What kind of dog do I want?
There are a lot of resources available to help you decide what type of dog will fit well in your life. It really is a good idea to do your research before deciding what kind of dog to get, however, and here is the sticky point, it is far more important to do your research on what kind of a person you are yourself.
A friend of mine once related the idea with this story:
"A dog once came up and started snarling and growling at me. The owner said something along the lines of 'Oh, he doesn't mean it.' All I could think was, 'The heck with you, the dog doesn't mean it, YOU mean it!'"
It's a good point. Dogs are incredibly social creatures. They can pick up on cues you are not even aware of giving, and will behave accordingly. If you get a puppy, it will grow up to behave according to how you behave. There is a lot of variation on that 'according to' though. If you are a generally fearful person, one dog might also become fearful in response, another might become placating, and another overly protective and aggressive. Some of this may well depend on the dogs breeding, and some on just the individual dog. What we tend to loose sight of though is the root problem – the fearful person. Better to fix that before getting a dog than to fix the behavior problems that may crop up later because of it.
That can be hard. The good news is that dogs are incredibly resilient beings on the whole. You don't have to be perfect to raise a great dog. You can make a lot of mistakes. You can teach your dog how to fit in with your own quirks and foibles. You can even work through some of your own problems together. As long as you behave with love towards your dog, put some effort into learning about him, and put some effort into behaving consistently yourself, the dog will probably turn out just fine.
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