HOW MUCH FOR THAT PUPPY? We get many requests for puppies. However, we do not often have puppies. Most of the dogs we get are at least a year old…big enough for their owners to tire of them, rowdy enough for their owners to decide they are uncontrollable. Puppies are little and cute, and any problems they are showing can be ignored with little immediate consequence. Of course, the long range consequences of such ignoring is what often lands that cute puppy into rescue, if he is lucky, when he is older. Think carefully before getting a puppy. They are a lot of work. You have to housetrain them. Teach them manners. Teach them how to behave in a variety of situations. Of course it’s true that rescue dogs may also need such attention and education. However, many are already well behaved, particularly after being fostered. And if they’re not already trained, the process is much faster with an adult dog than with a young puppy. So for the most part, the issue of time and training is much easier with an adult dog. Others site the ability to “train the puppy how they want.” See above for many of the problems encountered during training: the plain fact of the matter is that most people simply do not have the time to devote to any kind of training beyond the bare essentials. It is also a misconception that adult dogs cannot learn new tricks. It’s quite untrue. For the most part, an adult dog can be retrained as his owner wishes. How about bonding? Many people cite “the bond” with the puppy as the main reason for getting a puppy over and adult. Don’t be fooled. Labradors are a very people oriented breed. They bond quickly and rapidly to their new owners, repaying them with a lifetime of devotion even if they were adult when acquired. Medical background can be an issue for other people. Frankly, a rescue Labrador’s health history (and genetic background) is often unknown. However, a health adult dog has already escaped some problems that can show up in puppies or young dogs. And genetics are sufficiently complicated that it’s possible for any dog to come down with some inherited disease. The odds are, of course, when the parents (and grandparents and cousins, etc.) are routinely checked for all the problems Labradors are prone to. But, some folks do get puppies for the best of reasons. WE at SCLRR are not going to stop you from doing that. But we enjoin you to look carefully for that puppy. Don’t buy that pet store puppy -- you will be supporting the practices of puppy mills that do not screen the health of their dogs, do not adequately socialize or care for dogs, and contribute to the misery of scores of hundreds of dogs that they will keep breading, season after season. Don’t buy that puppy out of a newspaper advertisement, you will be encouraging folks who breed “to get a little money” to continue producing puppies without doing the necessarily health checks on the dogs. Insist that the breeder you get your puppy from show you the OFA certification on both hips and elbows of both parents, and evidence of yearly CERF examinations on their eyes. Look instead for that well bred puppy. Look for the breeder who is active in showing or hunting their dog. Maybe you don’t want to show or hunt…but you DO want to benefit of their careful selection. And the puppies in these litters not selected to go on in shows make excellent pets. Such a puppy will have parents that have been cleared for an assortment of problems, including joint and eye diseases, the most pressing problems in this breed. Such a puppy will have parents that have shown themselves to be particularly good choices for breeding. There are so many Labradors in this country that there is no reason you cannot be picky and go for the best. Your priority is a healthy and good tempered dog. Look for the breeder concentrating on at least two criteria. Looks or ability will mean little if the dog is crippled with hip dysplasia, or lunges after children. Because responsible breeders breed only when they need to, and screen the dogs they breed for health and temperament problems, they produce far fewer puppies of much higher quality than the puppy mills and ignorant breeders do. In addition, responsible breeders carefully screen the people who buy their puppies, so the likelihood of that puppy being abandoned is reduced. If most people purchase Labradors from responsible breeders, our workload would be considerably reduces. This is why we support responsible breeding, and responsible breeders. And responsible owners! The puppy in the pet store window may be cute. He’s also much higher risk for coming down with some sort of problem, usually hip dysplasia. And paying money for him encourages whoever bred and sold him to do it again…and again. Buying a puppy from a responsible breeder, or from a breed rescue program, eliminates the source of support a puppy mill gets. Think before you buy!