What’s the best age to bring a baby puppy to your home?
When is the best age for me to adopt a labradoodle puppy? And relatedly, when is the best age for a labradoodle puppy to be removed from its mother and littermates to go to its forever home?
The easy part of this labradoodle puppy adoption timing question is that it should definitely not be before the labradoodle puppy is at least 8 weeks old. That is now the law in many U.S. states like here in Pennsylvania. That is based on good animal science and husbandry practice.
Puppy Adoption Between 8 to 14 Weeks
Beyond 8 weeks, the answer to these questions depend largely on what the new adoptive home will be like. Through the labradoodle puppy’s 14th week, it will be undergoing a very sensitive socialization process.
The following is a simplification, but basically starting at 6 weeks of age, while the puppy is still with mom and the breeder, the puppy will be very exploratory. Your labradoodle puppy, filled with curiosity, will inspect its world as much as it can. This curiosity and openness to new experiences will grow in the next few weeks until it rapidly diminishes from about its 12th week of age. By week 14, the puppy’s curiosity will be replaced with fear.
So it’s really really super important that the puppy be exposed to as many stimuli and as much socializing as possible, and that those have positive associations for the puppy. This is a critical time period when the labradoodle puppy will learn that vacuum cleaners are okay, children aren’t scary, and cats don’t want to be chased.
This is also when puppies really learn the all-important bite inhibition. An adult dog without good bite inhibition will be a danger to every person–adults and especially children.
Because of the importance of this developmental period, I recommend that labradoodle puppies being raised by a competent breeder and dog trainer remain with the breeder until 12 to 14 weeks of age. This assumes that the breeder and/or dog trainer will provide all of that vital socialization and stimulation that a young puppy needs during those weeks of its life.
If, however, the puppy would be going to a home that has the time and resources necessary to do this themselves, then I would recommend that the puppy go to that new adoptive home at 8 weeks. This would entail spending hours each day with the puppy ensuring it learns as much as possible.