Joe Biden is set to make history in more ways than one - he won’t be the first US president to bring a pet dog into the White House (although it has been a pet-free zone for the past four years) but he will be the first to bring a rescue dog as a pet.

Biden and his wife have two German shepherds. Champ joined the family as a puppy in 2008, and Major was adopted from an animal shelter in 2018.

The Bidens were criticised by the Humane Society when they purchased Champ from a commercial breeder, because he had championed a number of important animal-welfare reforms in the Senate and had chosen not to adopt from a rescue shelter.

This is a very real dilemma for a lot of would-be dog owners, and whilst the ManxSPCA always urges people to ’adopt don’t shop’ we recognise that this is not always possible, particularly for families with young children.

We’re often asked if we can recommend breeders, which we can’t do; but we can, and do, give people advice about what to do when looking for a puppy.

First and foremost, do your research.

You need to do this on the breed of the puppy and be realistic about whether you will be able to give it an appropriate home (for example, don’t buy a border collie or a beagle - active dogs with working dog backgrounds - if you go to work and plan to leave it on its own all day).

You also need to do thorough research on the breeder.

According to the Dogs Trust, 34% of people who had bought dogs in the last seven years failed to check who they were buying from.

The survey of almost 3,000 dog buyers comes at a time when dog smuggling appears to be rising, fuelled by hugely inflated lockdown prices for ’pandemic puppies’.

The cost of a German shepherd, for example, has tripled to about £2,500. The survey found that 25% of people took their puppies home on the day that they first saw them, and that 21% thought that it was unimportant to check that a dog had been brought up with its parents.

This isn’t a problem that is unique to puppy smugglers, and here on the island we have one or two breeders who ’slip below the radar’.

They are not licensed by the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture as breeders, they use social media to sell their puppies, and they don’t use Kennel Club approved processes such as the ’puppy contract’.

These contracts include details about the puppy’s microchip, its vaccination and worming treatments, and copies of health certificates relating to the puppy’s parents.

breeders

Most reputable breeders also provide a month’s free pet insurance.

If you’re prepared to wait for a dog, and be open-minded about the breed and age of your new canine companion, then adopting is definitely the most ethical and reliable route to dog ownership.

In the last month alone, we have rehomed a dozen dogs without the need to advertise them because we had a suitable home finder questionnaires on file - this is the form that potential adopters complete, letting us know what type of dog they are looking for and what they can offer that dog.

Whilst puppies can provide instant gratification, they can come with a whole host of physical and behavioural issues, particularly when they have been sourced from a ’backstreet breeder’.

Adopting a dog gives you the reassurance of being ’matched’ to a dog by canine experts, the ongoing support of those experts, a month’s free insurance, and a dog who has already been behaviourally assessed, health checked, neutered and chipped.

And to finish on the German shepherd theme, Kylo was formally adopted last week after a short trial period with his new family.

He’s a two-year-old full German shepherd with a beautiful personality and looks to match, and he’s a perfect example of how second-hand animals make first class pets.