Advice for Picking the New Family Member! Don't Be Fooled by Appearance!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

We see it all the time on the front page!  People want to know how to go about picking a puppy by coat type, color, or sex.  As far as I am concerned, they are going about it all wrong, and based on my vast experience of picking two dogs out over the Internet and asking all the wrong questions, I want to help others learn from my mistakes. I fell in love with Fudge from a picture and knew she was meant to be my dog. 

I still feel that way every single day.  I loved her chocolate color and the white patch on her chest and the sweetness I saw in her eyes.  I asked about health testing and her parents.  I asked about her food and personality and my husband and I still laugh that the breeder could say with a straight face, “She is just a dog content to let the world go by. She never reacts to anything.”  We have since determined that our breeder was either drinking heavily when she did her puppy assessments or had Fudge blindfolded, gagged, and hogtied while she was outside. 

 

Inside Fudge is a dream dog.  She loves to cuddle, rarely barks, and loves to take naps.  Even when Vern is barking out the window at nothing, she doesn’t overreact unless she hears something in his bark that I guess only another dog understands.  Sometimes, she just lifts her head and looks at me like, “there he goes again.”  Outside, Fudge goes from being my sweet girl to a lion hunting food in the jungle. Her tracking skills rank up there with Daniel Boone’s. 

She isn’t really a pack hunter although she does let Vern tag along for the ride, but usually after a little while Vern loses interest.  Today, while Fudge was searching the perimeter of our property, Vern was busy sniffing the ground trying to decide how a leaf hanging from his chin was staying one step ahead of him.  He knew he felt something, but he couldn’t figure out how to capture it.  Luckily, it fell off on its own, or he would still be out there lurching forward to capture that elusive leaf and falling just short of the mark every time.

Fudge, how long do I have to sit here and look pretty?  You said these rabbit ears would help us catch Stewpid!

Fudge does use Vern for the heavy work and if they corner a chipmunk in our stone wall, it is Vern she calls in to disassemble the chipmunk’s hiding place stone by stone. When I catch them, she usually backs up like, “can you believe what Vern is doing?” as Vern looks up with the evidence lying all around him and some hanging off his face.  Usually he is quite proud of his handiwork and willing to take all the blame just like a good patsy should.

My dog sitter likes to test the theory of Fudge’s high prey drive out from time to time and came over one day and told me the good news that she had gotten a kitty.  Our cat hates our dogs.  We even hired a trainer to come to the house and help, but unless one of us wants to suit up in bubble wrap and hold the cat in place, we cannot get her to stay in the room with the dogs.  She runs and hides and won’t come out until they are gone. It is hard to work on a “leave it” command when “it” won’t make an appearance.  Our cat came to us as a very damaged stray and is afraid of most everything and I am not going to force her to make nice with the Doodles when she is so clearly frightened, so they coexist under one roof in separate quarters.

I hate all things Doodle!!

I have always thought if we had one of those “you want a piece of this?” cats, the dogs would be fine, but since we didn’t have any ballsy volunteers lining up at our door to prove this point we had no way of knowing for sure. I didn’t want the local Animal Hospital to have a “Fudge and Vern” ward for those cats that didn’t fare well at the play dates.  So, when the sitter first asked me how I thought the Doodles would do with her kitten, she must have thought something was amiss when I dropped to my knees and clung to her crying, “No, please, no.  I need a dog sitter!”  Nothing kills a good pet sitter arrangement like your dogs playing, “Pass the Parcel,” with her furry parcel.

