Buy from a breeder or rescue

With my rescue head on I would advise any one with a family to consider a rescue dog as well as puppy from a reputable breeder.

If you buy a pedigree puppy you can research the breed, you can pretty much say that you know how big the puppy will grow, and to fair extent, what it's temperament will be, for example the breed are generally known to be a good family dog that loves kids. The problem with that is it doesn't take in to account that all pedigree dogs are individuals despite humans trying to breed them to a standard they still have their own personality, I do with depressing regularity get phone calls from upset owners asking me to re-home their much loved puppy/young dog, often the reason is because the dog has bitten the child, after assessing the dog and further investigation it usually transpires that the child has accidentally bitten the child during rough play, usually the parent is not present and we only have the child's word on what really happened.

If you buy a cross breed, which unfortunately are becoming more fashionable now on the back of the BBC documentary on pedigrees, scan the ads in the newspapers and you'll see all sorts of wonderful crosses with exotic names designed to part the unsuspecting with their hard earned cash, with those you have less chance of being sure of how the dog will develop, they may have traits from one or both parents or as dogs revert back to type, with out human intervention you may have traits that have purposely been bred out in the past starting to reappear, anecdotal chats with colleagues seems to point to cross breeds being more prone to scavenging, something you wouldn't want to happen around young children, although to be fair, pedigree dogs will nick the children's sandwich if they think they can get away with it.

By this stage one or both parents are adamant that the dog goes or it gets a one way trip to the vets, the dog then goes in to foster and is often further assessed and judged to be safe around children who know the rules when playing with dogs, unfortunately then because of a full disclosure policy the dog has gained the stigma of being a biter so can only be re-homed with adults, the reality is in it's short life it has loved being with children but through no fault of it's own it won't be allowed to play around them again.

Which brings me to getting a family dog from a rescue, the majority of the dogs that I re-home are re-homed for financial reasons, some ones lost their job, their partner has walked out, their circumstances have changed so the dog is being left all day on it's own, they're due to be repossessed, they always call two days before repossession so it's a mad scramble trying to find a place for the dog, or they're moving in to another house and they can't for what ever reason take the dog, again they call at the last minute, in those cases you get a good history of the dog, it lives with children, cats, loves people, horses and does the washing up when it's asked, or it doesn't like kids won't do it's fair share in the house or goes clubbing every night etc.

At the end of the day 'you pays your money and takes your chance', you can stack the odds in your favour by asking questions, do your research, meeting as many different breeds as you can, visit breeders, the good ones will be happy to talk all day, the bad ones will just try to sell you a dog, visit and call as many rescues as you can and grill them just as they'll want to grill you, and if you have the time ask if you can help out a rescue for the morning, they appreciate some one taking the dogs for a walk once in awhile, that way you'll be meeting lots of dogs and doing your own assessment.