I am wondering if the 5 week old pup you have for sale can do detector work?

Bob,

I am very reluctant to cart-blanch sell my pups to a department as a service dog for several reasons.

If a breeder tells you that they have a 5 week old pup that can do detection work they are:

1. Bullshitting you
2. Need a lot more experience
3. Clueless
4. All of the above

Five weeks is too young to be able to tell if a dog has the drive for the work. The genetics are there but we don’t see the temperament and drive until 6 to 8 weeks.

Then we have to take into consideration the “K-9 handler” factor, rather I should say “the ability of a police handler to screw up a very good puppy”.

A working puppy is not raised like a normal pet. In fact this year I will be producing a training video on how to raise a working puppy. They are not raised like pets. This combined with the fact that most K-9 handlers with less than 4 or 5 years of experience are not very good dog trainers much less puppy trainers. If you have been in this for very long you have to agree.

So with all this said I would have to know who would be handling a pup from my kennel and the kind of experience the handler has before I would consider selling a dog to the department. This may sound stupid but if I send a good dog and it gets trashed – it’s then a Leerburg dog that was a shitter – when in fact it was a shitty dog handler whose inexperience screwed up a good dog.