More thoughts on our search- is this desire possible?

[dogsnkiddos]

I posted a bit ago that with Old Bitch at her end days with osteosarcoma, and Boy not giving up on his schutzhund dreams that we were considering a puppy. My initial post focused on my thoughts about looking for a breeder to match us to a pup that could integrate well with Beast.

We are taking our time. We are making a list of breeders we want to look more deeply at to narrow. As part of that process we began to make a list of what we think we want (with the idea that a quality breeder will have a great deal of input to our list, especially in terms of educating us- re what we think and what is reality) in order to narrow the list. I wonder though, if what I think we want is even possible.

If the goal (and it is) is for the pup to be a schutzhund partner for our son it obviously needs to be a fairly intense dog. We welcome the prospect of that work (not just for our son, but as a family). Ideally though, I want a dog who is not *always* on (like Beast is-intense). Perhaps it is just my lack of experience...or the nature of living with Beast that has colored my POV....but is the pairing of schutzhund level intensity ever paired with just being, well not "on" at all times? We don't see many such dogs in our rural area (only at competitions we have gone to as spectators) so I am not sure if the key to being an awesome competitor is that infinite intensity. Is it ridiculous to put on my list a schutzhund prospect that can have moments of being a pet level dog?

I want to be realistic as we craft our wish list so it actually is a tool for us to help select several breeders with whom to speak. I don't want it to become the tool that makes our search impossible. We are working on our pup search while concurrently working on a schutzhund training search- so hopefully that might help us answer many questions we don't even know we have. Our regular trainer is a great starting point (and has lots of other sport outlets for the dogs) but admittedly does not have a great wealth of schutzhund knowledge. I hope you all won't mind me continuing to pick your collective brains....