Why a Dog Trainer Wants You to Buy From a Breeder

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck?

And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet And I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd?

They go, I don't know.

I'd go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, it's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence, not a dog trainer, just a dog training enthusiast. But of course, Max O'Neill, Down Under Dog Trainer, the man in the know with everything to do with dogs. And hey, speaking of people in the nose about everything to do with dogs, or in fact dog health, make sure you check out Nose, a multi-award-winning Australian pet insurance company. You can learn, you can learn more at nose.com.au. That's K-N-O-S-E dot com dot AU. They are Australian-owned and operated company issued by Pacific International Insurance. Max, we want to talk today, adopt or shop? Controversial. Everything in dogs is controversial, but there's obviously very strong opinions on either side of the fence when it comes to the subject matter of either adopting a dog from a shelter or going to a breeder and buying a dog. Now, you have a dog from a breeder. You've got Nelson, the rottie.

Yep.

I have and always have had, all my dogs have been rescue dogs. Kira, I've got, is my most recent rescue dog, who is a cattle cross GSP, potentially something like that. Don't know. And that's pretty much what happens when you go to a place like I went to.

Yeah, it's a bit of a lottery, hey?

Yes, it is a lottery. But we want to talk about, you know, the pros and cons to both. We've spoken about these things in the past. We've spoken about breeders and whatnot, but as I said, there's some people that are really hardcore militant about the whole adopt, don't shop.

That's it.

And I'd say probably it's the more adopt, don't shop or pro-rescue crowd that are the more vocal of the two. And although like we've got our stance on which side of the fence we sit on, and we'll talk about and justify why we see things that way, And we might view things slightly differently, but I'm also like not, and I don't think you are as well, militant. Like we both have said off air, we're like, oh, like I lean this way, but I can also see an argument for both.

Yeah. No, I mean, certainly not militant. Obviously the argument for adopting and not shopping is that people say, why would you go and buy another dog from a breeder when there are so many dogs, good dogs in shelters? Now, obviously we would argue that That word good can be a little bit hazy because when you do go to rescues, you're obviously, again, it's a lottery. It really is a lottery.

Yeah, that's it.

And we're talking good breeders as well. Let's, let's, when, when, of course we're not talking your backyard shitty breeders.

Yeah.

We've done episodes on breeders, how to find a good breeder and all the rest of it. So if you, you know, go back and listen to that. So just take it as gospel that we're talking about the best breeders you can go to, all the ethical ones that do all the right things.

Preface every future point with that.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

There's definitely not argument, you know, where people say, oh, there's enough dogs in the world, why keep, you know, creating demand through the breeders? Why don't we rescue the ones first? Well, the reason being is because breeders are— breeders are always going to breed. Like, these people breed, um, you know, as a, as a hobby and as a passion to genuinely improve the, improve the well-being of the breed. You know, they'll be trying to do this or get rid of this health issue or improve this bone structure or nail down this particular temperament or whatever. So It's always going to happen. And full disclosure, I think it's better to shop than adopt, but I'm going to explain why. Reason being is when you buy a dog from a, again, good reputable registered breeder, etc., a couple of things are going to happen. One, you may not get approved by that breeder or another one because they will take— a good breeder will take you through a serious vetting process. Even when I went to buy a Rottweiler and I was like, hey, you know, And I wasn't expecting just to have a tick and flick, but I was like, oh hey, like I'm a dog trainer on the Gold Coast, I'll be, you know, here's our profile, I'll be competing in this sport. They're like, cool, please fill out this form. I was like, oh okay, yep, sweet, sounds good, let's do that. And if you were to fill out that form, provide that knowledge, and that breeder was like, nah, you're not a good home, and the next breeder was like, nah, you're not a good home, if one breeder thinks you're not good enough to own one of these particular breeds, you're not suitable, likely so are the other ones. And especially because it's all a bit of a network, and you might have had your heart set on, I need a German Shepherd in my life because they're so cute and fluffy, bark, bark, bark, I love it. But if all these Shepherd breeders go, you know, you're not getting one, you don't, you don't need one, then all of a sudden this person who, if the breed— all those breeders are saying the same thing, goes, oh shit, okay, well maybe I'm not a German Shepherd home, maybe I need to rethink this. But the problem is, is like, you know, if that person wants a German Shepherd, they just go to a dodgy breeder or a rescue, gets a dog that they can't handle, and it ends up just either going back into the system, having a miserable life, or being euthanized. One of those 3. Because people can just get any dog that they can't handle, and without fail, one of those 3 things will happen. I see it every day. People will go to me, oh, we're his 4th home. I have some people saying we're his 5th home, 6th home. It's insane. Other times people go, oh, we've, we've always rescued. Okay, tell me about your last ones. Yeah, all 3 of them being reactive. What happened to them? Oh, One had to be put down, it bit the cat. One had to be put down, it bit the kids. Or they go, oh, we had to give this one back. So it means people can get dogs that they just can't handle, which is, I think, is a big serious problem for everyone's safety and the dog's wellbeing, most importantly. Like, a lot of dogs, if you could have a conversation and you were to sit down and interview them like it was a first date, they'd go, cool, thanks for your time. I don't want to go home with you. That sounds shit. Like, a lot of dogs would genuinely go, I'd prefer to stay in the shelter and wait for someone else because Rescues will so happily just pass out dogs to anyone.

