Do Your Research; In Other Words Don’t Turn Your Dog Into Another Rescue Statistic!

This seems pretty obvious but I think it really has to be said. Make an honest and objective assessment of the kind of person you are and then do your due diligence (homework/research) to match your personality type to the appropriate dog breed. Another aspect to seriously consider here is your lifestyle.

Do you live in an apartment in the city or do you live in a house that has a yard in the country? All these questions and their accompanying answers factor in your quest for the perfect dog! Some more pertinent questions include the following:

• Does your job allow you to spend enough time with your growing puppy or is there someone else in your abode who can cover that base?

• Are your living arrangements suitable for both you, your future dog and your neighbors. Remember if you live in an apartment a dog breed that is prone to barking will sour any goodwill you may have with your neighbors!

• What kind of dog are you really looking for? Do you want a needy touchy-feely companion (the Weimeraner dog breed excels here) or are you in search of a more independent four-legged canine friend who won’t pine away when left to his/her canid self?

Okay, look here’s the deal. There’s a dog breed out there that is perfect for even the wackiest and fussiest of us. Just remember you gotta actually love dogs and don’t forget to do your research!

The most important thing to never lose sight of is the fact that a dog or a puppy is not a toy or something you can just dispose of or get rid of when you’re bored or the going gets tougher than you anticipated.

Oh yah…one other thing. That cute furry ahhhh-isn’t-he-so-cute puppy is invariably going to grow up one day. Obviously depending on your choice of dog breed that puppy could become a 150lb (or more) juggernaut!

So just to be a bore lemme repeat it again so it really sinks in:  DO YOUR RESEARCH…RESEARCH…RESEARCH!

Get Your Puppy From The Right Source!

I’m going to assume that you’re getting your puppy to become a companion or pet rather than a show dog.

That said no matter your future plans for your puppy the one thing that you should never do is get your puppy from a puppy mill or pet store!

Puppy mills are essentially what their name suggests; mills designed to churn out puppies for profit to pet stores! Typically puppy mills house their dogs in deplorable conditions with the sole objective of harvesting as many litters as possible from the unfortunate female dogs!

Here’s why you should…

Resist The Urge To Buy That Cute Adorable Puppy In The Pet Store Window!

Unless you are prepared to pay the extremely high price of heartbreak and other costly, undesirable and attendant emotions that are sure to accompany a troubled, anti-social puppy that grew up in a pet store…resist the urge to save that unfortunate canine soul!

Yes! I know it’s hard and you’re probably thinking you are accomplishing some good deed by apparently saving that cute puppy in the window but you aren’t!

You’re just setting yourself up for a world of hurt…here’s why:

PET STORE PUPPIES ARE ALMOST ALWAYS PSYCHOLOGICALLY DAMAGED!

Puppy mills don’t care about the welfare of the dogs and puppies they trade in; what they care about is the bottom line which is profit! So to that end they separate the puppies from their mothers much sooner than they should.

As a matter of course puppies should not be separated from their mothers earlier than 8 weeks and in fact for some dog breeds the separation should not occur before 10 weeks.

The reason why a puppy should not be prematurely separated from its mother and litter mates is because before then it would not have learned sufficient social skills and language comprehension from both its mother and interaction with its litter mates that would allow it to function as a wholesome well rounded canine individual later on.

Puppy mill puppies are not only prematurely separated from their mothers more often than not they spend way too long isolated from either human contact or canine contact whilst in the pet store awaiting some good Samaritan to rescue them.

One of the consequences of premature separation from mum and litter mates is that when that puppy matures into a grown dog he/she will be incapable of playing with both humans and fellow dogs without inflicting damage!

How come?

Because as a puppy he/she never learned how to interact with his siblings in play where he would have mastered the skill of bite pressure and  force restraint, thus preventing serious injury during play as an adult dog.

Moreover by being separated from both human and/or canine company while waiting in the pet store for his/her new home that puppy would have undergone psychological damage tantamount to that of a person being detained in solitary confinement for prolonged periods.

They eventually go nuts don’t they?

Dogs are social creatures so solitary confinement is certainly going to leave psychological scars. The severity of the psychological damage is dependent on a number of things which include:

• duration of isolation
• breed of dog
• severity of isolation

Bottom line…do yourself a favor and avoid that cute puppy in the pet store window. Behind those big sad soulful eyes is a ticking psychological time bomb ready to shatter your world into an explosion of heartbreak!

Article on puppies by Kayye Nynne