How and where did you get your dogs?

with all this breeding issues im just wondering how you came to get your dog, dogs?. with me the black dog bracken came from a friend at 6months which they got from a gypsy site dowm heathrow way and brindle rio i got from a rescue aged 6months, apparently was roaming the streets of rugby town centre.

Breeder recommended by 2 other breeders and then several chats on the phone and visit to house to view pups and parents at 5wks. We wanted a rescue for ethical reasons, but felt that with no experience of dogs (since dh and I were in our teens) and 2 wee kids (3.5yrs and 7yrs) a puppy would be hard work but more able to cope with what life throws at it (children running around, squealing, cuddling, balloons, etc etc - all under adult supervision). Sam has been hard work (toilet training her at 9 weeks olds while 2 kids have vomiting bug was a challenge), but she just takes everything in her stride. I really didn't want to get a rescue and then find that it found the behaviour of the kids distressing. With the 7yr old we could get speedy behaviour change near a dog. The only way to change the behaviour of the 3.5 yr old would be to keep him away from the dog. Ds is gentle with dogs and we had been training him about how to act with dogs before we considered getting a dog, but major behaviour change (for example if a dog found running around and loud noise at bedtime upsetting - not so much.

Once the kids are both over about 5yrs, then I think we'd go for a rescue dog as a companion for Sam. 5 year olds are easier to explain to than 3 year olds. Though dd (7yrs) asked for another puppy last week and said she'd look after current dog while I looked after the new puppy - she has realised that pups are hard work and thought it would be better if I did the harder work, hmm.

Tanya

Do you want the full story or the shortened one? lol

I'll try and go for the short one.

We decided to get a dog after my girlfriend had gone on about it for months and months. We tried getting budgies and even guinea pigs to see if we could handle the responsibilty. In the end we ended up with the dog, two budgies and three guinea pigs.

I hadn't had dogs since I was 15 and my gf had never had dogs so I was keen to make sure we picked the right one for us.

I had/have always wanted a german shepherd. I love the breed, my dad's mate bred them and I just think they're fantastic dogs. We did a lot of reading about the breed and even though they do have there medical problems sometimes, we decided that this was the breed for us. My brother has a chiwawa (sp) and we also wanted something a lot bigger.

As my girlfriend works weekends, I booked a day off work in the week to go to our local Blue Cross shelter. We noticed an 18 month old german shepard/husky cross named Buddy. He was the biggest German Shepherd I have ever seen, he was gorgess. He had a thick coat and I am sure our house would have been covered in fur. But we just saw him and fell for him.

We sat down with one of the staff who talked through Buddies issues, he didn't like his crate (which was fine because someone would be in 90% of the time) and when he was a pup he was attacked by a staffie and he is a bit 'funny' with other staffies. We were told he was scared of them.

So we took buddie to an enclosed field on the grounds of blue cross, so that we could get to know him. We tried to play with him but all he was interested in was running around, bless him.

After a while he came and sat by us and had a fuss. He started to open up a little however we were still unsure.

Sometime after that his ears popped up and I notice him looking at another dog. It was a staffie being walked in the distance. He started to growl, I tried to calm him with my voice however he shot off across the enclosed field. His long training lead dragging behind him nearly cause my gf to do a flip in the air. He launched himself up the fence. Barking snarling and being very aggressive.

Eventually, he calmed down and we managed to get him to sit.

My girlfriend was in tears. I thought she was scared. But she told me that she really liked this dog but realised that he was probably needing a home with owners who were more experienced.

We decieded that Buddy deserved owners that could give him what he needed.

We took him back into the kennels where the lady had laid out all the paper work to be signed. We felt guilty as we explained our reasonings. We asked to see the other dogs however we were told we had wasted there time and would not be willing to show us around further.

We did the responsible thing that day yet we were made to feel the bad ones. He needed an experience owner to help him. As it happens we have a staffie in the street, we couldn't have that every day.

