Choosing the RIGHT Puppy!

You’ve thought about the pros and cons of adding to your family-life a four-legged, furry, dependant member. The pros have won. The front door opens and you begin “finding the right puppy”. We’d like to make some suggestions for choosing the right puppy! Our suggestions come from experience. Our family has always had at least one loveable, 4-legged, loyal member. Our human children upon “leaving the nest” set out to find their right puppy. In a couple of the cases the dog choices were very good, but due to size, need of exercise, shedding or grooming they didn’t work with their lifestyles. Finding the right puppy for your lifestyle will lead to a strong relationship with the perfect family dog! We’d like to share our thoughts with you about choosing the right puppy! Picking a dog book about dog breeds and their common characteristics can aid in finding the right puppy for your lifestyle. You will soon find that the different breeds adapt to their environments in unique ways. A good resource book we used when picking a dog was the AKC manual. Even once we selected the breed it helped us when picking a puppy from the litter! Another one of life’s hard choices!!
Make no mistake about it; when picking a dog breed, they all require exercise and your attention. Choosing the right puppy for our family meant thinking about the area we had for exercise. Chasing a tennis ball thrown by hand thrilled our “smaller” perfect family dog. The larger breeds we used tennis rackets, bats and frisbees. One standard poodle loved going to my grandparents’ farm. We’d let him out to run along side through the pastures. Most times he could beat us to the house! Appropriate exercise will not only be healthy for you and your puppy and nurture your relationship, it will make training easier. Much like us it will help to focus on learning if you can break it up and exercise for a while.
Other suggestions for choosing the right puppy from the litter are:
· Picking the puppy up and placing him/her on their back with a flat hand over the chest. Does the puppy protest and squirm or try to bite the hand or stay calm?
· What happens when you lift the puppy up from the ground?
**Does the puppy continue to struggle to free itself?
**Does the puppy first struggle then calm down?
**Or does the puppy simply remain calm?
· When you pet the puppy, how does the puppy respond?
**By coming toward you?
**Biting your hand?
**Run away?
Finding the right puppy for YOUR lifestyle is not just about physical appearance. Much like our human friends it has a lot to do with personality. A “quote for thought”:
“Money can buy you a fancy pet, but it takes love to make him wag his tail!”
Let us know your suggestions!
Have a good day and we hope to you visit our Website, Perfect Family Dog.