Mary Allen
Now it’s time to find the right sibling. Which of them is your dog? Carro Alupo, the dog expert, gives you his best advice for you to come home with a puppy that suits you.
Stand at a proper distance
Observe the puppies without them seeing you. Be quiet, see how they interact with each other. Who goes on, who keeps to themselves, who goes the math notch in the heel, and who is independent and does his own thing. If you can not stand beeping and whining, listen carefully!
Ask to go to the puppies
See how they meet someone they know. What is the puppies’ expectation of the breeder, are they positive or expectant? It provides information about how their living environment has been. That is important.
Now step up to the puppy pen yourself
Stand up for a while and see how the puppies react. Who is the fastest to investigate, who seeks eye contact directly, who waits in the backwater, who winds and uses the nose the most, who looks up just to turn around and go their own way? Set your observations against the characteristics you want in the adult dog.
Squat down and offer close contact
If someone makes more contact than the others, someone quarrels with their littermates, is there someone who elbows forward and pushes the others away? It can also be an important personality trait.
Ask the breeder to handle the puppies
When breeders keep the others at a distance, you can concentrate on one at a time. Squat down and pick up a puppy in your lap. Pat, it slowly from the back of the nose to the tail, grabs a leg, holds an ear lightly, takes a gentle grip on the tail, taps a little on a claw. The purpose is to get a sense of what the puppy does when it is subjected to handling, something new but not nasty. Does the puppy turn towards you and receive the touch or does it turn away? The little one resists and wants to be reunited with his siblings or softens it and makes eye contact with you, looks and feels for what you are doing. The puppy may be trying to bite itself off or it is extra sensitive or afraid of a body area.
Now ask the breeder to handle the puppies
Note if you notice any differences in the puppies’ reaction when someone they trust handles them. Those who have previously been hesitant may be completely safe with someone they know.
Now to a sound test
Play an unusual sound on your cell phone, a howling cat, a braking car, or fireworks. Have a low noise level so no one is intimidated and raise gradually. Observe each puppy, what does it do? Do they listen with interest, do they back away or do they encounter the sound source with curiosity, do they bark at the mobile phone or do they try to bite the phone? Waving his tail happily, raising his ears in curiosity, or the puppy you are thinking about seems completely untouched. The reactions say something about the puppy’s personality and relationship to sound. If you see a tendency to shoot / fear fireworks, you should pull your ears, it can be very painful in the future.
Ask to see the puppies and the mammary together
Review how she is towards them, is it a loving bitch who shaped your puppy, or is she insecure about the little ones? Distinguish between distancing for weaning reasons, a bitch with the majority of suckling puppies may be tired and unable to cope with the progress of wild puppies. However, there is a difference between being tired, angry, or emotionally distancing yourself.
Ask to see the puppies outdoors
Maybe in a play garden. If they are used to outdoor activities and foreign objects, they are probably environmentally trained. If not, it’s a journey ahead of you. Insufficient environmental training while growing up can lead to uncertainty. If you really do not want to have a hunting interest in your dog, then look at how the puppy acts when he/she sees birds, smells the neighbor cat, or sees you pulling a rabbit skin in a rope jerkily back and forth from the puppy pasture. If the interest is great and difficult to divert, you have a hunter in front of you.
Now leash one puppy at a time
Take a step away from the puppy. What is she doing? Followingly following curiously, or sitting still and watching something other than you? Is he going in a completely different direction? Is it bitten on the leash or does the puppy accept the situation and trudge after you as if it were a matter of course? All attitudes are okay, nothing is wrong, but tells a lot about the puppy’s inherent personality and provides information on what to expect.
Time for a bite
Ask the breeder for a handful of puppy food, hand feed them one by one and observe them. Does anyone become shy and expect attacks from their littermates, does anyone growl when the others approach? (this may indicate a risk of resource aggression as food is associated with competition). Does the puppy hungrily bite your hand and jump for more? Or does the puppy wag his tail, seek your gaze and “ask” for more? Then you have a communicative puppy in front of you who naturally sees value in interaction and social interactions. Some puppies may be uninterested in food. Such a puppy can be difficult to train if you mainly want to reward it with sweets.