Finding a Puppy Source

Hi –

Question on the whole “ethical breeder” situation. Found a breeder that does full genetic testing of parents, can visit both the parents, and they don’t do litters until they have enough people on their waitlist.

However, they allow puppies to go home between 6-12 weeks, which is “dependent on the puppy”.

I know that 20 years ago 6 weeks was normal, however now that is flagged as the sign of an unethical breeder very strongly, particularly on Reddit.

All of the previous dogs I got at 6 weeks (those being 20+ years ago) were definitely easier and more wel behaved than any 8-12 week pup I’ve gotten since this was a “known issue”. This led me to trying to do research on it…

However, when digging into a variety of studies I’ve been able to find, now I’m even more confused. Most of the published research I’ve been able to find (scientific journals, not articles) haven’t really shown this. There is one that showed 8 weeks had a statistically significant improvement in one of the six behavioral criteria they assessed, but it was still very minimal. That study, as well as multiple others, essentially said that 12 weeks is the important cutoff and there was little to no difference between 6 and 11.

So now my question. Can someone please link me to actual materials that show the results demonstrating the need for 8 weeks? Because otherwise this breeder meets all my criteria.