Hello all Long time no hear from me (no, you don't want to know ). I trust you're all well and congrats to our new mods . Ok, enough chit-chat! Advice please. At her five week scan Juno and Maia's niece proved to be imagining her puppies (sad faces all round) so I'm now searching for a pup. Thing is I've found a litter of lovely little pups, mum from working stock, dad works with a gamekeeper etc. so far so good, but the problem is that the owners are planning on sending pups home at six weeks. Now I think that's way too early, they've offered to hold "my chosen pup" until eight weeks but I think she'd be on her own after the rest of the litter have gone. They're lovely looking dogs, nice conformation etc but I worry that those early days are so important and I really don't want to have a dog with a problematic puppyhood influencing the rest of her life (done that with two labs and several wolfies, so I'm exceptionally cautious, maybe overly so?). Any and all thoughts welcome. Kerryn
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts Pippa had some info about Puppys going from mum too young a few months back on her main labrador site. Welcome back ;D I guess you haven't been off living the high life then?
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts Thanks for that Jackie, I'll search for, read and digest. Oh, if only (gazes wistfully into the distance, can't find an emoticon for that...!). K
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts i am no expert far from,...they should be with there mother for at least 8 weeks
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts Have you checked your stats are you counting by weeks or months ;D (And sorry, Jacqui, damn that autocorrect!)
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts I have just recently upgraded from a lazy "jac" to adding a signature line ;D You might be excused for not getting it right! I answer to anything though......although I did disown the name "mum" a few years ago as I was sick of hearing it
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts Sadly I don't think it says great things about the breeder. We had to practically wrestle our pup away from the breeder a day before 8 weeks was up so that we could have the whole weekend to settle him (and us as he was our first ever pup) Good luck whatever you decide
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts A real dilema for you Kerryn Sam was nine weeks old when he fetched him home , I do think six weeks is a little too early xx
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts Sorry to say this, but I would say turn away. A breeder who wants to get shot of the pups at six weeks is NOT a good breeder.
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts Hi Kerryn, I tend to agree with Karen, at the very least the breeder is completely ignorant of acknowledged 'best practice'. It begs the question 'what else have they done?' On the practical side, 'biting' can be very bad in pups rehomed early, as Mum and siblings help a lot with bite inhibition. Also this pup will miss out on a lot of social play learning being separated from its siblings at this age. One thing to remind yourself of is that Labradors are the most popular dog in the country. At any time (and especially at this time of year) there are probably dozens of litters available in virtually every county. You can almost certainly do better. ;D Pippa
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts Hi all Thanks for your input, sensible as always - and confirmed what I was thinking. It's such a shame they are beautiful pups but not for us. The search continues - and round here for some reason there are not as many litters as usual this summer. And both where I had my name down for a pup have turned out to be phantoms, oh well, maybe we'll go large grey instead! (maybe not.) Lynne, the photo is my small Troublebum (officially known as Hebe) at around nine months, emerging from a recently destroyed (empty) dog food sack and that's five years ago now - wow, doesn't time fly! Kerryn
Re: Age of puppy going home, thoughts Kerryn ,where do you live? I'm sorry but the right pup will find you x
