When Choosing a Labrador Puppy: Don’t Look At the Puppy
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Yes, you did read the title correctly. And I can admit myself that it does sound a little ridiculous, right? I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, “what else would you look at when choosing a puppy?” Well, I’m glad you asked– because that’s exactly what I’m going to tell you.
When choosing a labrador puppy, and especially when choosing a puppy for a particular line of “work” like fowl retrieving, general-purpose hunting, or other other official tasks such as becoming a service or search dog, our first inclination would be to inspect the actual puppy we’re thinking of buying. And in the minds of most, this makes the most sense. After all, what would you inspect besides the actual dog you’re planning to spend a lot of money on?
There are actually two much more important things to look at than that little wiggling bundle of joy: the dam and the sire. (Or the parents, for those of us who haven’t spent much time on the breeding scene.)
There are many reasons to look more closely at the dam and sire rather than the puppy. The first is that since the puppy is still very much in the development stage, you won’t be able to tell very much for certain until weeks later. Temperament, coloring, body shape and size, and other characteristics are still very cloudy and won’t be obvious until you’ve bought the puppy and then find out it may be too late. But by looking at the parents, you should be able to tell approx. how the puppy will look, how it’s temperament will most likely develop, and what it’s strengths will most likely be.
Other reasons to look at the parents include being able to see what kinds of health faults or problems the puppy will be most susceptible to, and also how easy it will most likely be to train the puppy later on. You will never be able to tell exactly from looking at a puppy’s parents, but they will be able to show you much more than you’d be able to tell from the puppy by itself.
-Lauren
P.S. — If you missed the interview between myself and a professional dog trainer about the hard topics of labrador training like recall, crate training, obedience, and distraction training, you can download that (but only for a short time) here.
P.P.S. — On February 23rd, A professional dog trainer revealed all her secrets– and I recorded the call! Want to listen in for free?
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