Breeders assess their puppies every day – watching, measuring, judging and hoping. We all want a crystal ball that will tell us exactly how each puppy will turn out when full grown. Every breeder knows what they want to see: perfect angulation, correct size, excellent coat and fabulous temperament, essentially the embodiment of the dreams we had when we planned the litter. Puppy evaluations and aptitude testing are some of the tools breeders use to assess potential.

In terms of conformation, there are different theories as to the best time to choose your next Best in Show contender. Some breeders swear they can pick that ‘winner’ in the first 24 hours of its life. The idea is that the basic proportions and angulation can be seen when the puppy is “wet,” i.e., just born. Dee Devins of Tokabout Afghans has been using this method for many years and says, “The earlier the better before they learn to tense up, you support the puppy under the chest and head, and under the butt, and let the legs hang down. They are little limp noodles, totally relaxed and you can see length of neck and back as well as angulation and even ear set by looking at the distance across the skull. We also stack the puppy week by week for an ongoing evaluation.” Final decisions on which puppy goes where will be made at about eight weeks, or even later, based on watching the development of the litter and getting to know the personalities of the pups since structure is not the only thing that breeders are looking at.

Pat and the late Bob Hastings used their extensive experience handling, breeding and judging to put together the Puppy Puzzle evaluation (www.dogfolk.com). They contend that the perfect time to assess a puppy is at eight weeks old, plus or minus three days. The idea is that at this time in a puppy’s development, you can get a snapshot of what their adult proportions will be. The Hasting method also contains a temperament portion to assess the puppy’s adaptation to a new environment and handling by someone unknown to the pup.

How good are these tests at predicting adult conformation? In terms of basic angulation and structural proportions, the evaluations are good predictors.

Breeder Alison Gowan, D.V.M., says, “Within the litter the evaluations stand. The one I pick as the best pup in the litter remains my first pick when grown. At maturity, the basic structure is generally what I expected but the amount of substance on the finished dog can be difficult to predict.” For size of bone, bite, curl of tail or lack thereof, coat quality and size, the evaluations don’t tell us anything.

Probably the best way for breeders to choose their next champion is to keep the entire litter or at least their favourite few for as long as possible before deciding.

There are upsides and downsides to this method since puppies bond with each other and getting that early socialization is more work. For breeders with large or giant breeds with large litters, the costs escalate enormously, as do housing requirements. Breeders of Toy breeds have an advantage in this case and routinely keep pups longer.

Puppy aptitude or temperament tests have evolved over the years in an attempt to predict whether a particular puppy will be a good guide dog, police dog, dog-sport competitor or family companion. These tests are designed to look at a pup’s interaction with people and reactions to different stresses and stimuli. The idea is that the puppy’s responses will be a good predictor of the kind of adult it will be. There are many tests out there and they are fairly similar, but probably the best known is the Volhard Puppy Aptitude Test, or PAT (www.volhard.com).

Puppies are brought individually to a place they’ve never seen, and tested by someone they don’t know. Sometimes the breeder is there, other times not. Typical tests are things like seeing if the puppy will approach the strange person and with what demeanour. Does the pup fling itself at the new person and start chewing fingers and shoelaces, or does it approach cautiously or not at all? The theory is that based on the tests, breeders will be able to predict whether the adult dog will be a challenge to train or an easy family companion.

The Vohards recommend testing on the 49th day exactly.

So just how reliable are these tests at predicting adult behaviour? Assessing puppies for temperament is of-ten inconclusive because of the way the different tests are administered. Each test location is different and each tester has a personal bias and thus can interpret behaviour slightly differently. Also, different breeds will react differently to the tests.

If you throw a toy for a Whippet, you’ll get a different reaction than if you throw a toy for a Leonberger. If a Leonberger doesn’t retrieve the toy, what does that tell you about the puppy? If you know Leos, you know that is normal behaviour for them. It’s also normal if a Whippet doesn’t retrieve, though it would be very unusual if the Whippet doesn’t chase. In both cases, the test proves nothing about the working ability of either breed since neither of them is a natural retriever.

Studies have looked at the predictive value of these temperament tests and in all cases the predictive value has been either none at all or very low. A study by R. Beaudet, A. Chalifoux and A. Dallaire in 1994 (Predictive value of activity level and behavioral evaluation on future dominance in puppies. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 40: 273-284) found significant behavioural changes in pups tested at seven weeks and then again at 16 weeks. They found that dominance behaviour in the seven-weeks pups shifted toward neutrality or submission at 16 weeks in 34 out of the 39 puppies tested. The other five puppies went in the other direction, but the study does not indicate whether that was from submission to neutrality or neutrality to dominance. A study done by Goddard and Beilharz in 1986 (Early prediction of adult behavior in potential guide dogs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 15: 247-260) found some predictive value, but they used a series of different tests performed weekly and started when pups where 12 weeks old.

Essentially it seems that temperament testing of seven- or eight-week-old puppies doesn’t tell us much at all, though testing of older puppies has shown some predictive value. Guide dog breeding programs don’t do testing as such; the dogs pass or fail depending on their ability to take on responsibility and “selectively disobey” a command when necessary. That can be ascertained only when the dog is mature enough to learn a pretty complex set of commands and behaviours and takes place when the dogs are well over a year old.

All that said, any breeder will tell you that they can see personality in pups and even though no scientist has yet come up with a way to prove it, certain traits can be perceived. Any breeder knows the puppy that “draws the eye.” The one that says “Look at me” almost from birth will be a dog that commands attention through personality as much as any physical attribute when it is mature.

No single evaluation will tell everything. Simply stacking a puppy and going over it will not tell you much about how it moves. A puppy’s reaction to stimuli on one day is pretty inconclusive. There’s no substitute for watching and evaluating every puppy over a period of time. Puppies constantly change – the smallest becomes the largest, the largest suddenly becomes middle of the pack and the one with the best head now looks awful. In many breeds, the colours change as well; pups with great masks become adults with broken masks and pups with strong, clear colours become washed out. The confident so-called dominant puppy that hides under a chair when taken to the test site, but then grows up to be an outgoing happy adult.

As much as we all wish there were a 100-per-cent reliable way to predict the future personality and looks of our puppies, tests and evaluations can give us a glimpse, but only time can give us the whole picture.

Watch our Puppy Evaluations video here.