Puppy Application

SCULLY'S LITTER WAS BORN ON JULY 31, 2023 -- WE ONLY HAVE MALES AVAILABLE
Anyone considering taking a PWD into their home should sit down and thoroughly read this free issue of The Courier, the official magazine of the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America.  It is chock full of information about these dogs, what to look for in a breeder, and how to train your pup.
 
If you would like to be considered for one of our puppies, please download the fillable PDF file (click on the button below), save it to your computer, fill it out in Adobe Reader, save it, and send it to us at karilavalli@gmail.com.   WE DO NOT SHIP PUPPIES!  You must physically pick up your puppy to take him or her home.

​NOTE:  all applicants (inclusive of all family members) will be required to have an in-person interview at our home where they can meet our dogs and we can get to know one another.  These interviews take about 1 hour.  Also, when possible, we would like approved homes to start visiting the puppies starting around the 5th week of age to begin the socialization process with humans.  So if we approve you to be one of our homes, plan to come visit as often as possible to interact with the puppies to help them become highly interactive with a variety of people of different ages.

Please note:  because PWD puppies are extremely active and mouthy, we do not place puppies in homes with children under the age of 6.  We do not want your child to grow up afraid of dogs or hating your dog.  Children should be of old enough to understand when puppies are overstimulated and need to be put up for a nap.

UPFRONT INFORMATION - READ BEFORE YOU APPLY!

If you get a puppy from us, there are several things we require and we're  going to spell them out right off the bat -- these requirements may cause you to go elsewhere for a puppy and that's okay!

  1. You must take three 6-week puppy/manners classes at a decent training facility.   This website lists a number of training facilities in the New England area.  These classes are NOT for socialization the way most people think of socialization (which is that puppies get to play with other puppies) -- these are classes designed to make YOU the most interesting thing in your puppy's life, so those other puppies in class become totally irrelevant to your puppy.  That's what socialization is -- teaching your puppy to ignore the distractions of the outside world and to be your partner.  Do not assume a single class will create a dog who knows things.  Just as you cannot expect a kindergarten graduate to read Shakespeare, you cannot expect a 4 month old puppy to know how to behave well in the house after a single 6 week class.
  2. You MAY NOT use a board-and-train program during the first two years of your puppy's life.  These programs are generally done with electronic collar training and that can create some neurotic behavior in your dog or excessive nervousness.  If you are the type of person who wants to hand off a puppy to someone else to train, then ask yourself why you want a puppy in the first place.  The first year is critical to you developing a relationship with your puppy and handing it off to someone else does not accomplish or facilitate you developing that relationship.
  3. You must follow the exercise guidelines that I will provide to you in a handy booklet that covers the entire first two years of your pup's life.  This is CRITICAL -- more and more research is showing that what you do to the puppy's joints early in life has profound consequences for when and how much arthritis they'll develop as they age and whether they will have significant problems like dysplasia.
  4. You must not allow your puppy to become fat.  A fat puppy is NOT a healthy or happy puppy.  A fat puppy is just fat and that extra weight will put stress on joints that is not necessary and not helpful for proper joint development.  We will be sending off the puppies in perfect body condition and you need to keep them that way.  We will teach what you want to look for and we will talk about diets along the way, but it is your job to keep your dog slim and trim.  This means you do NOT free feed (leave a food bowl out all day).
  5. You may NOT neuter or spay your puppy until it is 2 years old.  This means that those of you who want a female will have to put up with 3-4 heat cycles (these are no big deal and not as messy as your own monthly cycles if you are a female human).  Your veterinarian may very well argue with you about this as all veterinarians are taught that to keep animal populations low, you need to spay/neuter your dogs and cats.  However, all research is pointing to the dangers of early spay/neuter in terms of higher rates of cancers, more behavioral problems, and elimination of proper signals for growth that then cause joint problems.  If you cannot deal with an intact male or female dog and keep it out of trouble for 24 months, then please reconsider moving forward on an application with me for a puppy.
  6. You may NOT give a whole bunch of vaccinations all at once.  We will give you a vaccination protocol to follow -- the first vaccination the pup receives at 9 weeks (before going home with you) is a distemper/parvo vaccine.  That distemper/parvo vaccination should be the 2nd vaccination given one month later.  You will have one more booster and at this point the vet may use the DHPP vaccination, which is fine.  Then one month later, you will give the rabies vaccine by itself.  Veterinarians love to combine a bunch of vaccinations together and this is NOT necessary nor healthful.  You do NOT need to vaccinate for lepto or for lyme, but you should run a SNAP test every year.  Also, you should NOT use ANY topical flea/tick medication on your puppy and you should research very very very carefully whether you should give the oral medications for fleas and ticks (these are neurotoxins and some dogs have severe reactions to them).  We use a Seresto collar when the pup is about 8 months old and that seems to work just fine.  As for heartworm medication, Interceptor or Interceptor Plus is one of the best out there, but you do not need to give it every 30 days because the life cycle of the worm is 45 days.  So you can give it every 45 days and can stop giving it when there are no more mosquitoes (usually December) and, after a SNAP test in the spring, start giving it in April when mosquitoes reappear.
  7. You need to attend Zoom meetings and/or in-person visits with the puppies.  You will have the ability to interact with the puppies as they grow, but we also hold about 4-5 Zoom meetings to impart information and answer a host of questions from all of the approved families.  We have found it is easier to impart this information without the distraction of the cute puppies via these meetings and then to reserve just playing with the puppies with your in-person visits.
  8. WE CHOOSE your puppy, not you.  You tell us what you want and given that we are with these puppies 7 days a week for 9 weeks, we learn a ton about their individual personalities and match the puppy's personality to what you've told us you want.   There is no "I fell in love with puppy X and want that one" in this scenario.  Our goal is to match what you say you want in the puppy with the puppy who will live up to that potential.  So far, we've had good success in this matching process and our homes are very happy with their pups/dogs.
  9. We will take deposits to hold a puppy after the interviews are completed and the puppies are on the ground.  At that point, we will finalize applicants in a rank order (which may be based on the sexes of the puppies and the desires of the applicants).  The deposit to hold your puppy is not refundable except under the following circumstances:  1) you become unemployed or suffer some other major life event that makes having a puppy impossible; 2) we don't have a puppy that suits your needs/desires/life circumstance; 3) you discover that someone in your family is highly allergic to the puppy.  Changing your mind or getting a puppy from someone else is not a refundable excuse.

If you and your family can accept these conditions, then we'd love to see an application from you!  If you don't like these conditions, please seek a puppy from someone else.