ISO male Cairn puppy (breeders?) in Northern VA

[phungus]

Howdy. I lurk here now and again. Our Cairn (M) made it just past 18 a few months ago before heading off to visit with our Silky Terrier (F) who preceded him by 1-2 years. We're looking to "reboot" and go 2.0 for 2010, same breeds, same genders. New names though!

My wife went in for one puppy 18 years ago and instead came home with two. We liked the mix and want to do it again. I sent out requests to a few local Cairn breeders as well as Silky breeders (from their breed Web site) yet oddly from 6+ emails have not heard anything back.

We'd like to time them out together as puppies with training but aren't really sure how the whole breeder thing works as my wife found 1.0 at a local pet store but she does not want to go that route again.

Northern Virginia, Washington, DC, Suburban Maryland. Or further if need be, no biggie. Is it acceptable or best to site visit breeders first? Any ideas? Thanks!

[bradl]

Good questions! If no response to email, it may just be that the breeder is not really comfortable with the medium, despite having one of these new-fangled email addresses I've met some who check their email once a week, rather than once every five minutes like some folks I know

While some breeders do indeed prefer email, some MUCH prefer 1-1 interaction. My biggest suggestion for getting a terrier is to BE a terrier: inquisitive, tenacious, and hard to offend. If no response to an email, I would call. And I wouldn't necessarily expect a breeder to call back - if you don't connect, I'd try a few times until I do. (If you call outside your area, mind the time zone!) However you should be able to find a good breeder in your area. Given your area I would start with the Potomac club: http://www.potomacctc.org/ - lots of really nice folks there. If you want to branch out a bit the Cairn Terrier Club of America (parent club for the breed in the US and host of this site) lists breeder-members here: http://www.cairnterrier.org/breeders.

I think it's a huge plus to visit with breeders, and the more the better. When we got our first Cairn we met several and really felt drawn to one in particular. She went from 'sorry, no puppies available' to 'I just might have one that is a good match for you guys from this most recent litter' largely I think due to having gotten to know us over a period of time - and wanting to make the best match for her placements. Many breeders think of placement as more an adoption and lifetime commitment to YOU and the dog than a property transaction - that can make them cautious and occasionally hard to read until you get to know each other. We went from Oregon to Colorado to get one puppy from a breeder we'd met and liked. Some breeders occasionally recommend a particularly good home to other breeders if they know of someone with a suitable dog or upcoming litter planned.

So: patience and persistence, with a little luck on the timing. Good Cairns are bred to careful planning, so they aren't always available right when we're looking.

Sorry for the loss of your old boy. At his age he clearly was well taken care of and much loved. Good luck on 2.0.

[phungus]

Bradl,

Thanks so much for the speedy reply! From reading up more here on past forum comments as well as some general searches tonight...clearly buying puppies from a breeder is not the same as buying computer parts I'm an IT kind of guy and assumed that in 2010 everything was equal and for sale on the Inter-Tubes but am kind of glad to know that is not true, and will engage my social engineering aspect in further pursuit of things.

We'd really like to replicate things from the last go round but it seems like that will be a very, very tall order--especially with different breeds at the same time, as puppies. We're hooked on the puppy thing for 2.0 as 1.0 preceded me by 5-6 years (and with my wife's first husband, cough) and it took my younger allergic immune system a good 6 months before caving to the critters. We don't want to go the pet store route as we want to kind of know where they're coming from versus 18 years ago...everything you see in the news, etc, etc. Yet we are not breeders, we don't need breed standards or anything, we just want new pals to play ball and jump on furniture that come from great homes to ours.

At 18 he had slowed down a heck of a lot especially the last 12 months but still had most of his wits about him--just not so much with running, chasing, stairs, barking at strange dogs, squirrels, couch hopping, defending against the mailman, playing frisbee, etc. It was interesting because compared to the Silky he had much greater health issues earlier on but really went the extra mile and beyond at the end. To the end people still thought he was a "puppy" and could not believe for a second he was as old as he was.

I will definitely try to connect in person with localish breeders and just get out there and about.

Thanks!