Picking a puppy this week - need advise
There is a male puppy that I am completely in love with. However, I think the person on the list before me is going to pick him. If she does, that leaves me with either the last male left, or my choice of 3 other females. I dont particularly want a female, but these females are huge. They are over 5 lbs at only 3 weeks old. The male that will be left is tiny in comparison to the HUGE siblings (including the male I really want) According to the breeder he is completely healthy. Vet has been seen by all puppies and all is good. He is little but has been getting extra time with mommy. and they are going to get real food this week, so i expect he will plump up. I have no idea how much he weighs, so not sure how much smaller he is, but she says 'tiny'. But average for his age. So, advice I need is - since he is adorable (just not the one who stole my heart) - should I pick him, or move to the next litter - which is fall. I have been debating on the whole male/female thing so if any one has anything to add there, that would be great. I really like this breeder and her adults so I trust her, but I am looking for opinions anyway. Thanks all. |
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| You'll get some experienced input soon. In the meantime: I am not on a list or even near choosing a pup yet, but I am debating male/female too. Right now, I'm leaning toward a female, but I like the males too. If it were me, I would follow my instinct of which one feels right for you. If you think you will feel "what if" after picking one of these pups, I'd wait. If the pup's size matters, I would think that a smaller pup might catch up at some point but don't know. I am looking forward to experienced responses to you too. Good luck in making this decision and keep us posted. How exciting for you that you are this close to getting your puppy - even if it isn't until the Fall! |
| Difficult decision and I really have no input to provide. I fortunately or unfortunately had like 12 7-week old puppies to pick from! I don't know how you'd pick when they are only 3 weeks old. Can you really tell personality at that point? |
| Monty was the smallest in the litter, he is naturally a slim boy but healthy and fit. He is 70lbs, so small compared to some. We met him at 5 weeks and already then you could tell a bit of his personality, although it is hard to tell at that age. We wanted a male. I like the daft, willing to please personality of males but there are many here who love the personality of females. Monty was laid back, quiet but showed no fear at what was going on around him (compared to two of the other males - one was really noisy, one was a bit shy). We wanted an easy going puppy because of having a Newfoundland. Well we made the right choice, he is laid back, easy going, has noooooooooo fear, but does bark when he is excited, so much for the quiet  If his personality seems okay and he is healthy, I don't see a problem. By the way Buster our Newfy is small for a newfy, he is 125lbs. The breeder originally kept him to show him. But he developed an underbite. She was sorry to see him go but we feel lucky to get him at 7 months as he has a great personality and no health problems. |
I don't think you can really tell much about size at this age. My Luna was the runt of 2 litters; she was TINY: Luna is on the right; her 1/2 sister is only 5 days older and on the left. As you can see, Luna is a shrimp next to her 1/2 sister, Tonks. As they grew older, Luna stayed the smaller of the two:  Then suddenly one day she wasn't tiny anymore; Luna topped out at a whopping NINETY-FIVE pounds!  She's been on a diet, and is down to what the vet considers a healthy weight; 84 pounds. Her sister, the larger of two puppies, is only 65 pounds. You can see in this last photo, she is a MUCH more hefty dog than Tonks (Luna is on the right). She still gets less calories per meal, and more exercise than her smaller sister. But the vet feels that this is her body; a more stocky build, and that she's always going to be massive (for a female). So it's not always possible to anticipate the end result from what you see in a litter of puppies!  |
| Size as a puppy does not directly correspond to adult size. I've had many runts (puppies and kittens) over the years that have become very big adults. As for male vs. female, I suspect your best bet is to look at the personality without consideration for the gender. For every "males generally" and "females usually" statement, you will find tons of exceptions. Our breeder sent us photos and videos of Benson and her littermates literally from day one. (My first picture of her is at 12 hours old.) By the time we went to pick her up, we really felt like we knew her personality. I look back at some of those early videos, and she's still very true to that attitude she had as a tiny puppy. Of course, you could always take all of them home!  Good luck! |
| Darth Snuggle - Thanks for the photos and the very detailed response! That helps a LOT. Size doesnt matter other than concerns about how healthy/developed/underdeveloped that might indicate, and the results of such as he grows. Makes me feel much better about it. Your babies are beautiful! Thank you for sharing! Jonesy - If I could bring all of them home with me - I probably would. Or at least 2 or 3 of them!!! My breeder is the same with the photos. She started posting them online as they were being born! And she is a fantastic photographer and has all kinds of props for backgrounds etc and her weekly pics are amazing. Looking forward to more responses. Thanks everyone. It helps a lot! |
| In my personal opinion 3 weeks is far too soon to pick your pup as you would be going by nothing but markings. I always wait until their full personalities emerge, which to me is the most important thing when deciding the best pup for a family. Usually around the 7-8 week mark is when we choose our pups. My advice would be to wait and choose the pup that has the best disposition for your lifestyle and your breeder is going to be your ace in the hole to guide you towards the perfect pup for you since he/she is with the pups all the time and will know their personalities inside out. |
