I don’t want to support backyard breeding and contribute to the pet overpopulation so I’ll rescue or find a reputable breed/breeder instead.”
Do you have any tips for this? (I'm not being sarcastic; serious question) We had a rescue dog years ago and honestly it was not a great experience. He was food aggressive and got more unpredictable with age, despite a lot of training (with professional help). He was ok with kids like out walking and stuff but my heart pounds just thinking about how it would (may?) have been with him in my house with our noisy, messy children. We are considering getting a dog in 1-2 years when our kids are all school age. I know what I want in terms of size and temperament but I have no idea how to identify a reputable breed/breeder as there seems to be a lot of conflicting info out there. I've browsed rescues but locally they seem to favor no kids & someone home all day (maybe I'm being dramatic based off the applications?). The local shelter is closed to visitors due to covid but only seems to post large dogs for adoption.
Just the fact that they're all called "doodles" annoys me because that comes from combining LabraDor and pOODLE. But Golden Doodle? No. Aussie Doodle? STOP IT. It doesn't make sense! It's how people add "-gate" onto any scandal now. Drives me nuts.
Do you have any tips for this? (I'm not being sarcastic; serious question) We had a rescue dog years ago and honestly it was not a great experience. He was food aggressive and got more unpredictable with age, despite a lot of training (with professional help). He was ok with kids like out walking and stuff but my heart pounds just thinking about how it would (may?) have been with him in my house with our noisy, messy children. We are considering getting a dog in 1-2 years when our kids are all school age. I know what I want in terms of size and temperament but I have no idea how to identify a reputable breed/breeder as there seems to be a lot of conflicting info out there. I've browsed rescues but locally they seem to favor no kids & someone home all day (maybe I'm being dramatic based off the applications?). The local shelter is closed to visitors due to covid but only seems to post large dogs for adoption.
Reputable breeders won't have leftover puppies that need homes. They generally breed for the betterment of the dog breed, so none of this matching up whatever dog happens to be in heat with their random friend's intact dog. A good breeder or rescue will have contracts about getting the puppies spayed or neutered. There will be minimum timelines for separating a puppy from its mother and littermates, and they should have a program for socializing the puppies. The parents should have some sort of titles, be good at something, and there will be medical tests.
Buying a dog from a breeder is not any more guarantee of their temperament than rescuing or adopting. The best chance at knowing a dog's temperament is to get one who isn't a puppy and to work with foster families.
This is helpful, thanks.
What do you mean by titles? like show dogs have?
I do plan to contact rescues but I found their websites really discouraging. We're a bit out from taking the leap but trying to be prepared and research now.
I don’t want to support backyard breeding and contribute to the pet overpopulation so I’ll rescue or find a reputable breed/breeder instead.”
Do you have any tips for this? (I'm not being sarcastic; serious question) We had a rescue dog years ago and honestly it was not a great experience. He was food aggressive and got more unpredictable with age, despite a lot of training (with professional help). He was ok with kids like out walking and stuff but my heart pounds just thinking about how it would (may?) have been with him in my house with our noisy, messy children. We are considering getting a dog in 1-2 years when our kids are all school age. I know what I want in terms of size and temperament but I have no idea how to identify a reputable breed/breeder as there seems to be a lot of conflicting info out there. I've browsed rescues but locally they seem to favor no kids & someone home all day (maybe I'm being dramatic based off the applications?). The local shelter is closed to visitors due to covid but only seems to post large dogs for adoption.
I don’t mean to pounce on you but this is so frustrating. Rescue dogs and breeder dogs are all dogs! Meaning some will have food aggression, anxiety, etc., etc. regardless of where they come from. To write off rescuing a dog because you had one rescue who was food aggressive is ridiculous.
There are plenty of puppies in rescue if that’s what you’re looking for. If you want to have a better idea of the dog’s temperament and personality, get a dog who’s slightly older. Yes, a lot of rescues have certain requirements but it’s absolutely false that you can’t adopt a dog when you have young children. There are thousands of dogs in rescue, you can find one for you if you’re just a little patient.
Just the fact that they're all called "doodles" annoys me because that comes from combining LabraDor and pOODLE. But Golden Doodle? No. Aussie Doodle? STOP IT. It doesn't make sense! It's how people add "-gate" onto any scandal now. Drives me nuts.
Thinks I could find a Pugoodle? Pudoogle? Pug-a-Poo? JOKING
I'm dying over what that would look like. Ok, well I googled and apparently they go by pugapoo and they are...well, let's just say it's not a face I, personally, would want to wake up to.
