Would you be happy for a breeder to select your pup for you?

[I love cockers]

I think its a good idea if you are novice / inexperienced dog owners but not sure I would like to be told which puppy i could have. Saying that I picked my puppy based on colour and sex (at 3 weeks old) as I couldnt tell much between them. When I went to pick her up at 8 weeks old I still couldnt see much between them personality wise as they all came bounding over to see / investigate us. A breeder is obviously going to know a lot more about their personalities than you can from a couple of 1 hr visits.

[Mrs K]

I have only picked a pup once and that was when i was 4 years old  All the pups pushed forward and left one at the back shaking like a leaf, we did what all the books say you shouldn't and took him. We never regretted it once in nearly 16 years.
I would trust a good breeder to pick out the personality I was looking for. Molly has such different personalities from one hour to the next that I don't think you could judge in a couple short visits.
However, if you are very experienced (as I think you are) I would expect to be allowed to make my own choice.

[Victoria25]

We had help when we picked our puppy. We had pick of the litter which we narrowed down to 2 blue roan girls. The breeder went through the personalities of the girls for us and what they were like. We chose the quieter of the 2 who was already asking to go outside for the toilet and had used the cat flap once! I think our breeder was invaluable for this advise and Poppy has been a star from day one!

[hollyd443]

I can understand the benefits of the breeder selecting a pup for you, but I'd still want to select myself!

I chose Roxy at 2days old - not ideal I know, but I wanted my pup to keep her tail, so I chose purely on markings. She is lovely, I think we were very lucky! 

With Rio, we selected a pup at 3wks, but a slight problem appeared and the breeder wanted to hang on to the pup until she was absolutely certain that it was going to be okay, by which time all bar two of the pups had been picked, one was a boy but we wanted a girl, which left Rio! Rio was a blue roan and tan and the largest in the litter and I wanted a small black and tan girl  The breeder said she'd be perfect for us. I ummed and arred, but within 24hrs agreed we'd have little Rio, and I'm soooooooo glad we did!! She is quite a shy girlie  but this works well against Roxy's bold temperament!! I think two Roxy's would be a nightmare!!  I can't imagine being without Rio, she's very much one of a kind and very lovely (and VERY leggy for a w.cocker girly  )

[Jeanette]

However, if you are very experienced (as I think you are) I would expect to be allowed to make my own choice.

I'm definitely not experienced even more so with a different breed.   

Now I've seen all the responses then its definitely not a strange thing to do, I would also take the breeders advice on which puppy anyway regardless of the arrangement.    Its the not knowing which one you are getting til you collect I found a bit strange but I suppose if you pick two, you would kinda hope its one of them anyway.     There is no colour difference in this breed, not like cockers so at the end of the day they would all look pretty much the same and its only the personalities which would be different which the breeder would know best.    Its just a big change from the telling you to view at 3 weeks and then you have to pick a puppy and pay a deposit so that others can then pick.    More I think about it, the more I like it, at least you don't end up thinking, have I made the right choice as picking so young can be a gamble even though I never doubted my decision when picking Indie.     

[Mrs K]

However, if you are very experienced (as I think you are) I would expect to be allowed to make my own choice.

I'm definitely not experienced even more so with a different breed.   
   

You would good in an interview, you always sound like you know what you are on about 
Very exciting anyway! Can't to hear about your non-cocker arrival 

[minimoo]

this is a very interesting subject, when i first read it i thought no chance, i would want to pick a pup i was having, but as i read it i could see it does make sense, even more so if its something like a litter of labs which are all black or yellow , or a litter of all black cockers, and alot of  other cockers markings all change so much anyway, def very interesting , so give us all a hint, what are you thinking of getting 

[Coco]

Others have made a good point on the compatability with an existing dog in the home. Gizzy was chosen, as I said as the runt i'd fallen in love with her, but head ruling heart I saw that her sister who was bold and already retreiveing would be better for a working dog. Then going back to it and thinking about Wherry's character, the bolder one may have clashed with Wherry so I went back to the choice of the runt. So basically I suppose what i'm saying is that my choice may have been different if I hadn't got Wherry and that even though the breeder knew what I was looking for in a pup i'd not considered Wherry so much and the breeder obviously didn't know what Wherry was like.
So... if I were in this situation, i'd discuss not only what I was looking for but also my existing dog's personality 

[LurcherGirl]

It does make a lot of sense and if I was a breeder, that's probably what I would do as too many people chose puppies with unsuitable temperaments...   However, personally, I would like to chose my own puppy (as it has to "click" after all), but very much with the breeder's input if I was looking for a particular character or "use" (e.g. for doing doggie sports) as indeed the breeder knows the puppies better.

As it happens, I chose Jesse purely on colour (he was the only solid sable in the litter) and have been extremely lucky as he is a fabulous pet and working dog.

