Ep. 442: Houndations – The Dangers of Impulsive Puppy Shopping

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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to Foundations. I’m your host Tony Peterson, and today’s episode is all about taking the right approach to researching your new puppy. It’s a pretty good idea to not be overly impulsive in life, at least when it comes to the big decisions. You know, you wouldn’t want to marry someone you met a week ago anymore than you’d want to buy a house like just on a whim, you know that kind of thing. This also goes for getting a new furry best friend who is very likely to be with you for at least the next decade. Yet, a lot of folks will, you know, not put very much thought into their next puppy, you know, about as much as they’d put into what they’re going to have for dinner tonight. That’s a mistake, and it’s something I’m going to talk about right now. In a past life, I managed a restaurant in southeastern Minnesota where we had the typical ensemble of servers, cooks, dishwashers, etc. There are plenty of stereotypes to go around when it comes to the restaurant working crowd, and many of them are warranted. A lot of them center around folks who, let’s just say, aren’t the most reliable workers you can find, so when you did find someone who could show up on time and handle the job, you would try to keep them around. One of those folks that I had was a younger kid who I really liked, partially because I wasn’t terrified he’d no show for every shift, and partially because on his off days he spent a hell of a lot of time hunting and fishing, so we had something in common. While I was talking to him one day and we got on the topic of family, and he casually mentioned that a few years earlier, his younger sister had gotten pregnant as a freshman and hidden it from their family. How she pulled it off, I can’t really imagine, but he said he was in his room one evening and she called to him from her room. So when he went over there to see what was up, she was sitting on her bed, which was covered in blood and other assorted biological fluids, and she was holding a newborn. She had given birth quietly by herself in her room, with no medical staff, no nothing. When I asked him what that was like, he said, once you get past the shock, of it all, you realize that your family suddenly just has a new person who factors into basically everything, and it really upsets the balance of life, to which I replied, well, no shit, that’s bonkers and something a lot of us probably can’t imagine but maybe secretly think about sometimes, considering some of us now have teenage daughters. I’m sure you know where I’m going with this, but I’ll say it anyway. A secret baby birth in your house is one thing, but getting a puppy impulsively without a lot of research is a small kind of parallel to that, and it’s something you don’t want to do to yourself. Right now, all over across the country, right now, all over across the country, there are people who are dealing with brand new puppies that were purchased as Christmas presents. If you’re one of those people, I sincerely wish you luck. Not only is winter, at least in much of the country, a real chance for training a brand new puppy, but getting a gift of a dog is generally not a great thing. I realized this warning should have come earlier, but I also have to assume that the crowd that listens to this podcast is probably more likely to put in real thought to their next puppy than the average suburb family where I live, a place where, for some reason, maybe because no one ever sent me the secret pamphlet, it’s just a spot where it seems like you’re bound by law to buy some sort of doodle for the kids, or a French bulldog, or for the close enough to us but not like us suburb dwellers a really well bred bird dog that will never spend a day and it’s life hunting birds. Maybe I’m just too jaded to live here. I don’t know, but I do know that surprise Puppies’s gifts are generally not a great idea. It’s also generally not a great idea too. As I said in the intro, impulsively pick up a new puppy. Here’s the thing about that, though. For a lot of us, winter is the time to consider big spur of the moment purchases. Every single year up here in Canada South, I hit a point during the winter where I start shopping for ice fishing gear. Now, I used to ice fish a lot, but that was a different stage in my life in a long, long time ago. I probably wouldn’t regret starting to ice fish again, but it’s just not that appealing to me for a couple of reasons, besides the fact that I don’t drink anymore. One is that I’m allergic to fish, so whatever I catch, I have to either throw back, which is totally fine, or clean for someone else, which mostly sucks. The second is that by the time you have an augur, a shack, a flash of Rod’s reels, tackle, and all the assorted stuff to make an ice fishing thing happen, you’re going to spend a lot of money. So I shop, but I don’t buy because I really don’t want to get back into it that bad. Yet every year, the boredom of winter brings my mind to thoughts of ice fishing. The dead off season months might do that to you on the puppy front, or you just might be in the market for a fresh recruit, considering the older dog is eight or nine and it’s just about time. Either way, if you’re considering adding a new dog to the roster, you should give yourself a lot of time for the process. This is probably obvious, but I’ll spell it out anyway. A dog is a long commitment, A part of your life that will change just about everything and not something to be taken lightly. Not only do you want to get the right dog for you, but you want to