Yeah.

I mean, we've spoken about that before. There's one near us that does fire sales and you're just like, what are you doing? Those dogs are just going to come back.

Dogs, $50 a week.

I mean, when I see that, it's just, I'm shaking my head going, what are you doing? And I understand, like, you know, and this, people will obviously, again, the argument will be against what you're saying is like, well, yeah, but Max, if everyone did what you're saying and just stopped adopting, what happens to all those dogs that are in the shelters? They're just going to get killed.

Here's what would happen. It would be, and look, it's never going to move the direction where no one like would ever Stop adopting, right? But it would mean temporarily there's an excessive supply and not enough demand, and that would be shit. But it's also what we've been doing for the last 40 years. You know, shelters are just getting busier and busier and busier every year and having to shut their doors. Like, dogs are already being put down. Let's not pretend that's not happening. But why I'm an advocate for finding a good breeder: A, you won't get a dog that you can't handle if a breeder screens you and you don't, you don't pass it. B, you'll then get hand-selected a puppy that is suitable to your home. So I told the breeder and I helped pick Nelson exactly what I'm wanting. I also have, you know, plenty of clients who tell, you know, just yesterday I had this conversation where one client was saying, hey, I need— I'm getting this dog so he can be a therapy dog and come to work with me. I need the calmest one in the litter. Cool. She got the calmest one in the litter. If she'd been given something different, she might gone, oh, this is not suitable. I've got to rehome this dog and get another one.

So, I mean, my neighbour's a perfect example. So he wanted a German Shepherd. He wanted a German Shepherd. They lost their German Shepherd. He wanted another German Shepherd. He sent me the breeder he was looking at. I sent it to you and you said, well, just be careful because these look like these are actually trained for sport work and they might be too much for him. I let him know that. He went back to the breeder and said, look, I don't want to do any sport work. I just want a dog that's going to be, you know, a nice big Family dog. And he was— they specifically picked him a dog that they believe is not a dog that's going to be interested whatsoever in doing the sport work. It's not a dog that's going to be good at that. So they gave him the calmest one in the litter. They picked the dog for him. And he said the amount of information that they gave him with this dog, like, you know, and the rules that he had to follow and, you know, you've got to do this and you've got to do that. And this is what needs to be done. This is how much, you know, down to the feeding schedule and everything. They just gave him the whole lot. And the other thing about, the good thing about a reputable, decent breeder is if for some reason you get that dog and suddenly you're like, you know what, I don't think I can handle this. If that breeder is one of these reputable breeders we're talking about, they will take the dog back.

