We brought home our most recent pup at 7 weeks, but we have 3 adults already, so he seemed to feel right at home. He loves people and other dogs.
He came from a litter of 16, and wasn’t getting much attention from his mother, although she is a very sweet girl. That’s just a large litter.
Due to his breeder being a total moron and my concern that my pup wouldn’t survive his “expert rearing” to the 8 week period, I brought Odin home at 6 weeks.
He is more aggressive than his siblings *but* he also came into a stable, established pack of older dogs, particularly the Portuguese Podengo Medio who immediately “adopted” him as her child.
They all acted as both siblings/parents to him and shoved him back into line when he needed it.
He has the perfect disposition for his job *but* in the hands of somebody who had *not* had Dobes for nearly 40 years, he would have possibly wound up in a shelter or dead.
Others might consider him “too much to handle” but to me, he’s just another Dobe and no big deal.
*If* I were breeding/selling pups, I would definitely -not- let them go until 8 weeks and would probably wait until they were 10-12 weeks old.
[that period is very common amongst Ibizan breeders]
They *do* benefit greatly from pack social interaction, especially in the extremely important area of bite inhibition as taught by their siblings.
Wild canids stay with their parents for *months*, often reaching near-adulthood by the time the next litter is born.
On the flip side, hand rearing pups away from other dogs will make them much more “human oriented” and in the hands of a -great- trainer, they can become excellent dogs but they will always lack the simple joy of knowing how to “be a dog”.
I would want to avoid that, myself.
[and to this day, his 100 pound self obeys the PPM’s little 25 pound self like a good soldier]...:)
In that case, I’m glad I didn’t say it was a hard and fast rule, with no exceptions. ;)
You did send me to Bing, though, were I found this nugget, fwiw:
“If you want to adopt the healthiest, happiest puppy possible, wait until it is nine weeks old to separate it from its mother and littermates by bringing it into your home. At this age, you can be relatively sure that bite inhibition and basic housetraining habits have been learned. The critical socialization period for puppies lasts until the age of sixteen weeks, giving a nine-week-old puppy plenty of time for proper socialization in its new home.”
http://petlvr.com/blog/2009/09/02/best-age-to-adopt-a-puppy/