Hi,
I'm new to the forum and planning to buy a cavalier as our first family pet. We were considering a puppy but I've come to realise that is more work than would could commit to right now as my youngest child is only 17 months. My other kids are 8 and 5. My 5 year old really wants a dog as do I so I made an enquiry about buying an older male cavalier from a breeder who no longer wants to put him in shows and he is about to turn 2. Everything sounds perfect - reputable local breeder, healthy dog, affectionate, likes kids, and breeder said if we couldn't keep him for whatever reason she would take him back & refund our money. Downside is that she mentioned he was not house trained as he spent a lot of time outdoors presumably with her other cavaliers. She didn't seem to think this would be too hard to work on as she said he is quite smart and would catch on quick.
I am concerned however that buying an older dog not house trained might make things tricky which is what we were hoping to avoid and one reason why we wanted to skip puppy stage. Hoping to get some advice on whether people think this would be quite a lot of work or if the training with a 2 year old could be ok. I am not naive enough to think buying a mature dog means we never have to train them because of course we would, but we want to keep the dog inside so house training is key and if I am going to need to invest a lot of time into that anyway then maybe that negates some of the advantages of buying a mature dog?
thanks
Nicole
I'm new to the forum and planning to buy a cavalier as our first family pet. We were considering a puppy but I've come to realise that is more work than would could commit to right now as my youngest child is only 17 months. My other kids are 8 and 5. My 5 year old really wants a dog as do I so I made an enquiry about buying an older male cavalier from a breeder who no longer wants to put him in shows and he is about to turn 2. Everything sounds perfect - reputable local breeder, healthy dog, affectionate, likes kids, and breeder said if we couldn't keep him for whatever reason she would take him back & refund our money. Downside is that she mentioned he was not house trained as he spent a lot of time outdoors presumably with her other cavaliers. She didn't seem to think this would be too hard to work on as she said he is quite smart and would catch on quick.
I am concerned however that buying an older dog not house trained might make things tricky which is what we were hoping to avoid and one reason why we wanted to skip puppy stage. Hoping to get some advice on whether people think this would be quite a lot of work or if the training with a 2 year old could be ok. I am not naive enough to think buying a mature dog means we never have to train them because of course we would, but we want to keep the dog inside so house training is key and if I am going to need to invest a lot of time into that anyway then maybe that negates some of the advantages of buying a mature dog?
thanks
Nicole