At what age do you choose which puppy you are going to keep from a litter?

The moment the buyer who may want it walks in the door! :-)

It is generally easy to narrow it down to two - then it generally depends on which one responds best to me and all my scientific ideas such as structure etc go out the window.

Kerioak

With my breed exactly 8 weeks is the best time, they are minatures of what they will be later - more or less. By 9-10 weeks they often start going "off" for a month or two and can look quite awful - even the ones who turn out really well. When I have narrowed it down to two, I too am still frantically trying to decide as I hear the car coming up the track which contains the purchaser for the "other one"!! I wish I could run whole litters or the favourites on til 9 months or so, but its just not possible really for me to run on more than two at a time and give them enough individual attention. I am feeling very glum today as I have just lost the only bitch in a litter we had the other day, so I wont have the chance to decide this time. I am desperate for a bitch puppy to keep, this is the third litter we have had this year, in the hope of having one to keep. The first litter had two bitches, one too leggy the other with a soft coat, the second litter had one bitch who had ears bigger than I would like, dont know where those came from! Sorry for going on but I do feel glum about it. I dont usually ever have more than 3 litters at the most in one year, but I think this year I will have to try again. PS I'm not advertising, as whatever we have/may have are already booked.

Hi Westie Lover,
I hope the puppy with ears like a blooming bat was not Buffy!!!! :)

ive usually got it down to my favourite 2 by around 5-6 weeks, then i watch and wait to see how they go, character attitude etc, -even at that age though a one thats always been nice but perhaps not quite as nice as the one you're going to keep can catch up and take over, i go with watching them in the garden and theyre outline, movement etc,then check the finer details, bites pigment and so on, :)

The Lady that I've got mine off had her eye on mine- like dizzy say's- then another bitch seem to pick up at about six and a half weeks which left her stuck between the two as the other one could lose it just as easy as it came- whereas mine had always been nice, they both stand perfectly, walk, have lovely heads, same markings, etc etc they both even have the same personality so that bit didn't help. She had loads of her friends round who judge at champ shows etc and it was an even split between the two still some prefered mine others prefered her's- she eventually chose at 11am yesterday with the help of another friend who judges at champ shows, as I was going up at 2pm, this put her's one judge in front of mine and that's how she chose. Although I was to have 3rd pick from 4- I ended up with one of the top one's and no choice as out of the prospective new owners she thought I was the one more likely to show her as it would be a shame not to do anything with her- this doesn't mean I have to show her:) The man who had last pick wanted to change to a dog if there wasn't enough bitches and funnily enough he got the biggest bitch- which if he didn't mind a dog- size wise it's fine. The other owner who had 2nd pick went up to see them when the bitch was still in whelp so she didn't see them until they were 6 weeks old and liked the one with the blackest face for whatever reasons- she got her too. It's funny how we've kind of being picked out by the pup's rather than us choosing them:) When I walked into the enclosure with the two bitches and the stud owners dog left- I didn't have a clue who's was what and mine ran straight to me:)

Stacey x x x

its amazing how new owners attatch themselves to certain ones,-ive had them go ,i hope thats not the one its far too livley for us, others that pick ones out cos they look full of mischief etc, its each to their own i suppose, i took one back off someone who had a really outgoing non stop temperament, the sort that you think -phew thank god that one went, well for my sins i needed to bring her home again at 18months, -still outgoing and a handful but its not as hard to cope with as shes not in the middle of a litter full this time around, :)

Ok many of you may think I'm insane but I chose my last pup at birth stupid or what lol?

My latest little lady just had something about her - being born a full 4 hrs after I'd decided that mother had finished fed her let her go toilet and settled back down with pups!

She's just done her first champ show n got a 2nd so qualified for Crufts which I thought was great coz she's got a TAIL and there was more than 2 dogs in the class lol.

When your other puppy buyers start hassling you about wanting to pick their precious babies!

Difficult. Conformation - best judged when they are still wet at less than a day old I reckon!!!!!! We do character assessment 'tests' at 49 days to try to pick the ones most suitable for working, and to try to sort out any dominant pups so that elderly folk are gently steered away from them.

Mind you, you've got a pretty good idea before that, haven't you? It's just the puppy people like to see their pup's 'nursery report' !!!!

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats

We picked our bitch at 7 weeks and our dog at 8 weeks. We went to see them when they were about 5 weeks old, got an idea of which ones we liked and narrowed it down to a couple but then they change so much which is why we spent more time looking at them on the actual day we were taking them home.

Our breeder was very helpful indeed, she knew what we wanted and she advised us what she personally thought of them. Picking our bitch was easier because she was going to be a pet, picking our dog was a little more difficult because we were looking for show quality and we were slighly more experienced having already owned a bitch so knew more about what we liked. We (including the breeder) narrowed the dogs down to 2 then she let us take them into the garden on our own so we could chat about them and decide for ourselves. Basically our breeder let us make up our own minds, she was happy that either of the dogs personality wise would suit us so it was now down to our personal preference. We couldn't ask for anything more :-)