Going home

Three ways to get the puppy

You collect

Most people do, and we would rather you did. Come in the morning, stay an hour or two, meet the dam again, ask the questions you have thought of since your application. It is also the last chance for us to show you things in person that are hard to explain over a phone.

We deliver

Within about four hours’ drive we will bring the puppy to you ourselves, for the cost of the fuel and the day. It has the advantage that we get to see where the dog is going to live, which we like.

Flight nanny

Further afield, we book a courier who carries the puppy in the cabin as their own carry-on and hands it to you at the airport. It costs more than the alternatives and it is worth every dollar. Golden Pup puppies do not travel as cargo, in any weather, for any price.

What comes with the puppy

• Registration paperwork and the limited registration application
• Vaccination and worming record, signed by our vet
• Both parents’ clearance certificates, printed
• The microchip number and the transfer form, already filled in
• The signed health guarantee
• Four weeks of insurance, active from the day you collect
• A bag of the food they are already eating, so you can change it slowly
• A blanket that smells like the litter, which is worth more than all of the above on the first night

The first night

It will be worse than you expect and better than you fear. Put the crate beside your bed rather than in another room — a puppy that has never slept alone is not being manipulative, it is eight weeks old and everyone it has ever met has just vanished. Move the crate away over the following fortnight, a little at a time.

And afterwards

Send us photographs. We are genuinely not being polite: we keep a record of every dog we have bred, and knowing how they turned out at four and at nine is how we decide which pairings to repeat. It is the most useful thing an owner can give us back.