Bingo. And that's the biggest argument for why this is a thing. If everyone shopped from a breeder, there'd be no such thing as rescues because people wouldn't get dogs that need rehoming because they'd be sound body and sound mind. We'll get to that. And if it ever did get too much and you had a change in circumstances, Any good breeder— these aren't unicorns, this is any good breeder— will happily take their dog back because they bred that dog. They care for that dog. That was their puppy before it was your puppy. So they, they never forget a puppy. You honestly speak to any breeder and they'll go, oh my God, I had this one puppy 17 years ago. They will know all of them. And if at any point you needed to, rather than send them to a shelter where they're going to sit there for 6 months, find a shit home, maybe be put down because no one adopted them or whatever. They just go back to the breeder, live in a familiar environment, live with their aunties, mums, dads, grandmas, whatever. And then someone else would adopt an adult dog. Because again, if you then go, well, I don't want a puppy, I like rescuing because I like to get an adult dog. Cool. Any breeder in the world has got adult dogs that need rehoming too. Hey, this is Rosie the Rottweiler. She's had 3 litters now. She's ready to go find a home in retirement and retire from a breeding program. Bingo. I didn't want a puppy. I wanted a 2-year-old dog. Win-win. And that's kind of it. It's like if everyone, if everyone did that, all of a sudden that we talked earlier about supply and demand in the rescue world, well, all of a sudden there wouldn't be a supply of dogs that need rescuing because there just wouldn't be dogs going to the rescue. It's, it's as simple as that. And there's so many things like Jack just said in terms of his neighbor with the German Shepherd is there's so many parts of the purchase process of a dog. That significantly reduce the risk factors of you rehoming that dog.

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Number one, like, the amount of research you put in. When he went and researched German Shepherds and breeders, at some point you're going to read stuff and either be turned on or turned off by it. And he went, yeah, cool, this is still the dog for me. Then he found a breeder, he put in an application, they approved him. They could have denied him. He then had to pay, you know, maybe $3,000 to $5,000 to get a dog. And again, I know people hate to talk about dogs as a commodity and as money, but it's just a universal law of life. If you spend more money on something, you will take better care of it. It's a complete antithesis to the $50 file set fire sale dogs that Jack got. I know people who have had dogs for a weekend and then sent them back. I swear to God, they'll say, hey, we just adopted a dog. He was only $50. Haha. Uh, I'm like, oh my God, we've just booked in a session with you so he can come out next week. Cool. It'll get to Monday. Hey, just canceling the session for Thursday. Okay. What's happened? Oh, we sent him back. So you just enjoyed it for 2 days, put him on, put him on Instagram, paraded him around and went, oh, actually, nah. That's not as rare as you'd think. It's crazy. People get dogs for a day or a week, then they're straight back to the shelter.

That's the thing.

If you're more financially invested in something, you're more likely to see it through. Exactly.

Like with anything.

Like, I mean, it's like, it's like me recently with my getting back into training in the gym. I know if I just go to my $12 a week gym, I'm just going to go, I can't be bothered because it's only $12 a week. But I'm going, you know what? I found a trainer now. He's probably going to cost me a bit of coin.

Yeah.

And I know, you know what? If I'm going to spend that money, I'm going to make sure I see that through because otherwise I've just blown that money. I've just pissed it up the wall. I mean, I paid $985 for that dog. There you go. Yeah. So, so not all rescue dogs are super cheap.

They stung you there too.

Honestly.

And I'd been caring for her for frickin months anyway.

But it's true, right? And look, again, it sounds shitty saying all stuff about money. I know people get weird talking about it, but it's just the truth. And another truth is, again, you know, you're going to hate me for this, but if, if you can't put together $2,000 or $3,000 for a dog, maybe it's not the animal for you. It's the same reason I don't have a clownfish tank at home, because I would not want to pay the upkeep of it.

Yeah.

Okay.

And it's the same reason for a lot of people, unfortunately. I see, I'm like, hey, like, you can't afford its vet bills, you can't afford this, you can't afford to train it, you can't afford to feed it properly. Like, it's, it's shit, but it's not fair on the dog to live— the dog didn't pick this home or this way of living, and they need to live a biologically appropriate life, and they need to be If you want to take them in, you have a responsibility to care for them. And that's another part of it. It's like, again, because rescues give out dogs for free or for $50, it means unfortunately they get people who can't afford them a pet. And that's, that's not a criticism of those people. Certain pets aren't for everyone.