Vera

[SkyeSue]

This is a really interesting thread and has made me think slightly differently from my first post. I can definitely see the advantages of a breeder picking the most appropriate pup for a prospective buyer, but I do tend to trust my instinct quite a lot.....Chloe is my first dog, she was the pushiest of a litter produced by two working cockers, from a first time breeder. Shock horror  But I have absolutely no regrets, even though Chloe has not been the easiest of pups, she was meant to be in my life.  Having said that, with my newly acquired wisdom, courtesy of COL  , I would do things very differently if there were to be a next time, but I would still trust my gut instincts as well as being guided by the breeder and those more knowledgable than me.

[Ninasmum]

I guess that many people would have different views on this interesting post.     IME when we had our 1st litter of 9 puppies, most of them were very different in personalities and the most bossy/noisy of them all was a little girl, and although we loved and cared for all of them very much, i admit she was very hard to look after, and always seemed to be the one leading the pack and causing trouble.  This 'little troublemaker' who is now over 2 years old, has grown into the most loveliest natured dog you could ever meet  .  She lives with a very good friend of mine and lucky me gets to see her quite a lot.    Even with a breeder spending 24/7 with their puppies for a minimum of 8 weeks, there are still no guarentees on how a puppy will mature and develop his/hers personality.

If a prospective new owner is looking for a dog to show, then i would expect the breeder, along with another expert in the breed, preferably a show judge to advise which would be the most suitable puppy.   

[Countrygirl]

When we were looking for a cocker puppy, we went to see a breeder who had 2 litters of pups, they were about 5 weeks old as I remember.  They were in the house, very well looked after and the mums were lovely.  We looked at all the puppies, cuddled them etc., but when we asked if we could have a particular one we were told that we could not choose any of the puppies as that was not the way they did it.

Apparently not many people came to look at the puppies until they were 8 weeks old.  What they preferred people to do was send a £100 deposit in the post, then when the puppies were 8 weeks old and ready to go, people were given an appointment to come and choose a puppy in the order in which their deposits had been received.  Last one to send the deposit got what was left.  There were 15 puppies and we would have been 13th.

So, they were quite happy to take a deposit from people they had never seen and knew nothing about, then just hand the puppy to them when they turned up at 8 weeks.

We walked away.

We found Ellie's breeder on the day the puppies were born and went to choose her at 5 weeks old, we were the first to choose and we could have had any one of them but we were struggling to choose.  She guided us towards Ellie and no better thing could she have done for us.

[laurianna]

ours was chosen by default - all the others were already taken and we had a choice left of 2 boys.  We chose the least attractive one

In all seriousness though, I agree with Jane and Nicola on this - the breeder should know the pups and dam (and sire) better than someone coming to see them for the first time, and especially if you are a first time puppy owner I would bow to their experience   

And if you've done your homework and the pup is from a sire and dam with exemplary temperaments (as well as all the other factors such as health testing etc) then any pup from that litter will be a good one 

The pushy one always makes itself known....I have a friend that chose 'that pup' in the litter he went to see.  He's sorry now

Hilarious!!    really made me chuckle!

If the breeder seemed reputable i would bow to their experience, as long as i got the sex i wanted (dogwise  )

With Bella there were only two girls left and we picked the smallest runtiest - she turned out brilliant, and when we picked Maisie, there were only two girls in the litter and another couple had first choice so we were left with her - touch wood she is a delight.  But like someone said, if the dam and sire are good they should all be good pups any hoo.   

[fizzyntiffy]

With my non cocker I went to see the pups at 2 weeks, then took my daughter to see them at 4 weeks.  When we went to collect our pup the breeder picked up one of the two bitches and said this is the one for you.  We took her home and she was everything he said she'd be. 

They were all the same colour tho, if it had been a cocker and there were a variety of colours I think I'd have wanted the opportunity to pick my own.

Good luck in your search 

[sharonmansfield]

My breeder chose my first dog for me, she breeds solely to show and she had a litter of 3 pups and 1 slightly older pup from her friends litter that she had chosen for showing. I went to see them and they were all solid black and were all girls and were all gorgeous. She made it clear from the beginning that she would chose the dog for me as she wanted the ones with the greater show potential. I had no issue with this whatsoever as I would be deliriously happy with any of them. However I must confess that I had fallen for the older puppy as she had big feet and was climbing on the other pups to get to me, so I did feel that she had chosen me. When  I got back off holiday I rang her and she said I could collect the older pup, I was overjoyed, she said she had changed her mind hundreds of times as to which dog I could have and that she would probably regret it as Bella was so pretty. However had she said I could have had one of the other pups I would still have been overjoyed. I just wanted a healthy, well bred girlie.