are willing and able to do in terms of care such as grooming and exercise. If both parents work and the kids are involved in lots of extracurricular activities, a puppy may not be the best choice for them. A retired show dog or older dog who will be happy to hang out with the family with low exercise demands might be the ideal canine companion. Or maybe a stuffed dog!

If a puppy is truly what the family wants, then they need to decide how much time and energy they can and will put into the new family member. There are a number of good “dog matching sites” on the internet. One is offered by Purina. The American Kennel Club also has a breed selector. While I don’t always agree with their selections, they can help families narrow down their choices.

On their own, families can come up with a set of characteristics they’re looking for in a dog. These should include size; coat and necessary coat care along with whether they will groom the dog or can cover the expense of a groomer; amount of barking they can tolerate, especially if they live in an apartment or condo; amount of exercise the breed requires; whether they are looking for a watchdog or family or property guardian; suitability for dog sports they may want to participate in; and how long they hope the dog will live. From their list, you can counsel them on the normal lifespan of the breeds in question and possible health problems and common injuries seen in those breeds.

Resources for Puppy Buyers

I try to get people to come up with three or four breeds of interest. Then I direct them to resources where they can do more in-depth research on the breeds.

They should start with the “parent club” for that breed. Many parent clubs provide a wealth of information on care, temperament, and health for their breed. To search, families should search using the breed name followed by the words parent club: Labrador parent club, for instance. Labrador Retrievers are a popular breed, and their parent club website has a lot of useful information.

Still, a breed website is often skewed towards the positive. To follow up on health concerns, I then recommend they go to the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals site and look up breed health statistics. They should also keep this site in mind when they settle on a breed to verify health clearances of the parents and relatives of a prospective pup. Having parents with health clearances is not a guarantee of a pup with perfect health but it increases the odds of a pup without genetic defects.

Breed rescue groups are also good resources. They are more likely to provide information on some of the more challenging aspects of living with a particular breed because they want to ensure that dogs they place go to appropriate homes. Rescue groups may be regional or national and can be found in the same way as parent clubs: searching for, say, Shiba Inu rescue groups. Advise prospective buyers to be wary of rescue groups that have lots of purebred puppies available. Young purebred puppies are almost never found in rescues and such a “rescue” may actually be a high-volume producer in disguise.

Meeting Breeders and Puppies

Once a breed (or two) is determined, I recommend that the family meet some dogs of that breed if possible. That might mean attending a nearby dog show or contacting breeders through a group such as GoodDog that does some screening of breeders they list. Parent club websites often list member breeders as well. Puppy buyers should be prepared for a wait and possibly having to travel to meet breeders and pups, especially if they settle on an uncommon breed.

Breeders should be willing to provide in-depth information about their breed, the line of dogs they’ve bred, and litters they have or plan to have. In these days of Covid, home invasions, and puppy thefts, they may not feel comfortable with strangers visiting, especially if they have a young litter, but should be able to arrange to meet people somewhere with at least one or two of their dogs–perhaps at their veterinarian’s clinic. The breeder should provide prospective puppy buyers with health screening information (which they should then verify on sites like OFA). A good breeder will have done ENS (Early Neuro Stimulation) and raised their puppies with plenty of enrichment.

People should be upfront with breeders as well. Most breeders will have a questionnaire and will ask for references, often including from a veterinarian if the family has previously had pets and from the landlord if the family is renting.

Most breeders will provide health background information, plus records of any medical care a puppy has received. It is standard to require a veterinary visit within a certain amount of time as well, usually within 48 hours of receiving the puppy. This is where you come in – do a thorough physical exam. Look over any health records. Don’t hesitate to point out any concerns.

Which Puppy?

Advise clients that many breeders will pick the puppy they feel will fit best into a certain family rather than giving buyers free rein to choose their own pup. Puppy temperament tests are helpful, but they are literally a few moments in time. If a puppy is tired or hungry, testing may not reveal the true personality. Good breeders will use temperament test results in tandem with their daily observations of the litter and the puppy buyer’s questionnaire answers to determine the best matches.

When you examine the puppy after purchase, do your best to assess temperament. If you have doubts, don’t hesitate to speak up. I once had an 8-week-old puppy come off the exam table with serious intent to bite me. The elderly lady with the puppy said he had tried to bite her as well – not puppy play-type biting but serious intent to do harm. I convinced her to return him. To my dismay, she took a different pup from the same litter but luckily that puppy was wonderful.

Clients won’t always listen to our recommendations, but we can try. Many of my best “matches” have been older couples or couples with both people still working who agree to try a retired show dog of a breed they adore. The adult dogs are often less expensive than a puppy and they come crate-trained and housetrained, walk nicely on a leash, and are past destructive or chewing stages. Being involved in the purebred dog world, I have an advantage of knowing many breeders, but you can query breeders among your clientele for help in finding those perfect rehomes.

This article was reviewed/edited by board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Kenneth Martin and/or veterinary technician specialist in behavior Debbie Martin, LVT.

Deb M. Eldredge, DVM, is a Cornell graduate and the first recipient of the Gentle Doctor Award. She is an award-winning veterinarian and writer.
 
 

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