Eight weeks, minimum. That is our answer, it is written into the contract, and no birthday, holiday or offer changes it. Here is the reasoning, because a rule without a reason is just a rule.
What happens in those last two weeks
Between roughly six and eight weeks a puppy is learning things from its mother and its littermates that no human being can teach it afterwards. Three in particular.
Bite inhibition
A puppy bites a sibling too hard. The sibling yelps and the game stops. Nobody explains this to the puppy; it works it out, over and over, dozens of times a day, and it learns exactly how much pressure is too much. That calibration is why an adult dog can take a treat from a child’s hand without breaking skin.
You cannot install this later. You can manage a mouthy dog, and you can train around it, but the soft mouth of a dog that had those weeks is a different thing entirely.
Dog manners
How to read another dog’s posture. How to back down. How to be told off by an adult dog and recover from it rather than panic. Their mother does a great deal of this teaching in weeks six to eight, and she is considerably better at it than we are.
Frustration tolerance
Their mother starts weaning them, which is the first time in a puppy’s life that it wants something and does not immediately get it. That is the beginning of being able to cope with not getting your way, and it shows up years later as a dog that can settle.
What it looks like when it is cut short
A puppy taken at six weeks is very often mouthy at a year old. It is more likely to struggle reading other dogs at the park, more likely to be either over-reactive or oddly flat with them, and more likely to fall apart when it is corrected. This is one of the more reliable patterns in the whole business, and it is entirely avoidable by waiting a fortnight.
The other thing worth knowing: a breeder who offers you a puppy at six weeks is telling you something about how they operate. Puppies are expensive and noisy to keep, and moving them early is convenient for the person selling them. It is not convenient for the dog.
Why not longer, then?
A fair question, since if eight is better than six, surely twelve is better than eight. Not exactly. The socialisation window runs to roughly sixteen weeks and the new home has to do a large part of that work: your street, your visitors, your car, your routine. A puppy that stays with the breeder to fourteen weeks has often had a narrower experience of the world, not a broader one, unless the breeder is working hard at it.
Eight to ten weeks is the sensible window for a well-raised litter. We aim for eight, and occasionally a particular puppy tells us it needs another week, in which case it gets one.
How we know a puppy is actually ready
- Eating solid food properly and reliably, with no interest in going back.
- Sleeping through a good part of the night, and settling alone for short stretches without distress.
- Confident on different surfaces and unbothered by ordinary household noise.
- Recovering quickly from a startle rather than shutting down.
- Vet-checked, vaccinated for its age, wormed and microchipped.
If a puppy is not there, it does not go, and we tell you why. That has happened, and the family who waited an extra week has never once regretted it.
The health guarantee page covers what else every puppy leaves with.