I went through my childhood and early working life never getting to experience the joy and hassles that come with owning a dog. There was always a valid reason: no-one at home during the day, no garden, rented accommodation etc. etc. Now that my partner Susan and I are working from our own home all that has changed, and we’re now able to add a four-legged furball into our lives.

But what dog to get?

Adoption – not all that it first seems?

My first thought – no doubt sparked by the endless pet charity ads on tv – was to adopt a reasonably young dog from a rescue home. It seemed the ideal solution; we’d be able to bring love and safety to some cute little mutt that had been rejected by its previous owner, and we’d get to skip the puddle generating chewing machine that is commonly known as a puppy.

A quick Google revealed that there were basically two sources for adopted dogs in our part of the world (Scotland) – the SSPCA and Dogs Trust.
Both of these organizations operate responsible rehoming schemes. You must first in fill a questionnaire to indicate your interest in adopting a dog and possibly get your home and garden checked by a member of staff to make sure it’s suitable. In due course you get to choose your dog and eventually take him home.

Since there’s an SSPCA center only a short drive from our home, we went for quick visit. What we found didn’t quite match the rose-tinted picture painted by the organization websites. The majority of the dogs were stray Staffordshire Bull Terrier crosses. Neither of us liked the idea of a stray; such a dog would probably need to be house trained, something that might be harder with an adult dog that had spent time living on the streets. Also, Staffies have an unfortunate association with dog fighting and are a common breed choice for hoodie-wearing hard men in the UK.

The more we researched it, the more the rehoming idea lost its appeal. Dogs thrown out of their home or rescued from an abusive home often have problems that take great patience, confidence and experience to correct. The chances of getting a well cared for dog from a happy home – perhaps handed into the center due to emigration, divorce etc – are pretty slim. If you’re going to take the adoption route, you have to be levelheaded, choose your dog very carefully and be prepared to return a dog to the home if it turns out to have intractable problems. Maybe I’m a wuss, but I couldn’t handle the idea of taking a dog home only to be forced to take it back a few days later. Equally, I didn’t want us to be a stuck with a problem dog for the next decade or so!

Breed choice

So after all that, we ended up deciding to get a puppy – but what breed?

As it turns out, there are lots of free breed selectors online. We tried a few of these and although they didn’t all come up with the same answer, they did give us plenty of factors to consider besides size and appearance. Every selector includes things like exercise level, grooming requirements and character traits (affection, compatibility with children, other pets, suitability for guarding and so on) but some also factor in suitability for owners with allergies and common breed health complaints for example.

In the end, we set our hearts on getting a beagle.

We’ve Googled for local breeders, and are now waiting to see if we can get a pup early in the new year. That gives us a couple of months to get our house and garden ready for a dog that by all accounts is highly affectionate and fun but quite a handful…