Why they shouldn't go home at 6 wks

Whiskey just now, yesterday, started playing with them. Which means that they haven't had complex interactions with adults until around the 6 wk mark, AT ALL. At just 6wks, they haven't been taught anything about adult dogs, and they have yet to be disciplined by and adult for anything. Nobody has snarked them or growled at them. They have no idea what rules are.

Also - they haven't started playing hard enough to hurt each other yet. So that means that they haven't learned bite inhibition yet. Which is why those 6-8 week old pups are bitey little nasties in class that don't respond to efforts to calm the biting. I'm so fed up with that. I understand - people think their new little Foofie won't bond to them if they get them too late (not a shared experience with people who adopt adult rescue dogs). Breeders don't want to have to pay to feed and give shots for an extra couple of weeks, deal with keeping them clean and training them.

New owners have problems with the pups - biting, not good with strange dogs, you name it. Isn't it worth it to keep the pups a bit longer at home so that they stay with their new people for the rest of their lives trouble free? I sometimes wonder if those of us that teach puppy classes are not somehow supporting this too early placement habit. We don't need puppy classes if the breeders do their jobs correctly. People could just enjoy their already crate trained, nearly housetrained, leash trained puppy that plays politely and comes when called. They could train the rest from a book. Really. No need for puppy play groups, no need for all this problem solving early on in class.