 

Luckily, her kitten has a strong sense of self and let my Doodles know that she wasn’t putting up with their nonsense right from the beginning.  For the first few sitting appointments after they got the kitten, Fudge would sit at our door trying to get over to her house faster.  Before the kitten, Fudge preferred to stay with me if she could and was never as eager as Vern was to leave.  It was sad how quickly her loyalties changed after the arrival of one orange kitten named Sammi.  Just saying the name perked both my dogs up immediately. Now, the novelty has worn off a little and whenever Fudge is less than eager, I always tell the sitter it is time to get another kitten. Meanwhile, the sitter sends me pictures of my two with the cat and it amazes me every time.  Vern is usually in a trancelike state staring at the kitty as if he has yet to determine what kind of dog he is dealing with and Fudge’s tail seems to fascinate Sammi.  The dog sitter calls it “Doodle time” for her cat and loves that they wear the kitty out.

 

If the cat wasn’t enough, two weeks ago the same dog sitter informed me she now has chickens.

This scared me even more than the kitten.  Eventually, she wants to let them roam free on her property and I have visions of Fudge having her own personal KFC meal every time she goes over there until the chickens are no more.  Again, I don’t see this strengthening our dog sitter/client relationship, especially if the dog sitter goes out to the chicken coop to find that a certain Doodle she knows played “Chocolate Fox in the Hen House.”  So, when she asked me how she thought Fudge would do, I was very honest when I replied, “I think by the end of the day, you will be able to determine if Fudge prefers white meat or dark meat if the meet and greet is not closely supervised.” Wisely, she decided to keep the chickens in their cages when my Doodles visit and see how it goes.

 

In the long run, you will love your dog so much that hair color and coat type is going to mean nothing.  No matter what your dog ends up with, I bet you will think you have the most beautiful dog in the world. It is just like having children.  They are all beautiful at the beginning and once you fall for them, there is no turning back, even when you are tested.  Just this week I have one daughter trying to re-home me and the other one, who has a strong prey drive, sending me emails suggesting I read a book with this comment attached, "You may or may not be interested. I believe it is a pretty liberal oriented book, but who knows, you may want to learn about the dark side. :) Mom, I added you because I thought if you were willing to put down the smut books and if you could read all the big words, you might be interested."  (more proof that she has an Aunt F)  Later, she called very proud of herself and asked me how I liked her email and when I said, "you are an ass," she laughed for thirty minutes. Learn from my mistakes!  I should have left that one at the hospital with her thesaurus and dictionary.

In comparison, my dogs are easier, but your dog’s prey drive is something that will affect every walk, every outing, and every trip outside.  Start saying, “Leave it!” over and over again and if you like the way it sounds rolling off your tongue, you might just want a dog with a high prey drive.  If you prefer saying, “mommy is so proud of how calm you are,” or “good dog,” don’t get a dog with any prey drive.  I will say there is never a dull moment with a dog that likes to hunt because you have to remain as alert as they are and one step ahead of them.  Sometimes, when my husband and I are walking the dogs, the conversation goes like this, “groundhog straight ahead, goose to the right, D-O-G two cars down, jogger on the left, prepare to hold your ground, squirrel just ahead, CODE RED-geese everywhere, abort the walk.”

So, here is my advice to all of those looking to find the perfect puppy or dog.  When you are going to pick him or her out, take along the following-a ground hog, squirrel, chipmunk, cat, rabbit, bird, goose, and mole.  This gets a little tricky because you will find that most reputable breeders will not be agreeable to having you bring wild animals to your appointment, so you may have to yell something like, “there goes George Clooney,” to divert her attention while you release them.

It will be a little chaotic, but watch the puppies closely for their reaction.  If one puppy reacts like Barnabus Collins and latches on to one of the wild animals with a bloodthirsty glint in his eyes, you can bet your bottom dollar he has a high prey drive. 

