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Comment by Natsuhi Shirosaki on June 28, 2016 at 2:49am

Thanks everyone, so many good info here I am taking notes! you learn new thing everyday

Comment by Beth on June 23, 2016 at 12:11pm

This was Jack at 10 weeks.  His ears were totally down.  It was also 90 degrees which didn't help.

Comment by Beth on June 23, 2016 at 12:09pm

Chelsea has given you lots of good information.  I just wanted to add that not all breeders will let you see the puppies until they are a bit older.  Our breeder lost an entire litter when a puppy visitor swore they had not visited any other litters on their way and then casually mentioned they'd stopped by some farm or other to see another litter on the way.  They sadly tracked a disease in (maybe Parvo) on their shoes and she lost the whole litter.   She now doesn't let anyone in until they are a little older and have had one round of shots. 

Comment by Chelsea Meredith on June 23, 2016 at 10:42am

A good breeder should have a website with photos and information about their facility.  A good breeder should be available for questions within a few hours of asking them (if it takes you weeks to get an answer, forget about it).  A good breeder should be socializing and training their dogs and puppies with other people and dogs.  A good breeder should have their dogs and puppies in their homes at times, not just outside in a fenced in area all of the time.  A good breeder should have the puppies de-wormed and other vaccinations started and then provide you with those records.  A good breeder has a health contract, so if there is any congenial or hereditary illnesses within the first 12 months, the breeder will replace the puppy with a healthy one (or will cover the cost of vet care, because I would never be able to just "replace" a puppy).  A good breeder should only be breeding top quality dogs/bitches with no health concerns in the first place that have excellent temperaments.  If you're looking for a companion animal, then you don't need to worry about championships so much (champion puppies are SO EXPENSIVE).  A good breeder should be able to tell your EVERYTHING about their puppies and their parents: their bad behaviors, their good behaviors, their quirks, personalities, temperaments, etc.  A good breeder shouldn't let their puppies leave their mother until they're at least 7 or 8 weeks old.  Some prefer 12 weeks.  Puppies learn A LOT from their mothers and their littermates like how to play nice without biting too hard.  You need to quiz the breeder and the breeder needs to quiz you!  Every good breeder should have an application to fill out to see how fit you are for their puppies and you should prepare a list of questions as well (anything and everything, they should tell you all the big and small details).  If you don't have a backyard that's fenced (like me), do your research on places you can bring your puppy to run off-leash when they are fully vaccinated.  With a young puppy, DO NOT bring them to high-traffic areas until they are fully vaccinated.  Parvo is a devastating and deadly puppy disease!  However, your puppy has to be properly socialized with other dogs and people, but just make sure that they're playmates are fully vaccinated and you are in a safe area.  Corgis are extremely active dogs and require TONS of exercise (both mental and physical).  However, they do make great apartment dogs if you exercise them daily!  They are SO SMART and will learn basic commands very early in life.  Be prepared to supervise and play, play, play for the first year of their life!  Crate training will save your life when concerning potty training!  It will also keep your pet (and your belongings) safe until puppy learns how to behave well in the house.

1. Can you share with me your corgi pictures when they are still babies & when they grow up for comparison?

Below is a picture of my Pembroke when he was about 8 weeks versus a year!  Corgis should grow about 1lb a week for the first six months.  My Pem was 7lbs at 7 weeks, then 23lbs at 24 weeks, now at 1.5 years he is about 36lbs (he is a big corgi though, he might fill out even more).  My Cardigan at 24 weeks is 22lbs.

2. How to differentiate a competition eligible corgi puppy & the normal ones (so I do not get tricked by the seller)

A good breeder should provide the pedigrees of the parents of the pup.  Express what you are looking for!  Companion dog versus competition.  $1,200+ isn't an uncommon number for puppies from champion lines where I live, $800+ for companion dogs with healthy parents that aren't in competition.  

3. How to know if its real pure bred/mixed? (lots of fraud here)

Again, a good breeder should provide pedigrees that you can verify very easily online on the AKC website.  It's a code that you can look up that will have their name and who they are registered to.

