How to Choose the Right Puppy Out of the Litter

When choosing a new puppy from a litter, you must choose wisely. This doesn't necessarily mean that every puppy in the litter can't turn into a nice, obedient dog with the right training. You need to be realistic with yourself on how much time you will be able to spend with this new dog training for training purposes. Some require more attention that others, and yes you can determine this just by doing a couple of simple tests when choosing a puppy from the litter.

I had a very active 3 year old dog that I thought would benefit from having a friend at home so that they could wear each other out. So I went puppy shopping. I found a litter of rottweiler mix pups that a family was selling for $25 a piece. So I went and checked it out. There were about 5 puppies remaining when I arrived at their home and they were all cute! I knew I wasn't going home alone that day. Now the question was, "which one do I choose?". I wish I would have known these simple tests at that time but I didn't. I decided on the last male puppy who was very rambunctious and playful. I thought he would be a good fit for my 3 year old dog at home. It turns out he was a good fit, and they got along. The problem was that he was so stubborn and would not listen to my commands. He basically did what he felt like doing. What did I do wrong?

I should not have chosen the most playful puppy based on that alone. A simple test I should have done when picking out my puppy from the litter is to pick each puppy up one at a time and hold them on their back. If the puppy stays calm, he/she will probably be a good choice. If the puppy squirms around a lot, they are going to be much more of a challenge to train. If you have this type of puppy, you should hold him on his back 2-3 times a day until he stops squirming and starts to relax and almost fall asleep.

Make sure you don't let him get away, that will make him think that he is in charge. I had to do this with my puppy, and sometimes it took 20 minutes for him to settle down! My vet said this is the worst case he had ever seen. But it can be fixed, you just need to be persistent. This exercise will take away some of the dominance in your puppy before it becomes a problem when he is older.

Another way to see if a puppy has a more dominant mind set is to hold him in your arms and lift his upper lip, revealing his teeth. This sounds weird but it works. If the puppy squirms a lot while doing this, he probably has a dominant state of mind. This must be broken early in a puppy's life. He needs to know where he fits in your family, so he learns to submit to everyone in your family, even kids.

These simple tests can save you a lot of training time and frustration. Although my dog is one of these "bad cases", I still love him to death! He just required a lot of extra training to break his dominant state of mind.