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33 Posts
Howdy! I've been reading the forum for a while now, researching in prep for the first pup in a long while for our family (youngest is now 12, and we haven't had a full-time dog in the house since she was almost 7, WAY too long). My tender-hearted spouse is a hard griever and wasn't ready to move on for a long while after our last dog (who we were lucky to have 16 wonderful years with), but we've kept dogs around us through working with and sitting for friends' and relatives' dogs, doing home socializing for the Guiding Eyes 6-8 week olds, and that sort of thing.
Our primary goal in this search is a healthy, active family member who will want to go everywhere with us and want to participate in agility, field, or obedience work (show ring is not where we see ourselves), and be disposed to get along with everyone we meet (dog/human/horse/goat/you name it) and all sorts of situations (hiking, canoeing, car trips, farm work, visiting relatives...).
Having gone through getting referral and reading as much about various breeders as we could, we are taking the drive a few hours away in the Hudson Valley to meet the pups from Pat Frisone's litter out of her Cricket (Zest N Meri-Knol's What About Me) by her boy, Karnerblue Surprise Package. While neither of the parents are finished due to Pat's being pretty much retired, the lines are strong, and Pat seems very conscientious about the health of the breed (clearances, etc.) and knowledgable. (She doesn't have a private website, but both dam and sire clearances are up on the public database.) Since our aim is not conformation showing, the unfinished parents seem less important, and we have heard nothing negative about her as a breeder.
In the course of several hours' worth of phone conversations with her, it is clear that she will not choose the puppy for us, but will only guide our decision by presenting her opinion, and then standing back to see if there is that "spark," the connection between pup and potential family (but she will not send a puppy with a family if she doesn't believe it will work out at all). I have worked with both methods in the past, and her not picking for us does not bother me overly much, as there are advantages to both the breeder-picked and the family-picked methods, and she seems to be trying to straddle the middle ground.
She also has been clear that she believes in titering and targeted immunization rather than global, standard immunization. This would be a new approach for our family (and would certainly involve lots of discussion with our vet, as I'm not sure how they stand on this issue), but certainly one we are willing to explore if it is better for the dog! In any case, she will give the pups their first vaccination at 9 weeks, right before they go home. This means staying home for the first 10 days or so when we bring the pup home, but I imagine that is a good thing, anyway, as it is when you bring a human baby home: the family is all getting to know one another better before you bring the rest of the world into the game.
In my usual poor business-sense way when dealing with anything that involves emotions, I completely neglected to talk price or anything to do with payment with her at all despite having long enough discussions to find out about so much else (I always seem to be way too interested in finding out more about her philosophy, hearing her war stories, etc., to remember to do so). Quite frankly, although we definitely have to live according to a tight budget in our house (especially in these times), "how much for a new member of the family" isn't really a thought that forms very well in my head even when I'm TRYING. And at this point, I really would much rather see whether there's a good match instead of looking for a comfortable price. Perhaps this is how the breeder thinks, too, since she never brought up price or payments, either. Feel free to laugh if you think I'm foolish -- I know I'm goofy.
It always seems that I try really hard to do the right thing, but fall on my face when my emotions get involved. But I guess I'd rather the emotions cause me to err on the side of financial matters (paying maybe more than I should for the very best solution) than on the side of things that would become a health issue (buying the first puppy that we see because we fell in love before checking clearances, or it was a great price, or whatever...), right?
Anyway, we are super-excited for our visit, and of course a little anxious (what if none of them like us?!!), hence my rambling post here...
If things don't work out with when we meet Pat's gang, our next step would likely be to try to get on a list for a Harbourview or Amberglo puppy. But perhaps things *will* align when we go to Pat's, and Harbourview/ Amberglo will be where we head eventually for pup #2 (After reading this forum for a while, I'm more and more convinced that one golden will lead to two goldens...)
Thanks so much for the support, and for everyone's good advice!
Cheers!
Otter
Our primary goal in this search is a healthy, active family member who will want to go everywhere with us and want to participate in agility, field, or obedience work (show ring is not where we see ourselves), and be disposed to get along with everyone we meet (dog/human/horse/goat/you name it) and all sorts of situations (hiking, canoeing, car trips, farm work, visiting relatives...).
Having gone through getting referral and reading as much about various breeders as we could, we are taking the drive a few hours away in the Hudson Valley to meet the pups from Pat Frisone's litter out of her Cricket (Zest N Meri-Knol's What About Me) by her boy, Karnerblue Surprise Package. While neither of the parents are finished due to Pat's being pretty much retired, the lines are strong, and Pat seems very conscientious about the health of the breed (clearances, etc.) and knowledgable. (She doesn't have a private website, but both dam and sire clearances are up on the public database.) Since our aim is not conformation showing, the unfinished parents seem less important, and we have heard nothing negative about her as a breeder.
In the course of several hours' worth of phone conversations with her, it is clear that she will not choose the puppy for us, but will only guide our decision by presenting her opinion, and then standing back to see if there is that "spark," the connection between pup and potential family (but she will not send a puppy with a family if she doesn't believe it will work out at all). I have worked with both methods in the past, and her not picking for us does not bother me overly much, as there are advantages to both the breeder-picked and the family-picked methods, and she seems to be trying to straddle the middle ground.
She also has been clear that she believes in titering and targeted immunization rather than global, standard immunization. This would be a new approach for our family (and would certainly involve lots of discussion with our vet, as I'm not sure how they stand on this issue), but certainly one we are willing to explore if it is better for the dog! In any case, she will give the pups their first vaccination at 9 weeks, right before they go home. This means staying home for the first 10 days or so when we bring the pup home, but I imagine that is a good thing, anyway, as it is when you bring a human baby home: the family is all getting to know one another better before you bring the rest of the world into the game.
In my usual poor business-sense way when dealing with anything that involves emotions, I completely neglected to talk price or anything to do with payment with her at all despite having long enough discussions to find out about so much else (I always seem to be way too interested in finding out more about her philosophy, hearing her war stories, etc., to remember to do so). Quite frankly, although we definitely have to live according to a tight budget in our house (especially in these times), "how much for a new member of the family" isn't really a thought that forms very well in my head even when I'm TRYING. And at this point, I really would much rather see whether there's a good match instead of looking for a comfortable price. Perhaps this is how the breeder thinks, too, since she never brought up price or payments, either. Feel free to laugh if you think I'm foolish -- I know I'm goofy.
It always seems that I try really hard to do the right thing, but fall on my face when my emotions get involved. But I guess I'd rather the emotions cause me to err on the side of financial matters (paying maybe more than I should for the very best solution) than on the side of things that would become a health issue (buying the first puppy that we see because we fell in love before checking clearances, or it was a great price, or whatever...), right?
Anyway, we are super-excited for our visit, and of course a little anxious (what if none of them like us?!!), hence my rambling post here...
If things don't work out with when we meet Pat's gang, our next step would likely be to try to get on a list for a Harbourview or Amberglo puppy. But perhaps things *will* align when we go to Pat's, and Harbourview/ Amberglo will be where we head eventually for pup #2 (After reading this forum for a while, I'm more and more convinced that one golden will lead to two goldens...
)Thanks so much for the support, and for everyone's good advice!
Cheers!
Otter
