What breed of dog did you mistakenly buy because you never realized how much care and attention it required?
Let me answer this from a different perspective.
I used to rescue dogs and foster them placing them in good homes. The #1 excuse I have heard from owner give-ups was they had no idea “how much energy” or “how much care” the dog in question needed.
I specialized in two breeds. Cocker Spaniels and Australian Cattle Dogs.
Australian Cattle Dogs
For as few of these in the PANJNY area it seemed a disproportionate number of these ended up in shelters and/or rescue. One shelter in Southern New Jersey had my cell phone number on speed dial since they got about one ACD a month as an owner give up. I think exactly one ACD they asked me to spring was a stray that was picked up in Philadelphia.
Australian Cattle Dogs are high energy, extremely intelligent working dogs that need a job or they go insane out of boredom and start destructive behaviors to use up all tha energy. There are a few Amish breeders selling them to pet stores and this is a recipe for disaster.
ACDs are painfully cute as puppies and unknowing people will see one in a pet store and decide to take it home with no prior understanding of what the dogs are about. Then the cute puppy grows up and starts eating the apartment they are living in.
My first ACD was from a couple I knew. The wife bought “Praise” as they named him in a pet store in Freehold NJ as a sixteen month old puppy. Both worked and Praise was left on his own for the better part of the day. Lots of energy and he destroyed furniture.
By the time I ended up with this dog he was a basket case. So much so that I’ve always felt I owe the dog a debt of gratitude because he force me to learn a lot about dog behavior and dog training.
Cocker Spaniels
While they don’t have the energy profile of an ACD Cockers require a lot of grooming. If left to itself the coat on a Cocker Spaniel will turn into a knotted mess and in extreme cases (I’ve had a few of these come through) parasites and other nasties will become embedded into the fur. This causes all manner of skin lesions and in the far extreme (yep.. one of those) demodectic mange.
The Cockers kept my wife and I very busy on the rescue front. Thanks to the Disney movie “Lady and the Tramp” Cockers remain one of the most popular breeds out there. What is worse is there are a ton of them of questionable breeding ending up in pet stores as puppies and people are buying them.
Pet Store vs. Breeder
I cannot repeat this message enough. If you are going to obtain a dog somehow other than a shelter or rescue please find a competent and ethical breeder.
For the most part the puppies that end up in pet stores come from so called “puppy mills.” Puppy mills are commercial breeders and as the word “commercial” would imply they are motivated by pure profit.
Hobby Breeders typically (there are exceptions) are folks that breed more for the love of the breed than for a profit motive. My one and only experience breeding a dog bares this out. When you factor in all the expense that goes into doing an ethical job of breeding (breed line research, xrays, DNA testing, health checkups) pre breeding session not to mention the expense post birth of puppies (shots, vet visits, etc..) you are not going to make a lot of money if at all.
In fact anybody who paid us the $550 we charged for a puppy we were losing about $25 per puppy and possibly more since I did not do a very in depth spreadsheet on the costs and there were many.
Another great advantage to buying from an ethical breeder has to do with the process of obtaining a puppy from a breeder.
When I was searching for my next agility dog I ended up sticking with the breed I knew and loved the best at the time and was on a search for a working breed Australian Cattle dog. Meaning I didn’t want a “show dog” I wanted one that came from lines working farms and ranches due to the work ethic the puppy would have.
I talked to one of the top breeders in the country for stock dogs about obtaining one of her puppies. She had one that would be disqualified in the breed ring (boo! hoo!) but he was already “herding” goats at a very young age.
We must have talked for an hour or more over the phone while she grilled me on what I knew of the breed, what I’d done with ACDs, what I planned on doing with my ACD and essentially sizing me up to see how suitable I was as an ACD owner.
After all that she finally agreed I could have one of her puppies.
Why is that good? Go back to the original question. There was no way I was getting a puppy from that breeder unless she was 100% convinced that I would be a good owner for that breed. Her method of interrogation was one that I modeled in my rescue practice from that day forward.
How do you find a good breeder? All “real” dog breeds have a “parent club” that has a registry of breeders. I say “real” above because this does not mean there is a cockerdoodledoo registry. The designer breeds are just mutts that someone has done a fine job of marketing and charging whatever people are stupid enough to pay for them.
For instance I own English Shepherds. For us to breed a litter of English Shepherds and be listed by the English Shepherd Club of America[1] we had to be approved by the club[2] . Part of this was signing a code of ethics and agreeing to abide by it. I guarantee that a puppy mill would never get past this stage.
The advantage is you know you are getting a sound and healthy puppy that is likely to remain healthy over its lifetime.