I got the impression they wanted us to take him that day, despite not having a home check done. That didn't sit right with me either.

We left feeling guilty and felt really down about it all. On the way home we popped into the RSPCA centre to speak to them. They were really good with us, they asked us what we were looking for and recommended a dog but asked us to walk around and have a look for ourselves.

We walked around the first lot of kennels, there were mainly staffies in there most with seperation issues or guarding issues so they were to be the only dog. We knew we would want a second dog in the future so that wasn't an option.

Around the second part of the kennels it was much the same really, a lot of the dogs were barking or crying and I wanted to take them all.

The last kennel we looked at was in the corner under a big tree. It was dark ish and I read the sign 'Lisa, labrador cross. Loves her ball and rope toys'.

In the corner was this dog sitting there just looking at me. She didn't bark or cry and she just walked up to the front and sat there.

She must have had loads of people look at her and ignore her. My gf said that she really liked her, and to be honest I did too.

We spoke to the guys in the office and we were offered the chance to take her for a walk. We spent about two hours that day just walking her around talking to her.

We decided that she was the one for us. We just knew. It was a strange feeling. She jumped up at me and gave me a kiss. That sealed it for me really.

We done the paper work and had to wait a week for the home check to be done. We actually went back two or three times to visit her.

The day we picked her up was a Saturday, my gf had a day off work. The staff in the centre were sad to see her go as she had been there for some time. I left later that day to go to the football and aparently the dog sat at the window waiting for me to come home the whole time i was gone. I do have a photo of that from her first day.

We renamed her Oreo.

Blimey cadac21! That's the short version?!

I started looking for breeders years ago. It actually took me a good year to find a breeder I was happy with and even then I was on her waiting list for 11 months.

It was well worth the wait for my beautiful frenchie boy

We got Lily from Four Paws Animal Rescue. I bought her without even seeing her, I saw her on their website, she looked so sad, and she had lovely kind looking eyes, so I reserved her over the phone, a local rescue home checked us, and a few days later we went to Wales to collect her. The best decision I ever made..

At the time we thought we were rescuing Lily, but, it turned out she has rescued me.

My first dog was a collie, we got her from a farm (the actual kind with sheep and cows and chickens, not the puppy kind) -such a typical way to get a collie.

The second was a rescue German Spitz. He was given up as he was nervous in the show ring and we're not a showing sort of family so that was totally fine with us.

Now we've got Dash (avatar dog) who is also a German Spitz. We'd spent about a year discussing getting a new dog, started off thinking about rescues but to be honest I get nervous around shelter staff who always seem a bit unfriendly in our local shelter (I do understand that they effectively see some of the worst of humanity but still :|), we'd always wanted a Cavalier but we were scared of the rather prolific health issues in the breed, and decided we'd loved our Spitz boy desperately and having another would be great, even though we'd initially discounted the idea as we were worried another might remind us too much of him. It took us a long time to find one as they're not especially common dogs, but we eventually found our girl, who was one of two puppies the breeder had held back for show potential until they were eighteen weeks old. She has a slight flaw in the shape of a brown splodge on her nose, but as we're still not a showing family, we call it an endearing kissing spot rather than a flaw!

I`ve had too many dogs to list them all, pups and rescues too . When my old Lab girl died of liver failure , I knew that I wanted another Lab . At the time we had Lily, a JR who had brain damage which manifested itself as seizures, she was on drugs for life and so I darent risk a rescue dog at this time and decided on a puppy to be a companion for Lily as she had never been an only dog and missed my old girl terribly, it was heartbreaking to see her constantly looking for her friend . I did lots of homework and finally found a breeder not far from us on Dartmoor , they had a litter, we went to see them and picked Sam , brought him home at 9 weeks old . He and Lily became best friends almost immediately but she sadly died soon afterwards , I dont think she was ever the same when her lifelong pal died .

Now down to just one dog for the first time in ages and likely to stay that way .