be the right person for that dog. The problem here is that we just generally don’t know where to start with the research, and we just generally think we know what we want now when it comes to the research part. Let me give you an example from something that keeps popping up in my life. I follow a couple of subreddits on dogs and dog training because you can actually learn a hell of a lot from random strangers who are interested in the same stuff as you. But I also see a lot of threads pop up with people who have decided they need a new puppy soon and they are considering a certain breed. It’s almost never something like, Hey, I’m a hardcore quail hunter and I’m considering getting an English pointer so but instead it’ll be like, I’m the father of nine kids, I live in Memphis, have seen one quail in my life, which was on a billboard, So I’m thinking of getting a Gordon Setter because they look really cool. You know who chimes in on something like that. A couple of different types of people. The first are folks who have never seen a Gordon ceter and know nothing about it. You know, they’ll just weigh in anyway. And then you have a few folks who have seen a Gordon setter, and you know who advice maybe against it. And then you’ll have folks way in who have Gordon Setters tattooed on their chests and who would never own a different breed. Now, who do you think is going to offer up the most persuasive argument for getting a Gordon setter? You know, the person who has always owned them and who will only tell you how amazing they are and not talk about any of their downsides. Breed loyalists are the most adamant salespeople you’ll ever meet. But someone should probably tell that guy about the reality that Gordon setters are built to survive and thrive in Scottish winners, which are not quite the same as you get living in Tennessee, and their coats would be an absolute nightmare in a lot of places where cockle burrs or beggars, lice or a high prevalence of ticks can be found. Could he make it work? Sure? Should he? Probably not? Enough time during the puppy buying process allows you to source info from a variety of places, not just people who are obsessed with a specific breed. I cannot stress how important this is. Another type of thread that pops up a lot are the ones where people will say, help, my ten week old German short hair doesn’t seem to want to do water retrieves on live mallards, and I’m at my wits end. They’ll then go on to say they’ve always had GSP’s, but they lost all their upland spots, so they mostly hunt ducks, and for some reason their dog just doesn’t seem to be as interested in the process as their buddy’s labrador, and it’s giving them some trouble. Now, in that case, there might be nothing I or anyone else can do to sway the thought process any but it’s a good example of the wrong pupp for the situation. What we forget about when we are kicking around the idea of a new dog is that it isn’t just about what we want, but also what we can do for the dog to give it the best life possible. That kind of behavior is sort of expected out of the general pedoning population, but if you’re looking for a dog with a job. It’s not a responsibility that can be taken lightly, and finding not only the right breed but the right litter is something that shouldn’t be rushed. There are a couple of reasons for this. If you want a really well bred puppy, which you do even though they cost more than the dogs with more questionable blood, you’re probably going to have to wait a while. The best breeders aren’t just churning out dozens and dozens of litters a year with an almost unlimited supply of puppies. This goes for rare breeds, obviously, but also for the more common breeds, which seem to be everywhere. But the quality of the puppy you probably want isn’t going to be everywhere. It might be waiting to be born a year from now, and the waiting list is already pretty full. This is a dead end for a lot of folks because they don’t want to wait that long or won’t plan that far ahead. But if you do your research and all roads point to a specific breeder, then the weight is probably worth it. And speaking of research, aside from posing a question to a bunch of randos on Reddit, and hoping you get something actionable in return. There are other ways to learn about dog breeds and to narrow down your choice, and then when you do, ask yourself why you came to that conclusion. Because why we want a dog is really really important, and if we are honest about it, that can tell us a lot. So let’s say you make a list and go, you know, I need a family friendly dog I can hunt upland and Waterfall is known for having strong retrieving desire, you know where good blood is generally largely available, and training them is known to be, you know, not so bad and not just low grade torture. You might populate that list with Laps, Goldens, maybe some of the German and breeds who support beards and coarse coats and whatever else. Most trainers would probably point you pretty quickly to Lapse. Then maybe Golden’s, and for the right folks, one of those bearded dogs. But for some reason, a lot of people will say I don’t want a popular breed because they are everywhere. I want a rare one that makes me feel special at cocktail parties or something. Then if you’re being honest, it’s not necessarily about the best dog for the job, but something else entirely that will not only limit your puppy choices a lot, but also limit the training resources you can tap into just due to their rarity. It’ll probably get worse too, because there are always a lot of reasons why a breed is rare, and many of them aren’t because they are super duper awesome. Essentially, you