When a dog you bred comes back, the first thing that shapes the plan is not the reason it is returning but how old it is: a young puppy is still in its most important learning window, an adolescent is in the age group most often given up, and an adult or senior brings years of habits and history you have not seen.
The most important first
- Young puppies (up to about four months) are still in the main socialization period and may not be fully vaccinated. Every week counts, so plan the return quickly and keep socialization going while protecting the puppy from infection.
- Adolescents (about six months to two years) are often returned for behavior that is normal for the age. Research on teenage dogs found that they became temporarily less responsive to their own caregivers around eight months, and that adolescence is a common time for dogs to be given up.
- Adult dogs bring established habits, a history you need to collect in detail, and sometimes a reason for the return that is about the household rather than the dog.
- Senior dogs need a veterinary check, a calm and accessible home, and a realistic plan. Aging is not a disease, but older dogs often come back with health needs that were never discussed.
- At every age, the dog’s history and a veterinary check come before decisions, and the dog should be kept apart from your own dogs until it has been assessed.
Why age matters first
The first conversation tells you why the buyer wants to give the dog back and how urgent it is. The age of the dog tells you what it needs next. A returned puppy needs a fast, safe transition and continued socialization. An adolescent often needs patience and structure more than a new home. An adult needs to be understood before it can be placed again. A senior needs care and comfort, and sometimes a home where it can stay. The general principles, and the clause that brings dogs back, are in buy-back, returns and rehoming.
Young puppies: the first weeks home went wrong
Early returns are common. In the American Humane Association’s study of newly adopted pets, nearly two-thirds of those no longer in the home after six months had left within the first two months. With a breeder’s puppy, an early return is often about the household — allergies, a landlord, a family that underestimated the work — rather than the puppy.
Two things make young puppies different. First, the socialization window: the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior describes the first three months as the most important period for socialization, and AAHA’s life stage guidelines note a common fear period around eight to ten weeks. A puppy that spends two weeks of that window shut in a crate while adults argue about what to do loses something that is hard to make up later. Second, vaccination: the Merck Veterinary Manual describes parvovirus as most common in puppies from six weeks to six months that are not yet fully vaccinated, and AAHA notes that core vaccines are completed at around 16 weeks.
- Agree on the date quickly. A puppy should not wait in limbo for weeks.
- Ask for its records: vaccinations and worming since it left you, veterinary visits, any illness, and the food and routine it is on now.
- Keep it apart from your adult dogs and other litters until you know its health status and your veterinarian agrees, and keep socializing it safely in the meantime.
- Expect a brief setback in house-training and settling, and treat it like a puppy arriving for the first time.
Adolescents: the age most often given up
Between about six months and two years, many dogs become harder to live with for a while: more energy, more independence, testing boundaries, and for intact dogs the hormonal changes of puberty. Dogs Victoria’s toilet-training guidance warns owners to expect setbacks around puberty, when many bitches have their first season and males start marking. A study led by Lucy Asher and published in Biology Letters in 2020 found that dogs were temporarily less responsive to their own caregivers around eight months of age — but not to strangers — and that dogs with less secure attachments showed this more. The researchers pointed out that adolescence is a vulnerable time, because many dogs are handed in for rehoming at this age, and that the phase is temporary.
That makes adolescence the age where a phone call and good help most often keep a dog in its home. Before agreeing to a return, ask whether the buyer would like help: a veterinary check to rule out pain or illness, a qualified reward-based trainer or behavior professional, and practical changes such as more exercise and mental work, fewer chances to rehearse the problem, and clear routines. When the dog does come back, expect the same adolescent behavior with you. It is not proof that the buyer did everything wrong, and it is not the dog’s fixed personality.
In practice
A buyer calls to return an eight-month-old bitch who has “forgotten everything”, pulls on the leash and ignores recall. The breeder asks about her day and learns she has had two short walks a week since the family’s new baby arrived. They agree on a month with a dog walker, short daily training sessions and a check with the veterinarian. The bitch has her first season in the middle of it. At the end of the month the family decides they still cannot cope, and the breeder takes her back — knowing now that the behavior is mostly age and boredom, which shapes the home she finds for her next.
