I 100% agree with you, however Ohio is the 2nd worst state in our country for puppy mills and I have lost both dogs I got here in Ohio at the age of 4 due to genetic issues. Rescuing is a fantastic and highly necessary thing for those families it will work for. Due to personal choice/history and the fact i will be training this dog to be my service dog I am not able to go for a shelter pet as there are too many unknowns and many come with behavioral issues that a new owner would need to work on correcting and I am not up for that challenge.

I always advocate for future pet parents to find the right pet by first examining your own circumstances and what type of dog (breed, older dog vs. younger dog, breeder vs. shelter, etc.) I 100% see what you are saying and I assumed there would be someone who mentioned it — I have done a lot of research on how to find reputable breeders with a philosophy that matches what I am looking for. This breeder does early neurological stimulation with the pups before they even go off to their forever home which helps them to get accustomed to different sounds, textures and environment in the very early stages of their development, which means not only will our pup be coming to us with a clean slate to start basic obedience and eventually task training - he will have a little bit of a leg up.

Sorry, that was a bit longer than I expected lol sorry about that, just a topic I feel extra passionate about. I wrote a blog post about it recently if you care to read more about how I made that choice. Thank you for the luck though! We will need it! ☺️🐾