One of the main problems when purchasing a puppy is wishing to create a good impression with the breeder, BUT equally wanting to seem knowledgeable AND ensure that this breeder ticks all the right boxes towards buying a well bred, potentially healthy puppy.

My primary advice would be to ask the following questions on the telephone or by email. Visiting a litter will tug at the heartstrings, and then, even if the answers are not what you were wishing to hear, your heart may over rule your head and you purchase a puppy anyway!

So many times we hear people saying they KNOW they shouldn’t be buying, but they got there, and the pups looked basically healthy, and the breeder seemed nice….and so…. they went for it knowing they should be walking away…  DON’T BE THAT PERSON – YOU, YOUR FAMILY AND YOUR PUPPY DESERVE BETTER!

Lets lay out the first contact BASIC Questions so you can save that heartache, possible wasted desposits and huge embarassment:

Absolutely essential:

1) Are BOTH parents hip scored? What are the scores for each? Will I be able to see copies of BOTH parents hip score certificates? (Note here that saying a dog is hip scored is not good enough, they should both KNOW the result and be able to prove it by showing you the certificates. Any good stud dog owner will give a bitch owner copies of HIS certificates to show their puppy buyers, there should be no weak excuses).

2) Do they BOTH hold current (dated in the last 12 months) CLEAR eye certificates under the BVA/KC eye testing scheme?  (Ditto above as regards SEEING proof of this)

3) Does the breeder own mum and can she be seen? (You need to judge if she is the sort of dog you would like to own – therefore you must see her and like what you see of her).

4) Have the puppies been Kennel Club registered? (If they are not the chances are the parents are NOT health tested which is extremely shoddy on the part of the breeder.)

5) Were the puppies wormed at 2, 4 and 6 weeks of age (and 8 weeks if that is relevent age wise)?

6) Does the breeder give you a diet sheet, copies of the documents for the sire and dam and a basic puppy pack when you pick your puppy up?

7) Were the puppies born and raised in the house to a certain age OR well socialised if raised outside, with plenty of human contact and access to sounds and smells of a day to day household?

Have mum and dad been elbow scored? What is the result? Can you see the certificates?

9) Have mum and dad been Optigen tested? can you see the certificate?

10) Are they fed on an easy to obtain food?

11) Do they fall between about £550 and £700 in price? (If not you have to ask yourself what is missing as they are too cheap or WHY they are overcharging – adjust that to where you live in the country – London may be MORE expensive, Scotland may be cheaper!).

12) Will the registration documents be ready to take when you leave with your puppy? (Some breeders SAY they will register the pups and send the documents onto you, and you hand over the money for a registered puppy, but the documents never materialise – make sure you LEAVE with them at 8 weeks of age and at earlier visits gently mention this).

These questions can be expected by any reputable breeder and can be phased to come out in pleasant conversation, not necessarily firing them like a firing squad, you will save yourself a lot of trouble later. They are the basic essentials…. and will be found in many hundreds of labrador litters a year so don’t think you are narrowing your options by ruling out breeders who only do half the job.

Good luck!

<strong><em>Special thanks to Diana Stevens from <a title=”Labrador Trainer” href=”http://www.wylanbriar.co.uk”>Wynlanbriar Labradors</a> for putting together this article. Head over to their <a href=”http://www.wylanbriar.co.uk”>website</a> for more advice, training and tips on Labradors.</em></strong>

Breeders who show or work their dogs still always expect the vast majority of their puppies to go into pet homes. Just because they are experienced, regular competitors, doesn’t mean they won’t sell to pet homes. There is no NEED to buy from novice breeders, mating pet dogs for no good reason because you ‘only want a pet’. Prices will be almost exactly the same too for pet puppies from whatever source. So make sure your source is a quality one!

Special thanks to Diana Stevens from Wynlanbriar Labradors for putting together this article. Head over to their website for more advice, training and tips on Labradors.

The Labrador is the most numerous dog in the UK. Its not suprising therefore that they do come in all shapes and sizes. However as a general guide:

Show line and Field/Working line Labradors

These are not necessarily dogs who are shown or worked themselves, BUT have a pedigree full of dogs who come from either show or working lines. The show line labrador tends to be a little shorter in leg, but broader in body and head than the field/working type dogs. Commonly on a showline pedigree you will see dogs with SH CH (Show Champion) before their pedigree name. On a working or field trial pedigree you will see several with FTW (Field Trial Winner) or FT CH (Field Trial Champion).

80 years ago or more ‘the Labrador’ was all one dog. One type. A moderate middleweight hunter dog brought over from the fishing waters of Newfoundland to be shooting companions for the UK gentry. The popularity of the amiable, biddable breed rose quickly and with the advent of more dogs being kept as domestic pets, started to slowly split into several types, with the working dogs actually being bred with a lighter and lighter frame to enable maximum speed, style and endurance, and the show and pet dog often being bred heavier, with more thought given to looks and ’show ring presence’ than the origins of the breed as a medium sized dog with no exaggerations.

No one line or type is more prone to health problems than another. The logic that a lighter frame of Labrador must be healthier does not stand up in practice, especially as many of the working line breeders have been slow to start to use the health schemes (above) and so have not been making informed decisions healthwise when mating dogs for as long as many of the show lines have been. Matings between pet dogs are numerous, and of course usually are undertaken for no other reason that the Sire and Dam of the litter lived nearby, or possibly both with the breeder, so therefore may be a mix of any lines, show, working or anything inbetween!

