Selecting your puppy

yeah now we have decided on the full black schnauzer we wanted to be able to get the "best" from a litter. of cos my best and your best may differ. some people prefer shy dainty dogs who are all nice and proper while others like us prefers robust active dogs who are well...a little mischievious.

thank God for the worldwide web! we read again all possible articles and here are some links that may be useful:

http://www.yourpurebredpuppy.com/buying/common/puppies.html
easy to read, easy to understand

http://www.dogbreedsfinder.com/dog-breeds/dog-breed/how-to-select-a-puppy-for-you.html
a little wordy but useful

generally the sentiment seems to be "Pick a puppy that is active, friendly, and inquisitive. Avoid the one that appears to be afraid of everything or snarls at people". the thing is most of the articles are based on overseas scenarios whereby there are professional puppy breeders who will show you the parents of the pup and allow you to observe their behaviors. In sg however, we were rejected by ALL of the pet shops and pet farms. Nobody allowed us to see the parent dogs. of cos there are also alot of imported dogs which also means it is impossible to view the parents.

the man actually printed a checklist of what to do and how to select the pup but when we got down to it, many did not work. 1stly the pups in available were 6-7 weeks old. Being so young, many are still very inactive and their characters are not apparent at all. We did try to do the following:

1. jiggle our keys or make some noise behind the pup and watch for response mainly to test that hearing is fine...

2. try to turn the pup over on his back and rub his tummy. if the pup is agressive or too fearful they may snare and struggle until you release him. a more ideal response would be for them to try and struggle then lay still when they realise you are not letting go. a pup that is too agressive or has problems submitting may mean training difficulties later. of cos if the pup does not try to break free at all, this pup is a tad too timid and may have confidence issues later. we had only 2 puppies to choose from, a female and a male and both passed this test.

3. let the puppies down and observe their behaviors when together and apart. We realise the female pup was yapping 90% of the time both alone and with company. She also tends to rome about more. The male pup seldom barked and sit quietly to observe walking around and sniffing occassionally.

as we only had 2 choices, the above honestly did not manage to help us make our decision. soooo we used the simplest approach, we chose the male for his slightly bigger built and unique marking on the chest. his face and body was also more square-ish inline with the standard appearance a schnauzer should have. we also like it he did not yap as much as his lil sis. if however you could have more puppies to choose from i believe you can run a few more tests to make a wiser decision.