All puppies are cute. This can be a problem. Many people end up with puppies they neither really wanted nor had time for. These puppies end up at the pound or they have congenital problems that cost their owners thousands of dollars.

Planning to get a dog should be taken seriously. A dog is not only an initial investment (in the case of a pure bred pet) but also of ongoing financial and time commitments. Dogs live twice as long as the average marriage! You are marrying this animal. Do you know where you’ll be in 12 years, because that cute little puppy you bought today will still need you, probably more than ever.

Assuming you have the time and the money to provide a good quality home, where do you find a puppy? The answer can be complex.

Let us start with where to never get a puppy. Do not go into a pet store. Remember all puppies are cute! Even poorly bred, poorly socialized, puppies. You are doing no one a favor by ‘rescuing’ one of these puppies! Every puppy ‘rescued’ means thousands of dollars to a shadowy and illicit network of pet stores, middle men, and puppy mills. These thousands of dollars will go to breeding more puppies that need ‘rescuing’. Only consumers can stop puppy mills!

So, now that pet stores are out, where can you go?

Do not go to a street corner, the Walmart parking lot, a craft fair or a feedstore. Any person who doesn’t have the foresight to know how to get rid of a litter probably showed even less foresight breeding it. This seems like a no brainer, but almost all of those puppies find homes! The tragedy is that most of these homes are temporary, and these dogs end up at the pound within the year. A dog is not an impulse buy!

So, where do you get a new dog?

If you do not need a puppy, or are unconcerned about pedigree, but still want a pure bred dog, almost every breed has a rescue organization. Rescue organizations are usually grass roots organizations that care about a certain breed, they are generally familiar with the breed, either showing or breeding the breed that they rescue. Very high quality purebred dogs end up in rescue and this is an excellent place to start. The internet will provide all the necessary information.

If you really need a puppy, or wish to show, then you need to find a show dog breeder. Show dogs are usually easy to find. Go to dog shows and specialty shows and ask around. Find out who is breeding what and why. All high quality breeders have a reason for breeding. If there is no purpose to breeding then the breeder is only breeding for one thing, the consumer. But we will discuss more on ‘back yard’ breeders later. Show dogs can be very expensive, but the adage usually holds true: you do get what you pay for. You are paying for the breeder’s knowledge of the breed, specific breed traits, usually well handled pups and well behaved socially adjusted dogs.

Show dog breeders often have ‘pet’ quality dogs that have some minute flaw that would keep them out of the show ring. These dogs can be great deals! You will be buying all of the knowledge and quality of a show dog without a show dog price tag! The breeder generally asks the owner of such dogs to sign an agreement stating that the dog will be ‘fixed’. This is a sign of a high quality breeder.

Everyone else is a back yard breeder. Are all back yard breeders bad? Well, yes and no, and it depends. Why is this breeder breeding? This is a very good question. If the breeder has no answer beyond money, or wanting puppies, then generally these are not going to be well bred puppies.

What makes well bred important? Well bred puppies are born out of research and deep understanding of a particular breed. Well bred puppies will generally have far fewer genetic defects, far fewer congenital behavioral problems and will have been exposed to no nutritional deficits prior to birth. These puppies are handled correctly and often from birth, and the owners understand proper passive immunity and deworming practices. This is what you pay for when you buy a puppy from a breeder who cares about the breed, not money. This is a crapshoot with any one else.

This brings us back to our previous discussion about backyard breeders. Are they all bad? Maybe, but there can be nuance. If the answer to your question about why did you breed is met with a discourse of the bloodlines of the two dogs and the fact that they wanted one litter, then maybe your bet will pay off and you’ll get a good puppy. Working breed breeders are a bit haphazard at times with AKC registration, but their dogs do what they were bred to do, are generally sound enough to have done their jobs, and are usually well behaved. Sometimes your best bet outside of a show dog breeder is a one-off breeding. Though remember that when breeding without a sound background in the breed, bad things can happen.

If a breeder has no reason to breed other than they like a particular breed, and thought their girl dog was cute, then you’re in trouble. These breeders will cause you far more heartache and money than a high quality breeder ever would. A high quality breeder guarantees their ‘product’, a backyard breeder practices ‘buyer beware’.

All puppies are cute, and unless you know a whole lot about a breed it is hard to know the difference between well bred and poorly bred. Take the time to investigate your preferred breed, should the parents have been OFA certified? Had their eyes certified? These are minimum standards.

Additionally do not get lured into ‘his daddy was a champion’. Champion, especially generations back, has very little meaning in the dog world. If the dogs being bred are not themselves being shown or doing a job they were bred for, then having grandparents who excelled at something is worthless. Remember, dogs should only be bred for a reason, if the breeder can’t tell you that reason, then don’t get near enough to get lured in by that cute puppy!