Do Breeders let you pick your puppy? Find Out Here

Who Gets the First Pick of the Litter?

The answer to the question of who gets the first pick of the litter depends on each litter of puppies and what a breeder has agreed with third parties.

Puppies are considered property in every jurisdiction in the United States. (Although there are significant moves, to change the legal status). The right to possess a puppy is a property right that can be bought and sold. The breeder who owns the dam will possess and own the puppies.

The breeder may enter into contracts that sell the puppies even before they are whelped. A very frequent contract is the exchange of stud services for the right to first pick of the litter. These kinds of contracts are so common that templates are readily available online for use, including in our bestseller, The Dog Breeder’s Handbook. For every written stud contract, there are probably a dozen gentleman agreements and verbal contracts made between breeders. An example of that kind of contract is linked here.

Note that the right to pick first is only the right to pick. It doesn’t necessarily mean right to the puppy itself. Often if stud services weren’t involve, another payment of money will be made before the new buyer obtains possession of a puppy. If a buyer fails to pay this money, the right to pick of the litter may be terminated, and passed on to someone else.

For the first 8-12 weeks of a puppy’s life, I’m constantly evaluating them to see which ones meet the most of my list of breeding goals for that particular litter. Those at the top of my list are selected to “stay in the family” so that I can raise them up, do lots of things with them, prove their value/contribution to our breed, and use them to create more generations of outstanding Weimaraners. Obviously, not every puppy in a particular litter will be my favorite puppy. Those that I decide not to keep for myself and/or breeder colleagues or other experienced performance homes are available to the right companion/pet homes. To state the obvious, I’d be doing a dis-service to my breeding program if I presented a prospective buyer all of my puppies, and that buyer walked out the front door with what would have been the best puppy for my next generation.

One of the most frequent questions we get is, “why do breeders pick out puppies?” This is usually followed by I’ve always picked out my own puppies or my puppies have always picked me.

There are generally two types of breeders: those who will let you pick out your puppy for you, and those who will insist on making the

As a young adult, I just assumed that if I wanted a puppy I’d simply pick up the phone, go see a litter, pick out my favorite puppy, and take her home. In fact, that’s how we got our first Weimaraner, Britta. She crawled into my (then) boyfriend’s lap and the rest, as they say, was history.

When I was kid, my mom brought home a puppy she came across in the grocery store parking lot. The entire litter was being sold out of the back of a pickup truck and there was a sweet little puppy my mom just had to take home. “Daisy was the cutest puppy in the bunch,” she always said.

At shows and at club meetings, I have heard novice breeders ask seasoned and highly successful breeders, “What is the best age to select your pick of the litter puppy?” On one hand, a puppy just minutes old and still wet gives you the best representation of genetic potential, but the most accurate answer to the query has to be, “When he is eleven months, three weeks and six days old.”

Without a large home or large kennel, sufficient acreage and unlimited capital resources, you just cannot keep them all. At some point we must take an honest look at the litter as a whole, and each puppy separately and decide (some would use the term guess) which one or two to keep. The remainder of the litter can be placed in pet homes at fair and reasonable prices.

Of course, there is always the possibility that you will have been very fortunate with the selection of the sire and you have two or even more outstanding puppies. If you possess the resources, you do not even have to decide which of those exceptional puppies are the pick of the litter. When they are six months of age, you can enter them in the puppy classes and let the judges make the decision for you.

Everyone who has ever bred a litter are well aware of the possibilities and will readily acknowledge the pitfalls of selecting their pick of the litter. Some of us have even attempted to impress our colleagues by embellishing on the difficulties experienced in selecting our pick of the litter. That makes it reasonable to ask, “Why do we spend so much time and energy trying to select that pick of the litter puppy?”

To further illustrate my point, the dog which you whole-heartedly believe will do very well at the show this coming weekend may suddenly develop an allergy and blow coat. If you go to the show, he may only have two chances of winning his class, slim and none. However, at the other end of the spectrum, your pick of the litter puppy may finish from the puppy class and take wins and placements in the Group ring before he is a year old. He just might come to possess every physical attribute you desire but lack the temperament and showmanship to ever be a success in the show ring. Between the two ends of the spectrum there are quite literally thousands of possibilities.

How To Pick A Dog Breeder | WATCH BEFORE YOU BUY YOUR PUPPY

It is a wild time we live in! Thanks to technology, a buyer is now able to locate and purchase the perfect puppy online, even if its halfway across the country. For a breedership like ours in South Carolina, this is a wonderful thing.

The other good news is that this enables more families to have access to a greater selection of puppies. However, thanks in part to COVID-19, more breeders have moved to exclusively selling online, which has in turn encouraged more scammers.

This has many people are wondering if they should even pay their puppy deposit via a website.

It’s a vicious cycle that we hope to break through by educating our buyers! We have previously posted ways to spot a scammer here as well as indications of good, reputable breeder as in some cases you may be dealing with a real breeder but one who is operating a less than reputable program when it comes to raising healthy, happy puppies.

As scammers have gotten savvier, buyers have gotten warier. We have seen many instances where buyers get cold feet and accuse a legitimate breeder of being a scammer because they do not understand the puppy-buying process. After all, buying a puppy is not something you do every day.

It’s certainly not as easy as scanning a barcode at Walmart. So it may be helpful to understand what the typical puppy buying process is like so that you as the buyer can spot red flags and/or rest easy knowing your breeder is following a fairly standard procedure.

Not all breeders operate the same way, and each will likely have a few finely tuned details to their own purchase process. Still, most breeders do follow a fairly similar process. Most reputable breeders have an application process to screen potential buyers in order to make sure their puppies are going to good, safe homes.