Puppy Picking Without a Crystal Ball

Puppy Picking Without a Crystal Ball

Evaluating a litter is one of my favorite parts of breeding—and also one of the most humbling. We can study pedigrees, plan breedings carefully, raise puppies thoughtfully and evaluate them from every angle, but in the end we are still looking at babies. Nobody has a crystal ball.

For structure and breed type, I sometimes will use the Puppy Puzzle method along with something that is harder to quantify: developing a good eye and being honest about what is actually standing in front of me. I don’t evaluate puppies based on what I hope they are. I try to look at the puppy that is really there.

The breed standard is my starting point. I actually keep a printed copy in the whelping room, broken down paragraph by paragraph onto index cards. It keeps the standard in front of me instead of allowing personal preference to quietly become the standard. Aside from the Standard details on movement, structure and each ‘part’ there are all those wonderfully distinctive pieces that make a Stafford a Stafford—the head, expression, ears, body proportions, tail, feet and overall balance.

Basic canine structure matters too. Understanding shoulders, upper arms, toplines, rib cages, pelvises, stifles, hocks and how those pieces work together helps enormously. Some people have a naturally good eye for dogs, but that eye can also be trained. There are so many excellent books, seminars, mentors and experienced breeders available to learn from. I am still learning.

I also don’t evaluate my puppies alone. I like having other experienced breeders put their hands on them from head to toe and tell me what they see. Sometimes they confirm what I already thought. Sometimes they notice something I didn’t. That second set of experienced, unbiased eyes is valuable—especially when we breeders are naturally a little too close to our own puppies.

And structure is only part of the picture.

I temperament test, but I probably learn even more simply by watching puppies live their lives. I watch how they approach something unfamiliar, how quickly they recover when startled, how they interact with people and littermates, how they problem-solve, how engaged they are with me, how they handle frustration and what they choose to do when nobody is directing them. The Stafford standard itself speaks to courage, intelligence, tenacity, affection and trustworthy stability, so temperament isn’t an extra feature—it is part of breed type too.

We use Puppy Culture concepts and other age-appropriate enrichment and socialization protocols, giving puppies opportunities to experience different surfaces, sounds, environments, people, challenges and situations. I don’t want to know only what a puppy looks like standing perfectly for a photograph. I want to know something about who that puppy is.

I photograph them. I video them. I watch them moving toward me, away from me and from the side. I look at them standing naturally instead of only stacked. I look again the next day because puppies have an amazing ability to look completely different approximately every fifteen minutes.

And after doing all of that?

Choosing the “right” puppy is still an educated guess.

We can identify virtues. We can recognize faults. We can understand structure, pedigree, temperament and breed type. Experience certainly improves our odds. But puppies grow, proportions change and Mother Nature occasionally enjoys reminding breeders that she gets the final vote.

For my own breeding program, I won’t show a dog that I don’t believe represents the Stafford standard very well. That doesn’t mean every dog I keep is perfect—there is no such thing. It means I am trying to preserve the qualities I believe matter most while being honest about the places where each dog could be better.

Maybe that is the most important part of evaluating puppies: learn the standard, learn canine structure, ask other knowledgeable people what they see, watch the whole puppy rather than one beautiful feature—and be honest with yourself.

Then make your best decision.

And keep watching.

Because the puppies will eventually tell you how good your guess was.

Lynn Caswell
Wavemaker Staffords
The Stafford Knot, Inc 501c3