Blueshire wrote: In my personal opinion 3 weeks is far too soon to pick your pup as you would be going by nothing but markings. I always wait until their full personalities emerge, which to me is the most important thing when deciding the best pup for a family. Usually around the 7-8 week mark is when we choose our pups. My advice would be to wait and choose the pup that has the best disposition for your lifestyle and your breeder is going to be your ace in the hole to guide you towards the perfect pup for you since he/she is with the pups all the time and will know their personalities inside out. Temperament is extremely important! I had a BYB try to pressure me into choosing a puppy based solely on pics...when they were 3 days old! So thankful I ran in the other direction! We are now anxiously awaiting the perfect puppy from an awesome breeder!  |
| I agree with Amber! Let the breeder help you pick when you know what their personalities are like. We had a lot of input from Leonard's breeder when we were trying to decide Male or Female, and which one of the litter would work best for our lifestyle/expectations for a puppy/get along best with our existing dog. She had watched them from the time they were born and seen how they interacted with her family/got along with each other etc. I must say she picked well because he fits in perfectly and is the right amount of everything. I don't think we picked early because I remember looking at pictures and not knowing which one we were going to end up with. Turns out the perfect match for us was 'the one with the eye patch'. Also don't get too hung up on markings because once the puppies start turning grey and their coats grow out you really don't notice them as much. As for male vs female; the female we had was wonderful, a very aloof velcro dog. Our male is not so aloof, he is very clown like yet also a velcro dog. Both were very loyal but the female seemed to like to bond with one person (she was very fond of my mother, if my mother was on vacation she would make due with my dad) I don't know if this a typical of the female OES though. Our male on the other hand seems to equally attached to both my husband and I. Both dog's dispositions would be classified as very breed typical and lovely. Good luck! |
| Our breeder chose for us, based on getting to know us and knowing our lifestyle and what we wanted to do with our pups. I couldn't possibly have chosen better. I agree with being wary of choosing based on markings. While they look very distinct in a puppy, with that black and white contrast, that fades as they get grey. Congratulations on your upcoming pup! |
| I agree with Amber & Kim also if you are going to show as well. We are going to pick ourselves but going to get pointed in the right direction by the breeders as we are going to show the pup and you cannot tell until 7 weeks as well. You have a idea before but until they are a bit older also I wan a boy as well. We waited until the breeder told us it was the right time for another |
| Please heed Amber's advice. We are always open to people waiting on a puppy to let us know which one in particular appeals to them but the final decision on who goes where is made by us taking into consideration the puppies personalities, new home's lifestyle etc.& at 3 weeks even the most experienced breeder can't tell that for sure. At that point we are starting to look for qualities on the ones we want to go to show homes or keep for ourselves but even that can change every few days as they grow & become aware of their surroundings. At 3 weeks they have only had their eyes & ears open for about 7 days. A breeder that lets you choose by your position on the list in my opinion isn't doing you or the pup justice. They are just selling their litter pretty much 1st come, 1st serve. |
| One more vote for listening to Amber! When we contacted our breeder for Caitlyn, we were nearly last on the list. When we saw photos of the litter at 3 weeks, we picked one that we liked and told the breeder. She told me that we may get that puppy but she couldn't promise as she picks puppies for families based on many factors. This made me very happy. We knew at that point we'd get the best puppy for US. Four weeks later we were told that she thought that the puppy that we first choose was in fact the one she wanted us to have! Talk about dumb luck!!! Let them pick your puppy. They've been around them for their whole time on Earth so far and have the wealth of learning their personalities and know them better than anyone. Vance |
ChSheepdogs wrote: A breeder that lets you choose by your position on the list in my opinion isn't doing you or the pup justice. They are just selling their litter pretty much 1st come, 1st serve. Bingo. First, as a breeder, you have to sort through show and performance prospects, figure out who you're keeping and what fits in any waiting show/performance homes. I'd never let a potential pet puppy buyer look at the entire litter until all decisions are made. For sure some soft touch with kids is going to want my busy-body alpha bitch performance prospect or something horribly inappropriate like that because she has an all white head or they thought she picked them when she was actually just trying to figure out how to steal their shoes right off their feet <g> Try not to overthink it or become to attached too any one puppy yet. if the breeder is any good he or she will know the puppies' personalities and quiz you till s/he has a good sense of yours and select accordingly. And if the bitch was bred more than once, usually there could be a day in between, the small puppy may just have been conceived during the later mating and is actually a couple of days younger than the rest. He should start to catch up a bit by 8 weeks. If he's still tiny compared to the others then, at that point you start to worry. Kristine |
| I actually told someone once that if you find a breeder who seems to be asking too many odd, weird and nearly too personal questions and you almost start to feel uncomfortable, you just found you breeder!!! This is someone who wants to get inside your head for all the right reasons. Vance |
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