Puppy A: 10 weeks old. very dominant. Everything dog that comes in her path is subject to her bullying. She even mixes it up with her brother. When she bites at their necks - she shakes her head. She always wins.
Would not engage in tug play. When held on her back she flailed a bit, but then relaxed.

Puppy B: 9 weeks old. Described as the paper shredder. Immediately grabbed on to the rag. Played a vicious game of tug. She would not let go. She ripped the rag. When I held her down - she submitted.

Puppy C: 9 weeks old when I walked by the pen, she jumped up and started whining for me to grab her. When I put the rag in to play tug with her litter mate, she started to grab at it a few seconds later. She eventually let go.
When puppy A, started to try and dominate, she growled and snarled right back. She did not submit to puppy A right away.

Which one would you take? I am a novice handler. (All pups were forgiving on the pinch test.)

Carolyn,

Who is the sire and dam of this litter?

Who is the breeder?

I am just curious.

Jason,

Hi. I purposefully omitted that information because I wanted unbiased opinions.

I'll share the information later. I would be shocked if you knew who the dogs were.

So, which one would you take?

I would take pup B. Sounds like a great SAR prospect.

Pup A sounds like a tiger though...
Pup C, well, you never can tell....

But then again, without actually seeing them, it is difficult to tell.

Which one did you like and feel comfortable with?

Based on what you posted, I would agree wtih Carol BUT I would sure have to know more about the pups, including the pedigree before I could really make a decision as to which pup would be best suited for a novice.

Carol,
What is it that you see in her explanation that makes you think that pup B would be a sar prospect. The information given is very limited, however I like to see a dog with a great food drive for sar.

Between the 3, not considering breeding/pedigree etc...

I'd take pup B without thinking about it much. It's sort of a no-brainer. For training with the Flinks method, the first thing is that "the dog never lets go." That pup has a good start on training in this way.

Puppy A will likely be a handful, maybe much for a novice handler. I think it sounds like a fun challenging dog, but if my goal is SchH (not just we'll see...) I want a dog that I can start prey drive and bite development on immediately.

Puppy C would likely be just fine, probably better in obedience than in bitework - but it would depend on the skill of the trainer. I would train with a different style that with puppy B.

JMO.

I only use food with my Bloodhound. The Mal, Dutch, and the two
GSD pups coming today have intense play/prey drive, ball and tug.

Why switch? Cutting up treats, mashing them in your pocket, making sure you have enough.....not to mention dropping some on the ground by accident takes the focus off of the victim (or handler) and makes the dog look for the food. Whereas you can stick a tug or ball in your pocket and it does not make a difference.

My Mal and Dutch will do ANYTHING for a tug or ball, therefore, we use the tug and/or ball to train.
When my Mal finds source, she sits at source until I give her the "good fish" and play a good game of tug. My Dutch, who is bark alert since he is a Disaster Dog, will take a toy over food.

Puppy B sounds good for a novice handler because it sounds as though the play/prey drive is there and can be built upon and used for training, and the fact that she will submit will make it a bit easier on a first time handler.

The dogs I use for SAR are out of very high drive working dogs.
I guess I look at it as training with what you have (prey drive) and utilizing it to your advantage.

Now, with that said, I do use food on other dogs that come here that have already been using food as the reward. BUT, once the dog is evaluated we then test with toys....if the dog goes crazy for a ball or toy of some type, we try it with them with a victim.

I know quite a few people who have switched over.

Some dogs like food over toy and vice versa and this I understand.

Plus it is a pain to try and remember how much food the dog ate while working and then trying to adjust meal intake.

Carolyn, hard to tell from your post, but it looks like you spent one on one time with pups A and B, but not with pup C? If that's so, the info you gave on pup C isn't conclusive, IMO.

Hi,

Initially we were going with pup A. We went out to see her at 7 weeks, The search and rescue trainer had evaluatted the litter and she and her brother were the two with "working ability".

I also checked puppy A's persistence by putting my foot on the ball - she pulled and pushed and tried to get at it. She eventually went over to check some other things out. She followed the rag I had on the floor and grabbed it - but didn't try to play tug. (Again, this was done at seven weeks.)

We had decided we would wait until the other pups were old enough for the temperament test before we made our decision.

The breeder called and told us that puppy A was a handful. She said constantly needs to be the Alpha. I was amazed when I saw her yesterday. She actually started mixing it up with one of the other puppies. The other puppy ran underneath and around something, so she could not get to it. She actually SAT AND WAITED at the point of entry. She essentially BLOCKED the exit.

Pup A did come to me when I called. She sat with her ears back when I started to pet her.

What other information besides the pedigree do you guys want?

(*By the way, I made my decision already and was/am curious as to what the group thinks.)