4. What to especially watch out for when choosing a corgi puppy

Temperaments is a big one!  Choose one that has the right temperament for you, your family, and home.  VISIT THE BREEDER and the puppies BEFORE you bring them home.  When I got my Pembroke, I visited my breeder before he was born, when he was 2 weeks, when he was 5 weeks, and then at 7 weeks when I brought him home.  A good breeder shouldn't have any problem with you visiting as often as you want!  This really helped me figure out his temperament on my own (plus I got to play with lots of corgis because I had never owned one before, so I got to know what the breed is like too)!  This might sound funny, but I smelled and looked for soiling.  The breeder's house was very clean and there was no smell of urine or feces.  There was also LOTS of toys and chews for all of the dogs and puppies.  The breeder also had puppy pads down to start potty training the puppies as they roamed a supervised area.  If you can, meet the mother and father of the puppy to see what they're like because they're likely adopt some of each of their traits!

GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN!  Corgis are extremely loyal dogs that just want to please you and always be there for you.  Remember that it gets easier.  The first 8 months of a puppy's life are the hardest, so just stick with it and eventually with proper training they will be the best companion ever!

Comment by Vicky Hay on June 23, 2016 at 8:20am

About where they're raising the pups: You can usually tell. If the pups and dam are in an X-pen inside the home, that usually indicates they're living in the house. It would be a lot of trouble to buy an X-pen, set it up, and drag a whole family of dogs in and out of the house, no?

I think breeders in general are anxious to find homes for their pups, no matter how great the pups are. A good breeder is anxious to find a GOOD home. To do that, they'll usually ask you a lot of questions about what your home is like, whether you have a fenced yard and if so, what kind of fencing you have, why you're interested in their breed, what dogs you've had and what happened to them, whether you have any pets in the home now, whether you have any children at home, and the like. Good breeders don't want to put their dogs in bad homes.

In addition, dog breeding is not an inexpensive enterprise. A breeder has a lot of money invested in the dam and the sire (if she owns the sire). Paying to breed a female with someone else's high-end dog is amazingly expensive. Then the vet bills for a litter of pups and their dam can make your head spin. And if anything goes wrong with the birth, that also is very costly. So those factors plus the fact that puppies don't stay heart-meltingly cute for very long combine to motivate the person to sell those puppies.

Again...I don't know how much of this applies in China. Cultural differences make a huge difference in how people approach these things. Americans are like Brits where dogs are concerned: completely nuts. In this country, a lot of sentimentality attaches to pets, especially to dogs and cats. We tend to regard our pets much as we regard our children. Although a smart breeder understands that breeding and selling puppies is a business, nevertheless most breeders love dogs and are as careful about finding homes for their puppies as a social worker searching for an adoptive home to take in an infant. Cynical breeders sell puppies to pet stores and breed puppies by the score. But you should be able to sense the person's attitude and motives. If you're a halfway decent judge of people, you can usually tell.

Length of time depends on the health guarantee. Some things have nothing to do with genetics: if you don't get your dog its vaccinations, for example, it's not the breeder's fault if the puppy comes down with distemper.

With larger dogs, most breeders will warranty that they won't get hip dysplasia. In my experience, that "warranty" has been just so much malarkey. Others may have had different experience, but mostly if you try to make a claim on such a warranty it means the breeder will take the dog back, put it down, and give or sell you a new pup for you to have to spend another year training.

OFA stands for "Orthopedic Foundation for Animals." http://www.ofa.net/  A literal translation (which may make no sense in real Chinese) is 动物骨科基础  Ask at local pet fanciers' clubs -- there may be some equivalent organization on your side of the Pacific.

Comment by Natsuhi Shirosaki on June 23, 2016 at 2:59am

Thank you everyone!  A lot of Great Input here.. I can't seem to find the "reply to comment" button :(

@Beth: I will check about OFA, They might have it but I need to figure out the chinese name for it. Do you have pictures for references?

@Vicky Hay Very good input here, Its my first time hearing about the testicles..Will do more research on that

It might be a stupid question but how to know if they are really raising the puppies at home? They can just bring the pup & mom into the house when I come for a visit. 

