I am looking for a search and rescue dog and have decided on a labrador retriever. I have found a breeder of working line labrador retrievers that is reputable but the only thing is he said as a rule he wont release pups until they are 10 weeks of age. is this normal / unusual ,should i move on in my search as my experience to date is that you normaly get a pup at 7-8 weeks of age . Thanks . alan

I think 10 weeks is not a bad age. Anything less than 8 weeks is not good though. Even that last week has a big impact on the pups social skills.

What are your reasons for needing a pup at 8 weeks?

What are their reasons for keeping the pup until 10 weeks?

Are these breeders absolutely exceptional and breeding dogs that are healthy and with great trainability and stable temperaments. Are you willing to give that up for 2 weeks?

A fair number of breeders wont release puppies until 12 weeks. I consider anything between 8-12 a fairly normal release date. Anything before 8 is often illegal in many states.

My cattle dog was held back by the breeder at eight weeks, as he had entered a fear period as she was scheduled to put him on a plane for delivery. She kept him until week 11, I recall. He came through not at all fearful. I expect there is an argument for shipping a pup just before a fear period, or after.

In his book "Training the Behaviour" Gary Patterson indicates that he likes to get a pup around 7 weeks, I believe. He is/was a high level schutzhund competitor. It should increase the attention of the dog on the handler and result in a more exclusive bond. Of course it also correlates to separation anxiety and more aggression with dogs later, which may be manageable if an expert trainer, and be very undesirable for the vast majority of us.

It seems to me that there might be an "in an ideal world" argument in favour of socializing a few hours a day with your selected pup between 6-8 weeks especially, but before removed from the litter.

There must be breeder/competitors who start their own special relationship with pups right from the age the pups can first identify and relate to specific humans, and without removing pups from mothers until normal weaning. I don't hear about competitors raising their own pups to obtain this advantage, so presume it is slim to non-existent benefit. Anyone have further thoughts on this angle?

rgds andrew may

Two of our pups we got at 12 weeks, one at 14 weeks, the other at 16 weeks. None had any problems bonding with me or anything like that. My preference is for pups to stay in the litter (assuming there are littermates still there with them) until at least 10 weeks. These weeks are important for learning bite inhibition from the other pups. This assumes that they are being actively socialized by the breeder. If, on the other hand, a pup were just languishing by itself with a breeder that wasn't doing much with it--then I'd bring it home earlier (but I probably wouldn't be buying a pup from that hypothetical breeder anyway.)

I think the fact that this breeder is waiting until 10 weeks is a good sign, not a bad one.

I got two of them at 49 days and one at 12wks. I didnt notice any difference.

The last puppy I brought home was 270 weeks old, worked out just fine

5yrs old?

 Quote: steve strom

5yrs old?

yep, she was a real good puppy