Actually my first dog was a shelter dog, of the most disadvantaged kind. He was a greyhound among a ton of other unwanted greyhounds, he had been abused, and he was in poor health (mangy, rake-thin, and with numerous shudder-inducing scars). And he was the BEST dog.

He was GREAT with other dogs of all sizes, and could be safely let off lead in public, crowded ‘dog park’ type situations (we did that for his whole life, apart from the settling in period, till he knew ‘come’ and we knew him), he could – and did – roughhouse with small dogs, quite safely, and he was afraid of cats. We had him from when he was about two years old to when he died in his own bed of congestive heart failure at thirteen and a half.

He was loyal, loving and easy to teach whatever we wanted. So long as we could make him understand, he’d do it.

Gosh, I miss that dog!

I completely understand what you said about getting a dog from a breeder. Our dogs have always been rescues adopted as adults, but with our current puppy, he needs to be able to do a very specific job. It’s true, we may just have added another beloved pet to our family, but we feel we have stacked the deck as much in our favor as we can, and we’ll love him either way. With three other dogs here in the house, though, we have to get it right this time, because we can’t go up to five dogs. If Kuster won’t work, then it will be a long time before we can try to find the right dog for the job again. Our breeder has done so much to help us, though! I feel really lucky to have had the experience so far!