My benchmark for now is to see whether the owner really cared about the puppies or not. People that seem can't wait to get rid of the pup is a red flag, Will that do?

If they only give a health guarantee for 1 month its not a good news right?

@Jane How often should the mom be bred maximum?

Currently I am doing intensive research, starting from visiting dog shows to breeders..completely avoiding pet shop..& trying to translate everything I learn to chinese language...biggest issue for me here..

Comment by Abbey & Anne on June 22, 2016 at 10:01pm

Comment by Beth on June 22, 2016 at 12:04pm

Google is your friend here.   You should be able to search the kennel name and if they really do compete, you will get results from their past competitions in your search.  You should also see their kennel name popping up in the pedigrees of OTHER kennels competition dogs, unless the breeder is very new. 

Do you have something like OFA here?  OFA tracks health test results and is another good place to look up the breeder. 

You personally will not be able to tell a show-quality puppy from a pet-quality puppy until you have seen lots and lots of puppies.  Even breeders often have other people look at their dogs to differentiate.  But the breeder should be able to tell you what makes her think this pup is or is not show quality and point out actual features.

Comment by Vicky Hay on June 22, 2016 at 11:11am

It's worth knowing that corgi puppies may have different coloring than appears when they're fully mature. Ruby the Corgi Pup had a lot of sable on her, but she grew into a classic red-and-white corgi. Her breeder had enough experience to predict that she would be red-and-white. I don't have a lot of good Ruby pictures because she and her pal Cassie are always in motion. Here's one of her as a puppy, trying to kill a floor mop.

Here she is when she was quite tiny:

And this is how she looked shortly after I brought her home, next to Cassie the Corgi (who was about 5 years old at the time):

By the time she reached the mop-hunting stage, her coat had grown in and looked very much like Cassie's. You can see by the second two pictures how much dark fur her puppy coat had.

I would ask the breeder for a referral or two: ask if you can speak with people who have bought puppies from litters from the same breeding pair, or at least from the breeder's kennel. Also, if there are clubs or associations of breeders nearby, see if the person is a member and if she or he is active in the group. Ask your veterinarian if she or he knows anything about the breeder.

Ask to see where the dogs are kept. You don't want to do business with someone who coops up their dogs in cages in a barn -- try at all costs to avoid puppy mills. In the US, one would ideally like to find the dogs kept in or near the human's house. But there's a lot of cultural variation in the way people interact with dogs. If people don't incline to live with their dogs in your area, at least ascertain that the dogs' living environment is clean and safe.

Secure an agreement that you will take the puppy to YOUR vet (not the breeder's) within XX number of days, and that purchase is conditional upon your veterinarian giving the dog a clean bill of health. Get this in writing. If the vet finds something wrong with the pup, you get to return it to the breeder. If whatever is wrong is treatable (such as, say, kennel cough), then the breeder will pay the vet and medical bills to treat the dog.

If it's a male, be sure its testicles have descended into the scrotum. Do not accept a monorchid or cryptorchid puppy: surgery to repair this condition, which predisposes the dog to cancer, is expensive and hard on the dog. Do not buy any stories like "his testes will descend by the time he's XX weeks or months old."

In the US, many breeders ask buyers to return the dog to them if for any reason they can't keep it. This is a good sign: it means they care about what happens to their puppies. The written agreement you sign with the breeder should include a clause to this effect.

Comment by Jane Christensen on June 22, 2016 at 8:05am

There are several things you can ask that might help.

Do the dogs have papers and are the pups eligible to be registered (although they can use false documents or another dogs).

I would ask what the parents have done(competition wise).

Ask them to send you pics and are the pups raised inside a home or out. If they're outside in a fence they are more likely to not have much training or socialization.

Do they have a vet signed paper stating the pup is healthy.

Do they come with a warranty? Such as the breeder guarantees that if issues(medical) that you can return the dog.

How often does the mom get bred? If it's overtime she goes into season....that's over breeding.

Many times a breeder will hold back a pup if they want to show it and wait to see if the pup is what they want when they get bigger.

I can't read what I have written but I would check and see what they have done with their own dogs. 

Good Luck!