[letittbe]

I'm curious as to how people decided on the dog or breed of dog they've got. Did you do loads of research before hand, did you visit breeders, or did you just see a dog at a rescue that you really liked the look of?

My border collie was from working stock from a friend who breeds sheepdogs. Hers are very highly trained and from great bloodlines for working dogs and she has one litter a year which are always sold well in advance, usually to other working farms or people. I wanted a dog that would fit my active lifestyle and I've been around her dogs a lot so I felt confident that I could get help with training a working line border collie. Now we do agility anywhere from 4 hours (winter) up to 15 hours a week (summer) and he is doing really well but I must admit that it was hard for me to truly understand how much energy and intelligent a border collie has before I'd experienced him and he is a lot of work!!

Did you know what your breed was going to be like before you got them, have they suprised you in any way?