really want to know what you’re getting into, But how would you know whether that choice is a good one or a bad one. Well, if you have the chance to talk to a trainer who has handled them, that’s a really good start. I’m not talking about a breeder here, so let me clarify that just like with random dog owners who are low to a breed, certain trainers also specialize in certain breeds and they often breed those dogs. Are they a better source of real info on the breed than some dude at the park who hunted with one back in nineteen seventy two? Sure, but they’re going to be biased as well. They might very well talk you into a dog, or if they have some principles, they’ll interview you and figure out what you’re like and what you hunt, to where you live and try to either steer you into the breed or into something else. But a trainer who doesn’t breed those dogs is a different story. I remember getting an assignment for gun Dog magazine a long time ago on a pretty rare breed that is mostly found in Europe but has taken a small foothold in the US. I call the trainer, who I know really well and who has gotten his hands on more dogs than just about anyone, so I could interview him about the breed, and he said, they are a great breed if you like a dog where you have to drive a stake into the ground in front of it so you can tell if they’re actually moving or not, which meant they didn’t quite have the got juice or drive that he was looking for in a bird dog. He didn’t let me print that for obvious reasons, but that information would be super valuable to someone looking at that specific breed and who also needs a lot of drive in the uplands. Access to good trainers who have handled a lot of dogs is probably the best resource you can find. Just be mindful of their time, since they are running a business and not just a free consulting service. Now, another source of really valuable dog information is likely to be your veterinarian. Now, if you have to bring in your current dog for a checkup or whatever, and you’re kicking around the idea of a new puppy, ask them if they’ve treated the breed before. They probably have, and they probably have their opinions on the temperament, personality, and potential health issues. This is no small thing and can be an enlightening conversation. And of course, whether you are kicking around a new breeder already have it narrowed down and just need the right breeder, you can deal a hell of a lot of internet sloothing your but you should also consider asking your veterinarian before you go down the internet route if they’ve handled breeds that are maybe common from local breeders, because that’s where a lot of people go. So if there’s health trends with a certain breeder, this veterinarian who works here twenty minutes away from that kennel might know a hell of a lot about them. Ask around, get your information, but also do your internet research. Don’t just read infro from people who love the breed. Figure out where they come from, what they were bred for fifty or one hundred or two hundred years ago. That’s not going to tell you everything, but we’ll tell you a lot and can definitely steer you in one direction or another. All of this takes time and some effort, but all of it is worth it. It’s also a good way to, at the very least consider deviating from the breed you always buy or the one that you have your heart set on for whatever reason. You know there’s nothing wrong with being a ride or dye golden retriever owner, but maybe you had some bad experiences with their health and that has you a little gun shy on the breed. Or maybe you’re now suddenly fifty five, and while when you were younger you had English cockers who you love to chase after for pheasants, but now you’re slowing down a little bit. You’re kind of sick of the pace and have realized you wouldn’t mind a dog that’s going to go out find birds, lock up in a beautiful point and wait for you to shuffle up and take the shot again. There’s a lot to consider when it’s time to put down a deposit on a fresh recruit, and the more time you give yourself to work through the process and conduct some due diligence, the better off you’ll be for it. This also happens to be a great project to start during the winter, when the daylight is in short supply and we are all a hell of a long ways from the start of next season. You can go down the rabbit hole of breed’s history, or find a trainer to chat with sometime about a different breed. You can learn about liter availability and the timing of the whole thing, who has been producing puppies that win field trials, and you know, Master Hunter ribbons and all the good stuff that might make your experience better. But you also give yourself time to come to terms with not only what you want out of your dog, but what you’re willing to put into your dog, and where you’ll take the dog on your travels, and how many hours it’ll have to be created when you get the promotion you’re expecting, and right on down the line. It’s a two way street, and it’s not a decision that should be made impulsively or lightly. So you owe it to yourself to spend some time digging into every aspect of this process that you can, and you certainly owe it not only to the dog, but to whoever else is in your family or in your life who will be tasked with caring for it or just being around. It’s just like any of life’s big decisions. Give yourself the time and the info you need to give it your absolute best shot. That’s it for this week. I’m Tony Peterson. This has been The Houndation’s podcast. As always. Thank you so much for listening and for all your support, and happy New Year. 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