Before taking any action to fulfil your desire for a puppy, sit down and answer all these questions honestly:

Do you have children?
What ages?
Do you have other pets?
How many?
What kinds?
Do you live in an apartment?
Do you own, or rent?
Are pets allowed in your building?
Do you live in a house?
Do you have a fenced-in yard?
Do you have wall to wall carpeting, or area rugs?
How much time will you have to walk the dog?
How much time will you have to train it?
Groom it?
How houseproud are you?
How many visitors do you have to your home daily?
Weekly?
Who are they, how often?
What job do you do?
Does it require you to be out of the house for long periods of time?
To travel?
How many people live with you?
Who else is going to share the responsibility for the new dog’s needs and training?
What size dog do you want?
What breed were you interested in?
What do you know about their characteristics and personality?

These are all factors which you must decide upon before you decide on what type of dog you wish to own. Adopting a pup should not be taken lightly. It should be a well thought out decision which involves the entire family.

Even the best trained dog can get itself into a bit of mischief now and again. Puppies, adolescent and adult dogs can all also act out if they are bored or stressed.

Have you done your research on the breed you want? One of the great things about the internet is you can look up pretty much any breed and learn more about it. For example, a beagle is a great dog, but it is stubborn, and often barks or even bays at the moon, not a good choice if you live in an apartment building.

Go over the list of questions, and if you still think you can handle a dog, so on like to All about Dogs and take the quizzes there to narrow down perhaps 4 or 5 breeds that you might consider adopting. Even if you think you just want a mutt, it is good to know the characteristics of each dog breed it bears the genes of.