If you already have children and you want to have that white picket fence dream, and have a dog involved, you really want to look at what life you have. Is somebody a triathlon athlete? Is everybody behind a desk when they get home from work? We really want to look at our lifestyle. Do we want the dog just to enhance our child's life? We want to see exactly what we want, so that we can look at the specific dog. And I'm not talking breed. It doesn't matter what breed you have.

What to Look For in a Dog

The ideal energy of a dog is just below yours. If you get a dog with an energy below yours, it's much easier to control. But if you're a triathlete, and you get a corgi, that's low energy, and you get angry because it can't keep up with you on a ten mile run, then we haven't done our due diligence. But if we get a cattle dog, and we work at home behind the desk and we get angry because the dog is now herding the children around, and nipping at their heels, we haven't done our due diligence. So we want to take the time to find the right energy. Not necessarily breed. If you have a breed in mind, sure. But then look for the energy of that specific breed. Because if you do not provide an outlet for the energy that is required for that specific dog, it will find an outlet on its own, and then the human can not complain about how he relieves his energy at that point. Give the dog something to do, or it will find something to do.