A male pup from TaeHwan x Pado
photo by Johnathan Lee
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a. What is the breeder's responsibility?
There are certain things that you should
expect from your puppy's breeder. If the breeder can not provide
these things, I would strongly advise you to seek another breeder that
does.
The breeder should be able to show the
pedigree papers of the dogs to be bred. Remember that some rare breed
organizations ARE NOT reliable indicators of a Jindo's pedigree so you
should walk away if the only paper the breeder has is of those unreliable
registries. The pedigree is important because it allows you to determine
the presence of inbreeding and whether the parents were responsibly bred
(ie. a female bred at 6 months of age IS NOT responsible breeding).
Keep in mind though that the presence of pedigree papers is not the sole
criteria on whether the dog is a quality or even purebred Jindo.
The breeder should have done his or her
upmost to determine if the dogs are breeding quality dogs. It's not
enough to have a champion ancestor two generations back on the dam's side.
Both parents should be evaluated by experts to see if they are pure and
if they are breeding quality Jindos in terms of appearance and temperament.
The breeder should socialize the pups to
all sorts of stimuli so that the pups will easily adapt to a new home when
they leave the breeder. The puppies should have experienced being
handled and played with by humans.
 
female (right) and male (left) pups from
TaeHwan x SongYi
photo by Johnathan Lee
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They should encounter different sounds
and sights without exposing them to communicable dog diseases.
The breeder should provide veterinary care
to the puppies such as de-wormings and initial puppy shots and provide
records of this care to the buyer at the time the puppy is picked up.
The breeder should not let the puppies
become separated from their mother until at least 7 weeks of age so that
the puppies learn pack order and manners from their mother.
The breeder should do his or her utmost
to educate the buyer about the pecularities of the breed before selling
them. The breeder should also be willing to stay in contact and answer
any questions as the puppy matures.
The breeder should be willing to take back
any dog that he or she produces no matter whether the dog is 6 months old
or 6 years old. Abandonment at a shelter or pound is unacceptable
to a reputable/responsible breeder.
b. Why wait until the puppy is 7-9 weeks
of age?
There are two reasons why puppies
should be separated at between 7-9 weeks of age and not earlier.
Behavior and immunity. (Please see
the vaccination section
for information about immunity.)
The most recommended age at which a puppy
should be separated from its mother and litter mates ranges from 7 to 9
weeks of age. This would allow the puppy to learn ranking order and
social skills and experience corrections from the mother. It is also
pliable to bond to humans rather than dogs.
On of the most common mistakes that I've
seen is removing a pup from its mother and littermates at too early an
age. The puppy has not yet learned how to interact with other dogs
and will often respond to the presence of other dogs by being extremely
dog aggressive as he matures. Bite inhibition is usually taught by playing
and wrestling with its litter mates and by separating the pup too early,
the puppy does not learn this.
A litter from BaWoo and KongJu
about 7 weeks old
photo by Bruce Kwon
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In addition, the puppy will not of had
time with its mother to learn to respect corrections and a lower rank.
I would not be at all surprised if there are dominance aggression problems
further down the road.
Here are some excerpts from the book "Manual
of Canine Behaviour", edited by the British Small Animal Veterinary Association,
and written by Valerie O' Farrell, an Oxford University graduate in Psychology,
Phylosophy and Physiology and commentary from a well-respected breeder
of an equally difficult breed.
Chapter 6: Developmental Psychology, page 46:
..."If a puppy is deprived of interaction with it's littermates, for example
if it is removed from its litter at 6 weeks or earlier, its behaviour towards
other dogs may be disordered in later life. It may be excessively fearful
of other dogs or, more inconvenient, inappropiately aggresive..."
..."It is likely that both the quality and duration of the bitch's interaction
with her puppies has an effect on later behaviour. Scott & Fuller (1965)
have shown that on various tests of emotionality, pups tend to obtain scores
more similar to their mothers' than their fathers'; it may, therefore,
be inferred that nervous bitches tend to pass their nervousness on to their
puppies behaviourally as well as genetically. In general, mammals which
have been prematurely separated from their mothers when young are less
socially competent as adults. There is more specific evidence that this
is true of dogs (Falt & Wilsson, 1979)."
Interaction with people:
"A puppy has to be absolutely deprived of human contact up to the age of
14 weeks in order to make it as fearful in the presence of human beings
as a wild animal. Scott & Fuller (1965) found that puppies reared in
a home environment were more confident generally with human beings than
were puppies reared in kennels with consistent but restricted human contact.
Dogs which are fearful of people, or certain kinds of people, may turn
out to have spent at least the early part of their socialization period
in a kennel or outhouse, only visited at intervals by human beings for
physical care."
All of us in the dog environment know that the vast majority of professional
breeders do not have the time/will to perform a "home environment" socialization
with their pups. At the same time, the paragraphs I posted above strongly
advise against depriving the pup of contact with his mother and littermates
before he reaches the 6th week of age.
All being said, I still believe that, unless the breeder is one of those
rare ones who can provide a home-type environment and plenty of human socialization
to all of his pups, they will be better off by being taken away to their
new household at 7 weeks of age, which is what I usually try to do. At
that age you make sure the pup has had plenty of time to mature with his
mother and littermates, while at the same time you still have at your disposal
at least 5 weeks of socialization period for him to be introduced and socialized
with as many people you find fit to, in a truly household environment.
c. How do I select a puppy?
Assuming that you have done your legwork
on selecting a reputable/responsible breeder and educated yourself regarding
the breed, you now have to face the decision on which puppy out of a litter
to select.
Before you start looking at the litter,
look inward towards yourself and honestly evaluate your experience level
as a dog owner. Have you owned a dog before? Have you
owned a 40 lb dog before? Have you owned a dominant breed before?
Have you successfully owned a dominant breed before?
This is important as someone less experienced should not be pick the most
dominant or even the second most dominant pup in the litter. They
should seek out the more submissive pup. This will reduce chances
of dominance aggression problems developing down the road. In general,
females mature into more tractable Jindos than males but that's not always
the case.
When you're ready to pick out a puppy,
visit the litter several times to see which puppy fits the profile you
seek. Several visits are necessary because on certain days, perhaps
you visit after the dominant pups had played hard and are sleeping.
The submissive pups might appear more dominant when they're not really.
If you trust the breeder, the breeder can help you select the pup with
the appropriate profile. If not, you can conduct some puppy temperaments
tests such as holding the puppy down on its back to evaluate it's dominance.
A strong struggler indicates a more dominant personality.
A puppy from the Osa x Corney litter
about 6 weeks old
photo by Mr. Lee, Soo Young
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d. Should I get siblings or another
puppy to keep it company?
Getting siblings or pups that are close
in age is not a good idea. The puppies will prefer each other's company
rather the company of their owner. In order to prevent this, one
has to spend time and training with each pup separately to strengthen the
dog-owner bond. This is a bigger task than what it might seem as
not only must you train and play with each dog separately, but one must
undo the bad habits that one dog teaches to one another. As the puppies
age, the rank differential between siblings is very slight and there is
always some form of challenge to ranking. Depending on the dogs and
their training, these challenges could be growls, posturing or outright
fights.
In addition to these reasons, it's a good
idea to get just one Jindo - just in case the breed is not what you expected
it to be.
about 8 weeks old
photo by Peter Koktavy
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