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Can I pick out my own puppy or
do you do it for me?
We will pick
your puppy for you. The reason that we do so is because we are
not hoping to simply sell you a puppy, but instead wish to help you
find the exact right puppy for your lifestyle. Our goal is to
place each puppy in its perfect forever home the first time. To
this end, we are very selective in choosing the puppy for each owner.
In fact, we
take the process of placing puppies as seriously as we do the
breeding itself. Because we are so highly involved with the
pups (see How
Pups are Reared)
we have an understanding of their individuality and trainability, as
well as their potential qualities such as willingness to work, how
they respond to environmental stimuli and natural inclination.
For this reason, we feel that we are in the best position to
determine which puppy best suits your needs.
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How will you know which puppy
will best fit my lifestyle?
Obviously,
the better job you do communicating your needs to us, the better
chance we have of making the right match. For instance, we can
all say that we want a Rottweiler with "good temperament"
but what is good temperament to one person may be wholly unacceptable
to another. It is important that we know each other well enough
to determine whether we are interpreting these phrases the same way.
One of the
things that helps us to determine this is an exercise called "if
I could design my own dog". We ask you to e-mail us with a
detailed description of what your perfect dog would be and why.
Another exercise that helps us is to have you describe your past dogs
and tell us what you loved about them and what you might have
changed. These descriptions help us to form an overall picture
of which type of pup will best suit your needs.
We also take
many things into consideration about you including your personality,
training style and experience and will want to meet the rest of your
immediate family and other pets.
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How often do you feel you've
made the right match?
Again, we're
not looking to simply match each puppy in a litter to a waiting home,
but to match personalities so thoroughly that we increase the
likelihood that you will bond closely with your dog. The
bottom line is, until we are convinced that we've made the right
match, the puppy does not leave our home.
We have
found that systematically matching pups to handlers in this manner
has been nearly 100% successful. Our owners are full of stories
of how they feel that their pup was "meant to be".
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What testing do you do to
determine the pup's show/working potential & temperament?
When
evaluating puppies, we make sure to consider every aspect, including
personality, conformation, activity level, health and overall
soundness. To learn more about what we do to determine these
things, please visit The
Esmond Rottweiler Puppy Evaluation Program.
After seven
weeks of carefully raising pups, we assess their qualities through a
series of evaluations and also by soliciting outside opinions.
We find that overall, litters are either very high in quality, or
aren't at all. There is a significant difference between
"Show Quality" and a potential winner. To rate
only 1-2 pups as top quality
from
a fabulous litter is not doing the others justice, nor is "over
rating" a puppy simply
because it is better than its littermates going to give it potential
that it does not have. A puppy
either has
serious show
and/or working
potential
or it doesn't, no matter how many siblings it came into the world
with. For this reason, we evaluate each pup individually,
comparing him to our vision of the breed standard, rather than
against another pup.
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Will the breeder always keep
first "pick"?
Because we
plan every breeding with our future in mind, either ourselves, one of
our co-breeders, or the stud dog owner will be keeping a puppy.
Remember however, that our "pick" may not be the puppy that
is the right match for you.
Please be
cautious of breeders who promise you "pick of the
litter". If there is no pup good enough for them to keep,
is it really a "pick puppy"?
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I heard that you have a large
number of people waiting, who will get preference?
We feel that
it is important to clarify that when it comes time to matching
puppies with owners, we do not evaluate pups as good-better-best, and
don't rank potential owners as first pick, second pick, etc. based on
who's been waiting the longest or any similar status. We choose
matches based solely on the number of traits that you have in common
with the puppy. Rarely is there a conflict between waiting
owners. This is because each owner's vision of the perfect dog
is just a little bit different.
For
instance, we may have three owners waiting, all of whom want a male
pup that is show quality who will also excel in the working
venues. However all three owners will have different
lifestyles, qualifications and aspirations. Enough so that one puppy
may be an obvious choice for one home while being altogether wrong
for the other two owners.
It is up to
you to provide us with enough information that, when your ideal pup
arrives, we immediately recognize that it is the pup for you and no
one else.
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Ok, what
happens if one pup is right for two of the people waiting?
This doesn't
happen often, but in the case that it does, we will discuss the fine
points of our puppy evaluation with both of you to try to determine
the best choice. In this case, we also will admit to giving
preference to an owner who has had one of our dogs in the past or who
may have lost their only dog.
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At what age will I know which
pup is the one that I will be offered?
We will have
a general feeling for the litter at about 5 weeks. At that
time, we can confirm that we will be evaluating the puppies with you
in mind. By 6 weeks, we have a reasonably good idea of who is
who in the litter. By 7 weeks, we have completed our formal
puppy testing and will notify you of the results and share our
placement thoughts with you.
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What if I would like to be
involved in the decision making process before that age?
You will
definitely be involved throughout. In fact, you will be given
weekly updates and be able to view the pups online from the day they
are born. We welcome any input during that time that would aid
us in making our final choices.
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Can I visit the puppies to
determine for myself whether we are in agreement?
Absolutely!
If logistics allow, we prefer that you visit at least twice before
the pups are seven weeks old. This way we can see you interact
with the pups, giving us valuable insight into which pup is right or you.
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What if, when I come to visit,
a pup picks me?
Some of our
most successful matches happened just this way. In each case,
we had already narrowed it down to that pup being a contender for the
home in question but the reaction of the pup and owner pushed us to
finalize the decision.
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What if the puppy you choose
is not the one that I want?
You never
have any obligation to take a puppy. If you feel that the one
we chose is not the one for you, based on a strongly held personal
preference, then you are under no obligation to take that pup.
Because we do not accept deposits, you are always free to pursue
another litter or another breeder. Or, if you have determined
that we are the breeder for you, we will continue to evaluate future
litters with you in mind.
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Are there ever any
"leftover" puppies?
No. We
do not ever plan a breeding unless we have varied enough homes that
each puppy will be spoken for.
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