Temperament is both inherited from its parents and developed by the way the dog is socialised and raised. It is important to see at least the mother of the litter to check her temperament is friendly, confident and you would be pleased to end up with a dog similar to her in looks and personality. If you would not, walk away. Puppies from show lines, pet lines and working lines can all be bold and outgoing, can all be timid and nervous and can all be smart and quick to learn or a little less clever! Generally the nature of field trial and working lines means that they have been bred for many generations to work hard all day and have the capacity to learn. These may, therefore, be a more active dog on the whole than your average show line bred dog, but many show bred lines are very intelligent and active without being overly demanding in their desire to be on the go quite so much.

In the end its the type that pleases your eye that you must ‘go for’.

Special thanks to Diana Stevens from Wynlanbriar Labradors for putting together this article. Head over to their website for more advice, training and tips on Labradors.

This is a very misunderstood area. Alongside temperament, the health of your Labrador throughout its life is of primary importance to you as pet owners. Three of the most frequent problems that affect the Labrador are Hip Displacia, Elbow Displacia and GPRA (a problem with the eyes that causes blindness, often by three or four years of age).

The eye problem is ENTIRELY genetic (so passed through the genes from the puppies parents to it and its littermates).
The Hip and Elbow problems have a very strong genetic influence, but can be aggrevated by overexercising a young puppy, falls, injuries and general roughhousing whilst the dogs joints are still growing.

Therefore, it is very very important that only dogs free from these problems themselves are bred from to give the puppies produced the very best chance of being free themselves of these painful and traumatic problems.

The common misconception is that only competition kennels use the health schemes or that they are not for breeders who ‘only produce pets’. The schemes are not expensive to put breeding dogs through, and, remember, every dog bred from is a ‘breeding dog’, NOT just those belonging to people who show or work their dogs. To NOT health test the parents before breeding for these conditions is selling both puppy buyers and the puppies they produce short as they are playing Russian Roulette by breeding ‘blind’.

To briefly explain the schemes:

Hip Scoring.
At around a year of age, when the dogs skeleton has fully grown, an xray is taken of the dogs pelvis area. This xray is then sent from the vet to the BVA (British Vet Association). They will score this xray with each hip of the two hips scoring between 0 (lowest) and 53 (highest). So if both hips are scored the total that dog achieves will be between a TOTAL of 0 and 106 (2 x 53).
Currently the breed average for a total of both hips sits at around 16. So dogs around or under this score have average or better than average hips to give a guide. The score can also be shown sometimes as two numbers, left hip/right hip – so, something like 5/4 (total of 9 – good) or maybe 33/21 (total of 54 – poor).

To recap, it is the PARENTS of the litter who are scored and not the puppies. This cannot be undertaken until a year of age as a minimum but can be done at any age after this. Only dogs to be bred from are usually hip scored, there is no need to score pet puppies not to be bred from. The information is FOR breeder and puppy buyers to decide if the dog is suitable to be bred from. Hip scoring is done once in a dogs life only and his score remains with him for the rest of his life. When buying a puppy, you should insist on seeing the official BVA/KC certificate with the dogs score on. NEVER just rely on verbal assurances that the parents are scored without seeing the proof. Hip scoring has been undertaken now for around 35 years and so the scheme is well known and well used. A breeder shows everything you need to know about them, even if a nice person with basically healthy looking dogs, if they do not use the health schemes.

Eye Test Certificate.
This is possibly even more essential for buyers of puppies to ensure they buy only from litters where both parents have been eye tested. GPRA is 100% genetic and so the status of the parents eyes entirely affects the puppies eyes for the future. This test is not undertaken at a regular vet but by a specialist. There are many many clinics and testing sessions around the country OR you can book a private visit to one of the dozens of test specialists. An eye test will be undertaken and a simple certificate given afterwards showing if the dog was affected or unaffected by the problems being examined for. This eye certificate should be renewed every 12 months and so, when puppies are produced, the certificate should be valid. they last only 12 months, like a Car M.O.T. so even if the breeder can show a certificate, firstly make sure the ‘unaffected’ box is ticked (not the ‘affected’) and secondly make sure it is dated within the last 12 months.

If it is not, chances are the dog was retested and failed OR the owner didn’t bother testing again. The trauma of a young pet dog going blind is so great that the £35 or so an eye test certificate costs a breeder is a SMALL price to pay to check their eyes are not affected before a mating is undertaken.

Special thanks to Diana Stevens from Wynlanbriar Labradors for putting together this article. Head over to their website for more advice, training and tips on Labradors.

You may be surprised to hear, many owners have asked if certain weather conditions and seasons are more suited to training. For the dog it makes no difference what so ever!

If you have a labrador puppy, then you must make training a priority right now. Getting the basics covered in the early stages of the dogs life will make the training process much easier and rewarding for you and the dog in the long term. With a puppy, you will find teaching his name the first and foremost skill for him to learn, everything else branches from this fundamental skill.

Most training questions are aimed at new dog owners, and normally young puppies. But what about older dogs? Is the cliche saying really true..? It depends on the dog, but for a labrador, an old dog can learn new tricks! Of course, the older the dog gets the harder it does become, which is why its vital you train them young to save you from hours of frustration in the future. If you don’t have this luxury, then good on you for having a go at getting him trained!

It is very important you make any training with your older dog fun, and most importantly rewarding. A good step is to join a local dog training class, taking an online lesson/ebook and asking family and friends for assistance.

Your dog will love all the new attention and activities your are getting involved with together, and this is when you will start to see the best rewards and character come out from your dog. Regardless of how much he learns, or what he can do after an session of training you can be assured your bond with each other will get stronger and stronger.

Stick at it, and don’t give up. And remember, start training your labrador today.