100-Point Puppy Buyer Scoring Rubric

Every breeder has had the experience of liking a buyer in conversation, accepting them, and regretting it 6 months later. The conversation hides the patterns. The rubric reveals them.

The Buyer Screening Rubric is the internal scoring tool you use after every Buyer Application is returned and before any deposit conversation. It scores six areas (experience, environment, vet commitment, intent alignment, communication, references) on a 100-point scale, plus an independent red flag check that subtracts from the total. The output is a number, a documented reason, and a decision recommendation.

What this document does:

It runs every applicant through the same scored evaluation, so decisions across your waitlist are comparable and not based on whoever you happened to talk to most recently. The scoring tiers are written as patterns. What 18 points looks like versus what 8 points looks like. That makes the rubric usable without subjective interpretation. The red flag check catches the issues that score-blind decisions miss. Refusing references, pushing back on standard terms, contradictory information, aggressive communication.

What is included:

• 7 scoring sections totaling 100 points. Experience and breed knowledge (20), home environment (20), vet commitment (15), intent alignment (15), communication quality (15), references and external signals (10), red flag check (5).
• A red flag deduction system that subtracts 5 points per flag from the total, separate from the scored sections.
• Decision guidance bands. 80 plus advance, 70 to 79 advance with reservations, 60 to 69 borderline, 40 to 59 likely decline, below 40 decline.
• An explicit "any red flag means pause" rule that prevents scored decisions from overriding qualitative concerns.
• A buyer-summary section that captures the decision, the date scored, and the decision-maker, so the rubric becomes a permanent decision record.
• Written scoring tiers for each section, so two people scoring the same applicant land within a few points of each other.

Format and how it works:

Includes a Word version for digital editing and a PDF version for printing. Use after the Buyer Application is returned. Score in one sitting with the application in front of you. Save the scored rubric with the application in the buyer's file as your decision record. Most breeders score within 10 minutes of completing the Application review.

Why this version is different:

Most breeders evaluate buyers by gut. The gut is fine for the obvious cases (clearly a yes, clearly a no), but it fails on the middle 60 percent of applicants where small things accumulate into a pattern. The rubric forces you to score the small things explicitly, which surfaces patterns the conversation hides. It's also a defensible decision record if a declined buyer ever escalates. "I declined you because I gave you a 53 on this written rubric" lands very differently than "I declined you because I had a bad feeling."

Who this is for:

For breeders who place into multiple homes per year and want a consistent, defensible screening process. Especially useful for breeders who have been burned by a placement that "felt right in the conversation" and want a check on their own bias. Also useful for breeders working with a co-breeder or mentor who need a shared scoring framework, so screening decisions aren't single-person calls.

Get the Screening Rubric on its own, or pair it with the rest of the Waitlist Kit at the kit price.