How to pick a puppy: my 3 P rule
This works whether you buy from me or from somebody else. Three things decide what your puppy grows into, and most people rank them in exactly the wrong order.
1. The program — who you are getting it from
The program carries the most weight, and almost nobody looks at it first. What has this breeder actually produced? How have their litters turned out over the years? What does their place look like when nobody is tidying up for a visit?
Think of walking into a restaurant. If it is immaculate — clean, organized, everything in its place — your food is most likely being prepared the same careful way in the back. A kennel is no different. How a program is run tells you how the dog was raised long before you ever see the puppy.
2. The parents — the closest thing to your grown dog
Your puppy is going to be a blend of its mother and father. That is the nearest preview you will ever get of the dog you are actually taking home.
And if the breeder knows the parents properly, they know the grandparents and the great-grandparents too — which means you can see the whole line instead of one dog. That is the reason nearly every dog here was bred here: I can show you what is behind your puppy, not just what is in front of you.
3. The puppy — last, and for a good reason
This is the one everybody starts with, and it is where people fool themselves the most. Every eight-week-old puppy is cute. You get emotional, you decide this one is going to be perfect, and you have just made a ten-year decision on a photo.
At eight or thirteen weeks it is genuinely hard to tell how a puppy will grow up. Pick the program and the parents first, and then the puppy is the easy part — you are choosing personality and color out of a litter that was already going to be good.
The short version: program, then parents, then puppy. In that order. If a breeder will not talk openly about the first two, that is your answer.
Watch me walk through the 3 P rule →