I don’t want to support backyard breeding and contribute to the pet overpopulation so I’ll rescue or find a reputable breed/breeder instead.”
Do you have any tips for this? (I'm not being sarcastic; serious question) We had a rescue dog years ago and honestly it was not a great experience. He was food aggressive and got more unpredictable with age, despite a lot of training (with professional help). He was ok with kids like out walking and stuff but my heart pounds just thinking about how it would (may?) have been with him in my house with our noisy, messy children. We are considering getting a dog in 1-2 years when our kids are all school age. I know what I want in terms of size and temperament but I have no idea how to identify a reputable breed/breeder as there seems to be a lot of conflicting info out there. I've browsed rescues but locally they seem to favor no kids & someone home all day (maybe I'm being dramatic based off the applications?). The local shelter is closed to visitors due to covid but only seems to post large dogs for adoption.
I would look for rescues that have their dogs with fosters and not in a shelter setting. It might be harder to coordinate meetings (and these rescues might have more stringent application processes and more desires for the people they are adopting to, but most will work with you on finding a dog/puppy that is a good fit for your situation too). But if the dog is with a foster, they should be able to tell you of any potential issues. And the more time they spend in homes/the less in shelters or in bad situations, hopefully they will have less issues. When we were adopting one of our dogs, we drove 2 states away to adopt from a rescue that my friend was personally a foster for. It was a litter of 5 puppies, and 3 were with 1 foster, 2 with another. Our pup was in a home where the foster was already working on potty training and crate training, she was with 2 older dogs as well (which is great for teaching them not to nip), and the foster had kids so she was used to kids running around making crazy noises. We had previously visited a shelter where a mom had a litter of 6 pups, and the mom and 6 pups were together in a crate at the shelter. The pups were rarely handled, covered in filth, and didn't know anything of the world outside the shelter room. I could tell a HUGE difference in the temperaments of those pups versus the pup in foster even though they were roughly the same age. I was SO glad we went with the pup in foster.
When we were looking to add another puppy to our family last spring, we had a much harder time because of how many applications rescues were getting. There was one local rescue who wanted us to commit to adopting the pup we put the application in for before meeting it/allowing our dog to meet it, and we weren't cool with that. Other rescues required fully fenced yards (we use invisible fence), but the biggest issue was the long wait-list/cutthroad application process because demand was so high. We did end up buying a pup from a breeder. We got to meet the pups at 4 weeks, visit again at 6 weeks to pick out which one we wanted (we were 1st to put a deposit down so we had 1st pick), and took her home at 8 weeks. We got to meet the mom (who was a family dog and lived in the house) and the sire (who they had hired to sire the pups). She came with AKC papers, vet papers, and a health guarantee (although this was something I had issue with...if she had major health issues, it wasn't that they would pay to address them, they would take her back and give us a pup from a new litter). The pups lived in a heated/cooled barn, but were handled by kids and taken into the house so they would be used to normal house noises. Our pup just turned 1 in May, and she has seriously been the best puppy ever. I still recommend rescue over breeders, but I'm glad to report that you can have good experiences from breeders if you've exhausted the rescues in your area and aren't having any luck.
Yes, exactly. Without it, there's no betterment of the breed. Without those standards, you're financially supporting people breeding potentially very sick or ill-tempered dogs.
Interesting. Thanks! expectantsteelerfan (And others!), thank you. I really appreciate the feedback and insight! This is all very helpful in our planning/research.
I have lost track of the number of friends that got some form of doodle puppy in the last year.
We would love another pug puppy someday but finding a pug puppy at a rescue in 2008 was probably a once in a lifetime thing. None of the reputable breeders responded to my emails. We will likely try to rescue a younger pug. Putting in applications at some nearby pug rescues and watching petfinder. The flat faced dog withdrawal is real.
secretagent, it's true that depending on the rescues available to you, you might not have much choice. As I mentioned upthread, we've given up on that route because inventory here is very low, demand is high, and we live in a condo with a young child. I don't blame the rescues for picking people with no kids who have giant backyards - most rescues here are run by volunteers and they get hundreds of applications for each dog (more for any kid-friendly dog). They can only go by what they see on paper.
I would suggest putting in an application with some rescues anyway and explain the type of dog you're looking for. Many will keep applications on file and refer back if they think you'd make a good match. And in the meantime you can get in touch with a couple of reputable breeders. It will probably take a few months to a year anyway before they have a litter with a pup for you, since good breeders breed carefully and not often, and of course they can't predict how many pups will be in one litter. The breeder we're in touch with thought she'd have a pup for us soon, but her current litter only had 4 so we are waiting patiently for the next litter in a few months (different mama dog).