(Illustrative, composite scenario.)
Adult dogs: habits and history
An adult dog returning after several years has lived a life you have not seen. It may have learned habits you would never have taught, had experiences that changed it, and built a strong bond with the family it is leaving. The reason for an adult return is often about the household — illness, divorce, death, a move — and the dog may be grieving and confused for some time after it arrives.
- Collect the history in detail, in writing: health, food, routine, training, likes and fears, how it is with children, visitors, other dogs and cats, and any bite or incident.
- Ask for veterinary records and a recent check, and book your own.
- Give it time to decompress in a quiet space before you judge its behavior, and introduce it to your own dogs slowly and one at a time.
- Think honestly about whether you are the right place for it now, or whether a carefully chosen new home would serve it better.
Senior dogs: care, comfort and a realistic plan
Older dogs come back for the hardest reasons: an owner’s death or move into care, or health problems the family cannot manage. AAHA’s 2023 senior care guidelines start from the principle that aging is not a disease and that care should be individual to the dog, with quality of life at the center. In practice, a returning senior needs a veterinary check soon after arrival, a calm and accessible place to live — non-slip floors, no stairs, a warm bed — and a plan that is realistic about how much change it can take. Some seniors rehome well into a quiet household; others are better staying with you for the rest of their lives. Either decision is a good one when it is made for the dog.
Plan for every age before it happens
Most breeders can describe what they would do with a returned puppy. Fewer have thought about a two-year-old male who has guarded food for a year, or a ten-year-old bitch whose owner has died. Write down, now, where a returned dog of each age would sleep, how it would be kept apart from your dogs, who would check it, and who could help if you could not take it in yourself. The plan is what makes the promise in your contract real.
Work on it
A few minutes here will teach you more than re-reading the article.
Ask yourself
- If a puppy, an adolescent and a senior I bred all needed to come back this year, could I take each of them in?
- Do my buyers know that adolescence is a phase, and that they can call me before it becomes a crisis?
- Where would a returning dog sleep tonight, and how would I keep it apart from my own dogs?
Find out & check
- Ask your veterinarian what health checks and isolation they would recommend for a returning dog of each age, and write the answers down.
Do one thing
- Add a short note to your puppy pack explaining that adolescence is normal, temporary, and a good time to call you.
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Sources & further reading
- Asher L, England GCW, Sommerville R, Harvey ND (Newcastle University press release) — Teenage dogs? Evidence for adolescent-phase conflict behaviour and an association between attachment to humans and pubertal timing in the domestic dog. Biology Letters (2020). ncl.ac.uk
- American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior — Position Statement on Puppy Socialization. avsab.org
- American Animal Hospital Association (Bartges J et al.) — 2012 AAHA Canine Life Stage Guidelines. J Am Anim Hosp Assoc 48:1–11. aaha.org
- Merck Veterinary Manual — Canine Parvovirus. merckvetmanual.com
- Dogs Victoria (ANKC) — Toilet Training Your Puppy. dogsvictoria.org.au
- American Animal Hospital Association — 2023 AAHA Senior Care Guidelines for Dogs and Cats. aaha.org
- American Humane Association — Keeping Pets (Dogs and Cats) in Homes: A Three-Phase Retention Study, Phase II (2013). americanhumane.org
Where evidence is limited, recommendations rest on established practice and expert judgment, and may be updated as knowledge develops. Every returning dog should be examined by a veterinarian, and dogs with a bite history or serious behavior concerns should be assessed by a qualified behavior professional before decisions are made. This is general information and does not replace advice from your veterinarian.
Next steps
- Read next: When a buyer wants to give a dog back: the first conversation.
- Related: Buy-back, returns and rehoming.
- Related: Rehoming retired breeding dogs.
- Return to the area hub: From first inquiry to settled puppy.