Now, I mean, in saying all this, I want to— I sort of do want to point out as well, though. I mean, like, I laugh and joke about the fact that Kira cost me $900-something, but there are those organisations that actually, you know, that that do the adopting of dogs that are much better than the fire sale people.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there's a process, like, I mean, the team that I actually was fostering dogs for, for a while were very like, people would come around to see a dog and they gave me a checklist of things that needed to, like, I needed to tick off with these people. And they literally said to me, if you don't feel comfortable about this person, they don't get the dog. So they were basically helping to get through, you have to get through the foster people and be seen as, you know, I mean, I'm no professional, but it's, you know, it's good that there are those that put those in place and just say, look, we're not just going to throw dogs out the door. So there are some really great places that do the adoption stuff, and I've worked with a lot of them. Yeah, same.

We work with a couple of rescues like Tales of the Forgotten, Willow Tree Sanctuary, you know, some breed-specific rescues as well. And some of them are absolutely brilliant as well and will do all this. And but like, it's what we're saying, like, it's not— we're not demonizing rescues. We're not demonizing the people that shop there. We're not demonizing Or breeders, whatever. Because again, there's shit breeders, breeders who charge way too much and put out shit dogs and all this sort of stuff. But it's just like the whole system, what we're doing just is clearly broken. There's dogs being put down left, right, and center.

There's a reason the shelters are crammed.

Yeah.

And there's a reason they've got such overflow. They're having to euthanize perfectly happy, healthy dogs is just because there's an excessive supply and not enough demand. And that, as shitty as it is to think that issue would be fixed if it was flipped on its head and people—

But I suppose that's where people will argue again. When you say, you know, there's an excessive demand, not enough— sorry, there's an excessive supply, not enough demand.

Yeah.

That's why people then will say, well, then why are we going— why are we breeding more dogs when we have that situation? Like, why are we just—

But that's it. It's the dog. If you go and look through the shelter, right, and go on a rescue website right now, if you don't believe me, have a look how many purebred dogs there are that have come from a good breeder.

Oh yeah, no, they're all nuts.

Yeah, they're all random.

Cross something, cross this, cross that.

Rando mixed breeds in the back of a backyard or from a gum tree. It'll be a gum tree German Shepherd with 6 toes or something. And, and that kind of is another point, is one of the most common reasons people will rescue dogs, or, you know, rescue or rehome, is their health. They go, we couldn't afford his vet bills. And again, if you get them from a good reputable breeder, that's just not a thing. Nelson has not cost me a cent in vet bills other than just like random things that have popped up, like he cut his toe, or— but there's nothing that's wrong with him because he's just A1. Same with my last dog, like A1. So it'll never be the stage where I go, he's got this $6,000 hereditary random thing that needs doing, I can't afford it, I'll pass him on to a rescue, and then he can go to another home who also can't afford it. Like, it's just—

yeah.

It's so— look, that, that's what we're saying. Like, again, I'm— I work with rescue. I still believe that, you know, people should— I'm not saying that everyone should go out tomorrow and stop this, but I'm saying if you actually want it to change You're better off going and, going and shopping, as much people don't like to admit.

Controversial episode.

Well, there's a—

right, I'll give you, I'll give you an example, right? So one of my, one of my clients slash friends, she's had 4 dogs since I've known her, right? When I first met her, dog number 1 she rescued, and he was this Ridgeback cross. Way too much dog for her. She'd never owned a dog before and decided that rehabilitating rescuing, rehabilitating a dog was the best, best thing for her, and it clearly wasn't.

Yeah.

She got on to me a little bit late. She was very bad at implementing advice. She never followed anything. Her dog ended up biting a child on the face pretty severely, and she took him straight to the vet and got put down. So it's like, okay, so there was a dog in the shelter, he was rescued, and he was put down within 3 months.

Great.

Okay. She then was like, all right, I'm going to get another dog. And this time we had this whole conversation and I said, hey, I think this is a breed for you. She went and got an Aussie Shepherd from a really good breeder and has still got that dog to this day. Billy, this little Aussie Shepherd, is an amazing dog, has been healthy, happy, easy. She's not going anywhere. Cool. So she's not putting any dogs back in the system. The third dog she rescued, she then went, all right, I need another dog. She pretty much redid the exact same situation. Got this big bull Arab Rhodesian Ridgeback cross, ended up with a ton of behaviour problems. And then she nearly went to— because he got aggressive, she nearly went and put him back in the shelter. But one of her friends caught wind and said, hey, we're actually moving out to the country. We'll take him with us because we love him. So again, dog that nearly went back into the system. But again, she took one out, couldn't handle it. She then got another dog, a 4th one.

