While you're anxiously waiting, you may find it beneficial to determine what behavioral characteristics you are looking for. Just as breeds vary by appearance in their closeness to a standard, dogs were not only bred to a standard of appearance but also to a standard of behaviors. Science can help us here ... and while any dog's behaviors can be far from the "norm", statistics tells us what the odds are.
During the pandemic, it was very hard to find rescue dogs and often they were scooped up before people could adopt their "chosen one". You don't say where you are located but the internet will let you expand your search,locating dogs by breed, size, age, gender etc with a mile radius you specify. Petfinder is one of the more well known in my spot of the world and rescueme.org is a worldwide one
Adopt Dogs, Cats, Horses, Birds
www.rescueme.org
Petfinder has helped more than 25 million pets find their families through adoption. Search our extensive list of dogs, cats and other pets available for adoption and rescue near you.
www.petfinder.com
While we were a dobie family for about 25 years after several purebreds, we started doing Dobie / Dobie mix rescues for about 15 years and now due to availability, have opened our homes to a wider variety of mixed breeds. We prefer dogs in the 60 - 100 pound range that enjoy activity so target or breed selection accordingly as well as matching desired behavioral traits.
When looking for behavioral matches, the C-BarQ database is a very useful scientific tool. Sites like petcalculator can give you a wide range of advice on what to expect from different breeds based upon the C-BARQ behavioral database as well as many other pieces of useful information Breed origin, appearance, size range, growth, temperament, etc). Rather than pick randomly for an example, I looked at AKCs most popular breed for 2021 - Labrador Retriever
The Labrador Retriever is a large-sized dog.
petcalculator.com
Last Updated: Nov 22, 2022
petcalculator.com
The latter lists behavioral tendencies... a score of 50 represents the average of all dog breeds as with any statistical variation most dogs will be near the middle the "bell curve" for individual breeds is the same shape for breed specific variations but shifted to the left or right ... the closer the score is to 0, the more desireable the trait is considered; the closer the score is to 100, the less desirable the trait is considered. That doesn't mean ANY individual dog will display any particular behavior and both environment and genetics play a part ... but the people who bred dogs either knew what they were doing or they were failures. But in general, working dogs display traits beneficial to being working dogs.
Looking at the statistics on that 2nd link... we can see why the Lab is such a popular dogs. How does that help us in dog selection .... well if you want a dog for protection that's easy to train for example, chances aren't good selecting a Husky. They tend to be very welcoming to strangers and will listen to commands where they recognize it will involve getting something they want ... but I could be holding a 20 oz steak in my hands and is it's between that and chasing a squirrel (high prey drive) she's gone.
Ask to see the medical history ..today, that's not as difficult as it might seem as many dogs are "chipped" ... also petcalculator will also advise you as to health issues associated with particular breeds. With this information you can ask the rescue group to perform tests...some will, some may not. With a Pug for example, recommended testing includes:
Elbow Dysplasia
Eye Examination- Pug Dog Club of America recommends ANNUAL screening.
Hip Dysplasia
Patellar Luxation
Pug Dog Encephalitis
Pyruvate Kinase Deficiency (PKD)
Serum Bile Acid Test
As for training and feeding your new dog, there are various training "schools of thought" with strong opinions an all sides for which is best. If there's anything I have learned over the last 50 years including training security dogs for 4 years, it's that the dog will quickly let you know what works and doesn't work but that's a subject for another topic.