If you want a puppy that likes to hunt and can catch his own dinner, I think you found him.  If one of the puppies looks up at the wild animals and goes back to eating grass and trying to figure out who left a paw on the end of his leg, he might be a better option if you are looking for a dog to take long, uneventful walks with on a summer day. He is the kind of dog you can enjoy pointing stuff out to…Vern puppy, it is just a man in a lawn chair and so forth.  Both dogs will make your life interesting, funny, and exciting, depending on what you are looking for in a dog.  It is just a matter of deciding how much excitement your heart can handle.   Choose wisely and well.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I did have a coonskin cap which I was planning to wear to the wedding with a veil attached. ;-)

[Marnie, Stanlee's Mom]

♫ Karen and Fess sitting in a tree..... ♫

[Marnie, Stanlee's Mom]

Oh girl I started laughing out loud when I got to the part about the leaf hanging from Super Rabbit’s Vern’s chin.  Monday I was sitting on the patio reading a book when I heard Stan’s teeth just chomping away.  I look over and he has a leaf stuck in his eyebrows.  When he lifted his head, the leaf “went away”, when he dropped his head, the leaf “came back” and he kept trying to catch it.  I think Vern’s Son-By-Osmosis moved into my heart and home a couple of months ago. 

Last week I saw Stan running through the backyard throwing something in the air and catching it over and over again but when I went to see what it was he stopped dead in his tracks and just stared at me.  Seems he stole a dead and half-eaten baby squirrel from the cat and thought what a FABULOUS toy it would be.  Can’t say what he would do if a rabbit showed up in the yard but if you ever have a squirrel problem just give us a call. 

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

The best part of getting a doodle is falling in love...I fell in love the moment I saw Daisy's little white feet. There was no turning back, we drove up, met the parents and the entire liter and plopped down the deposit.  When we were there and she was just 4 weeks old she sat beside me and put her little paw on my leg, DH said, "oh boy, guess I better stop looking at the black ones".

We have been very lucky, Daisy seems pretty darn healthy, her prey drive is opposite Fudge's as she runs from bunnies, leaves, paper blowing in the wind. She loves babies and children alike and I have to say she is a pretty bright bulb in the training department. She is everything we didn't know we needed and nothing we don't want.

I agree Laurie, you love what you get and you get what you love.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

ARGH!!! It won't let me delete the previous comment and fix it!  Great advice although my top priority will be to bring a roll of toilet paper and a box of kleenex and pick the dog who leaves them alone!  And a partially full wastebasket too!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I really have come to believe that you can't tell one single thing about how that cute, adorable puppy is going to be when he turns from that sweet bundle of fur into a giant lug of a Dood.....Murph is my test case.  Need I say more?  Laurie, thanks for the blog...there you go making my day again.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Great advice, Laurie! Although I didn't get JD as a puppy, I did have a chance to test his prey drive or lack thereof at the shelter before I adopted him. He was introduced to Matthew, the shelter's 20 lb Maine Coon "test cat". Had there been an altercation, my money would have been on Matthew, but fortunately JD understood that claws=ouch and kept his attention on his tennis ball. He showed the same respect for his new 6 lb kitty sister once he moved in.

PS: As much as I enjoyed this latest blog, I feel that in the interests of accuracy and education, I must point out an error. Daniel Boone was not the King of the Wild Frontier: that was Davey Crockett, also played by Fess Parker. Daniel Boone was " The rippin'est, roarin'est, fightin'est man The frontier ever knew!"

Daniel Boone theme song

Davey Crockett theme song

I had a huge crush on both Daniel  and Davey as a child, and planned to marry Fess Parker. 

[Bonnie and Kona]

Thank you for the great blog, Laurie. Where was this when we picked out Owen? 

Good luck catching that little bunny, Nicky!

[Camilla and Darwin]

LOL, I love this!!! 

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

Thank you for that timely and invaluable advice.  I am now searching for a chipmunk or come to think of it perhaps a kitten or a bunny to take with me when I go to pick my puppy.  I am thinking that a baby bunny may just be small enough to fit into a big pocket.  I will bring along my partner to distract the breeder ( he had quite a reputation with the ladies before I met him and will enjoy perfecting his skills again) whilst I whip the rabbit from the hat pocket and see what happens!  There are seven golden boy puppies that are now two days old so I have a few weeks to organize!