05/04/2025
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TODAY OUR BREED EXPERT Carol Price looks at when you should take a new pup home
LEAVING HOME TOO YOUNG
One of the main reasons we started this site was to give people a source of truly trusted and reliable advice on Border collies, from others who had spent decades in the breed, and wanted to share what they had learned for the benefit of other owners and their dogs. And today I just wanted to highlight how vitally important it is for puppies not to leave home too young – i.e. under 8 weeks. For despite mounting scientific evidence outlining the harm it can do to a puppy’s brain and social development, and future behaviour, to leave home before this age, an estimated one in four puppies in the UK are still going to new homes too early, and it is likely the same thing happens elsewhere in the world.
A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE
Often puppies go to new homes too young more for the convenience of the breeder, than the best welfare interests of the puppies concerned. And it could also be just to save money. For at around 8 weeks pups should have been microchipped and had their first vaccinations and a full vet check. This of course is all extra expense but also vital to give them earliest protection against disease and pick up any potential health issues they may have – including heart murmurs – before going to new owners.
So if a breeder doesn’t want to do any of this before you get your pup – or makes any number of different excuses for not doing so, as can happen – you would have to ask why.
WORTH THE WAIT
Most good breeders today will not let their puppies go until they are 10 or even 12 weeks old. Not just to give them more time to recover from first jabs and build sufficient immunity, but also to give them more time to learn how to be dogs, through longer interaction with their littermates, mothers or other adult dogs within a breeder’s home.
Much is often made of the need for puppies to go to new homes earlier so that they will then more readily ‘bond’ with their new human family. But too often this is done at the expense of the dog, and their later ability to still remember they are a dog, who knows how to communicate, and interact, with other dogs more confidently.
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Often I have heard breeders say they want their pups to go earlier to a new home so that they can ‘get their socialisation started’. But then, hang on, shouldn’t breeders themselves have begun this process, long before their pups go to new owners?
Things like taking them out daily in the car, and carrying them around to different places, so they can be exposed to any number of new sights, sounds and experiences in the outside world, at an age when they are most likely to take them in their stride?
I am genuinely not sure how the idea that a dog’s very earliest – and fairly critical - social development is not a breeder’s responsibility came into being. When I can’t think of anything that can make more difference to a dog’s later behaviour and mental outlook.
It also saddens me that breeders who put such a higher level of effort, and time, into their pups’ earliest socialisation, often making great extra personal or financial sacrifices to do so – like taking unpaid time off other work – frequently do not get the credit they deserve for it. It is something a new owner may just instead take for granted, not realising what a difference it has made to the later nature of the dog they own.
So if a breeder has done everything right from the off, in terms of earliest health care and socialisation, it should not matter if a puppy leaves their home at 12 or even 16 weeks. They will still be pretty rounded individuals, able to quickly adapt to their new lives ahead. As I have seen happen, time and time again.
We also repeatedly urge anyone getting a puppy to first see them with their mother, and in the exact environment in which they were born and raised. Both things that puppy farmers will typically try to avoid showing you. Puppies destined to be pet companions should also ALWAYS be raised in a home environment. And getting a better puppy from a more caring breeder is always worth any extra wait for them, or additional expense.
All text © Carol Price/Collieology 2025
