evaluating newborns

I agree. We would never let someone make a choice at just over 3 weeks. Heck I sat and watched Birchs' litter from the day they were born and I had little clue at 3 weeks he was the dog I wanted. I wanted an agility propect and though I saw clues as early as 3 weeks. I wasn't sure until much later.

We contact puppy buyers that are on our list and then when they are born to find out if they are in a position to take a puppy and then hopefully we have a pup that will fit and we don't know that until 8-10 weeks.

 

I know of a BC breeder, and a Sheltie breeder who breed with performance in mind who pull that. That is not the age to pick a puppy.
I'd also bow out on that breeder. It needs to be a dog you are going to want, and you can't know that up front.
I just turned one down because it wasn't what I wanted. The breeder held onto all of the girls, when I specifically need a good foundation tri/bi bitch. That was very clear from the get go. It needed structure, and high drive, and great temperament. I don't begrudge her keeping them, but didn't like her then pushing the last pick boy at me as if I would take him. No boys. Don't need more boys, and don't like training boys, which she knew. He was also riding the top of the chart, and I don't need another who I put all of that foundation training into only to go over and me have to place. There are too many other things that may not turn out to play the size game again. With what all I need in a puppy, I have no interest in taking a last pick puppy when it has to be able to do conformation AND agility, and at that do the agility and be very competitive. She also wanted the same thing in a dog that I did, so the best drive/temperament/structure dogs were what was kept. She would've been better off telling me there was nothing available this time around than insulting me by trying to pawn off something that wasn't what I needed. I'm not just a pet person looking for a pet puppy. There are reasons I needed something very speicfic.

 

That all said, the best situation was my best friend was going to take a puppy from a litter I had last year. I had evaluated them at 7 weeks, and felt there was one in particular who would be what she wanted. We were going out of town on vacation, so she kept the litter and mom, and got to interact with them for the week. She came out of it certain that he was the right puppy from the litter, and felt he was exactly what I had seen in him. He's nine months old now. Smart, easy to train, wants to please, driven, fast. He's going to make a really nice agility dog for her.

 

I second this. It also strikes me as odd. at 3 weeks I have an inkling of who I like...but than again at 3 weeks soo much can happen its beyond a crap shoot....sounds like they are just breeding to breed and not with the mindset of breeding for their next CH or MACH.

 

I have to agree with the previous posters. I told my puppy clients that I had to satisfy myself first and them second. I bred for me, not the general public, so if I liked different things about two different pups then they stayed with me until I made a decision. Sometimes I would send one of them off to a breeder friend's so that we didn't have one pup learning to be more subservient to the other. The last bitch pup we sold went at 6 months because I had so much trouble deciding on which should be kept and which could go to a pet home. Thank goodness I didn't have to look at colour and markings too - westies are white and the belgians were black.