Rather than hijacking another thread, I though I'd look for some expansion on Aaron's comment ....

 Quote:

My current dog was with her littermates until almost 4 months of age.

Given a choice, I would get every single pup that way, for the rest of my life, if I could.

What differences did you see in the that dog?

I'm curious about this, too.

I am curious too. I have a GSD that was with the breeder until 12 weeks...I would have preferred to have him home at 8 weeks, but it's just the way it worked out.

While waiting for Aaron's reply, I'll chime in to say that all mine were acquired at 12-18 weeks from their respective breeders. I'm also of the camp that longer-in-the-litter is better, if possible.

Of course, it depends on whether there are any littermates left with your pup--and if the breeder is doing anything enriching with the pups. I wouldn't leave a singleton pup or any pup with a breeder that wasn't doing anything with them. (I wouldn't be buying a pup from a breeder that would do that anyway.)

But pups learn a lot while in the litter--most importantly, bite inhibition. They bite on each other as part of play-fighting, and get smacked around for biting too hard by the offended pup. They learn through this that biting too hard means nobody will play with you. It's my understanding that litter interaction helps a pup develop a better sense of other dogs' postures and gestures and what they mean--this is when dogs learn to be dogs.

Plenty of people get pups at 6-8 weeks and do great...I"m sure you'll get compelling arguments for that too and they may very well be right for a working dog, or a dog that will be trained differently than my companion dogs.

It does sound ideal, especialy the dog/dog socialization aspect of it. It makes sense that it would be helpful for the dog to spend more time developing social skills within its litter.

Actually, I wonder if more breeders kept them together longer if there would be less dog/dog problems in the world!

Tasha was held back an extra week because I needed time to prepare. I have to say, we had absolutely no night time whining problems at all.

I absolutely believe that we'd have less dog-dog issues if breeders kept the litters together longer.

You cannot underestimate the benefit dogs receive from the in-litter socialization. There is no substitute- letting your puppy interact with dogs outside it's own litter doesn't have the same impact.

There have been studies that show that dogs literally get their temperament from their dam and littermates. Not just through genetics, but through socialization.

 Quote: Aaron Myracle

There have been studies that show that dogs literally get their temperament from their dam and littermates. Not just through genetics, but through socialization.

After getting my dog at 7 weeks, I can tell you I will never do that again. She's very dog reactive and has no dog social skills whatsoever. Some of it may be genetics, but I think a lot of it had to do with lack of littermate socialization. And her dam apparently was separated from the litter at around 6 weeks because the owner wanted to wean them fully at that time.

Good points

Bottom line is that I think it totally depends on what the breeder does with the pup between 8 weeks and when the dog goes home.

I got Kira at 4.5 months and though she was at the breeders, she was the only pup left for quite a while. She does have good bite inhibition, is good with other dogs as long as they don't give her any b.s. behaviors...but generally, she was a pain to train. She is still a spicy girl! Then I got Vigo from the same breeder at 12 weeks (he and his brother were left), same benefits and very easy to train. One big plus was his ability to stay in a crate a little longer than a lil pup...since we work.