The Doggie Diaries: Should We Get a Puppy or an Adult Dog?

Dec 10th 2009

Anna and I continue to pursue a pooch that will make the planets and constellations align for us. Question: Should we get a puppy, or an adult dog?

I adopted my cat Nora ten years ago when she was a kitten, and as everyone knows there is nothing more adorable than a clumsy, excitable kitten. I'm sure the same is true for puppies, though I've never had one. It seems unlikely that Earth offers anything much cuter than a tiny dog with oversized paws.

Plus, as Anna points out, there are other advantages to adopting a puppy. To the extent environment determines behavior, she says, you can teach puppies to be appropriately-mannered. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, of course, but you can teach old tricks to a new dog.

Then again, puppies have their drawbacks. With puppies, you don't really know how big they'll get, and they have that pesky habit of peeing on rugs. Then there's the chewing. I fear a puppy will go to town on that knockoff, um, I mean totally legit Fendi bag I'm planning to buy Anna for Christmas

Adults dogs, on the other hand, often come potty trained and crate trained, and they're more likely to make it through the night without crying like newborn babies. They're less energetic, less prone to wearing you down, and probably won't go around knocking all my bottles of cologne off the shelves. On the other hand, the bad habits of adult dogs may be harder to break.

What does everybody think? Should we go all cute overload on everybody and get an impressionable little puppy, or stick with a tried (if not necessarily true) older dog?

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