If I had to say what are the two things you need to be on top of before you get a pup, these are them:
1. Can you handle the energy level?
2. Can you handle the training?
To be absolutely truthful, I don’t really think that either of these are a problem for a lot of people. But if you are juggling 3 kids under 10, or 3 kids over 10 with multiple after school activities, you’re going to find it very difficult to manage both.
Or if you leave home for work at 7am, and get home at 8pm, and then want to have a glorious social life on top of that.
The Portuguese Water Dog is a highly sought after breed, but is not suited to everyone. And that’s ok. When you come and visit us we will show you the workload that is required. Some of you will relish it, and some of you will think twice before contacting me, and possibly opt out before you even drop me an email. And that’s absolutely fine!
We do not want you returning a dog at 8 months of age as an out of control juvenile delinquent.
There is no magic wand to fixing behavioural issues in a dog. None.
And if you don’t put the work into a pup between the ages of 3-9 months, to fix the bad behaviours at 10 months, will require you to put in at least 100 times more work than you would have done if you’d started the right way like I advised you to, and you will possibly spend up to another $8k on a behaviourist – and even then you won’t have the same well behaved dog you would have had if you’d started earlier.
There is also no long list of people wanting to buy or be given your badly behaved dog – and that includes me.
That being said, the opportunity to train a pup and develop a wonderful member of the canine community is an absolutely fantastic thing to do. If that sounds like something you’re going to relish and put your heart and soul into – then that’s the sort of person we like to place our pups with. And we look forward to hearing from you.
More on “2 things” soon.
(PS: This is my girl Sticky, aka Bluegrace Date Pudding. She will jump and leap into the water 100 times a day after the tennis ball. How many times will you do this?)