There's a recurring issue here and it's not the dogs. Yeah, 100%.

Exactly right. The breeders would go, no, like, no, you're not, you don't need this. Anyway, she, 4th dog she got, Border Collie, crazy aggressive. And again, she would, she, she was the sort of person who, you know, didn't want to send this dog back, but that dog lived with the most nothing life because it was so fearful and aggressive and shit of everyone that she, they couldn't do anything with it. This dog just lived in the spare room in their house, and every time a guest would come over, they'd have to put it away and That again, would that dog have wanted to live there? No. It got rescued, sure, but it had a miserable life. So the one successful act of dog ownership she's had is when she went to a breeder and she's got— sorry, I've got to say it, just, yeah, not done good by the other 3 dogs. And unfortunately, I see that sort of thing a lot where, like I said, people are a dog's 4th home, or people will get a dog and go, hey, where did Jack go? I sent him back. Or where did Billy go? Euthanized her. Like, it's It's crazy. So anyway, that's, that's kind of my 2 cents, whatever it's worth. If you are up for a project and you, and you are genuinely confident in your dog rehabilitation skills, go for it. But rescues often come with a lot of baggage. It's tough to know exactly what breed they are, so it's tough to know what their tendencies are, what they'll turn into. And you've got to be pretty savvy with owning a dog. Even you, you've had to upskill yourself massively. Kira was a handful.

Well, I mean, this whole entire podcast was born because I— because Kira came And she, you know, for the first 2 years of her life has been, you know, I mean, it's a lot of work. She has been a hell of a lot of work. Yeah. And, you know, I'm not sort of blowing smoke up my own ass, but I don't think there would be many people out there that would have bothered putting in the work.

Exactly right.

With her. And she probably would have ended up back in some sort of rescue because she was just so— her prey drive and everything was just so— well, you've seen it. I mean, she's just, she's a hell of a lot of work. Insane.

Kira in another home would be pacing the fence all day.

No, they wouldn't take her out. Yeah, they wouldn't take her out.

She'd just be— there'd just be a groove in the ground 6 inches deep where she just runs back and forth. And again, guys, for this to be successful, Jack had to change half of his identity to be a dog person.

Yes.

Every ounce of, you know, media he doom scrolls is gundog stuff.

Yeah. He's done multiple— Months and months just watching so much content on gundogs and how to, you know, fulfill their needs.

He's had to learn e-collar training. He's done multiple courses with us. He's seen other trainers on the coast too. And every day now, a big part of his day is how can I mentally stimulate and drain this dog out? And but that's what it takes to be successful. Like, as, as much as we laugh about it, bar the podcast, it's like, that's what it takes. So if you genuinely look at that and go, I don't want that, then it's hard enough raising a dog with a relatively clean slate, rehabilitating a dog who comes with some baggage. is and got conflicting breeds in there is frickin tough.

So, and that's why if you don't, if you want a dog, but you don't want all that work that we've just spoken about, what I've had with my dog is that's why you would probably go to a breeder and say, this is what I'm looking for. And they can match you with, you know, well, I mean, first of all, yeah, the right temperament of a dog. And they could probably say, well, this dog's not for you. You know, you should be looking at an XYZ spot or whatever. That's the sort of dog that you're after.

That's it.

Yeah.

And it's funny, I've had that before where people have reached out to me going, do you know a good I've got a friend who's a German Shepherd breeder. You know, we just wanted it as a pet. I'll go, yeah, go to these people. They'll then message me and go, she said I couldn't have one of her dogs. I was like, well, she's probably right. She asked you more questions than I did. So, yeah, you know.

Okay.

All right.

Well, look, that may put some people's noses out of joint, but we hope that you understand the reasonings behind it. And maybe you've, you know, you can next time you're thinking about a dog, you might think about this conversation, or maybe you know someone who's thinking about a dog. And you can probably, probably pass on this episode and they can have a bit of a listen to it. Yeah, any questions, as always, the Dog People Podcast on Facebook. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill, edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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