Adopting an "older" puppy

[rockford22]

After a year of grinding me down the other half has potentially won the dog battle and has her heart set on picking up a red merle border collie at the weekend. Care, cost and insurance etc. aren't an issue thanks to her place of work and I'll even admit to slightly looking forward to it (I won't tell her that though...).

My concern is that the puppy she wants is coming up to 5 months old. The pros are that he is already crate and toilet trained but I'm concerned that not being there for the first few weeks means I can't tell exactly how he has been socialized. Has anyone adopted an older puppy and if so how did you find it? I appreciate people adopt adult dogs all the time but I feel that is slightly different as they will already be fully developed at that stage and you can tell what you are getting yourself into!

Someone reassure me...

[rockford22]

Yes to both of those questions. We live on a small farm in Somerset and my other half works at an agricultural college where the dog would be taken every day and spend most of the day out in the fields by her side. Appreciate the sentiment around a collie being particularly hard work though and needing a lot of mental stimulation - if we were not in the position we are in long term I would not remotely consider one.

Edited by rockford22 on Thursday 26th November 12:16

[rockford22]

Autopilot said:

How come there is a 5 month old pup available? I'm having one of those days and confused that you've said adopt and some other replies mention rescue. Is it an unsold pup - still with breeder, or is it a rescue?

Our female was 5 months old when we got her. She was exposed to other dogs, but not really socialised as such. You couldn't ask for a better dog, she's never even barked at another dog. Like Bex said, toilet training took a little longer, but you won't have that problem. Based on my experience of getting a 5 month old puppy, I wouldn't hesitate in doing it again. Apart from being a little slow on the uptake on where to go to toilet and the fact that she likes eating tea towels, she's been absolutely brilliant and had no issues at all.

Thought I'd update the thread as things subsequently changed shortly after posting. The dog had been bought from a breeder by a family with young children and several other dogs, we were given a story along the lines of "our current dogs don't get on very well with the new puppy, the kids are growing up, blah blah". Sounded a little fishy and all of a sudden she stopped replying to our emails and ignored all calls. We called her from a landline and she immediately answered the phone and in rather harsh terms told us to f*ck off and stop bothering her and that the dog was being kept. Charming!

We've since found a lovely blue merle collie and will be picking him up on Saturday! 10 weeks old, direct from breeder - have a much better feeling this time round. I shall post photos as soon as we get him!