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Pound. Definitely. A good healthy mutt.
Google "canine temperament test". There are several like eight-step tests you can do with dogs even as young as a few weeks to see if they're a match for what you want in a dog--energy, food-drive, prey-drive, human-centeredness, etc.
We met our pup Cooper when she was six months old. I wasn't really a dog person at the time, and wanted a dog that was chilled out and wasn't too much to handle. No Jack Russel or Border Collie behavior. Coop is as part-Chow part-several-other-things who is the very DEFINITION of "chilled out".
I don't think I'd go with a breeder for several reasons--the cost, the concern about genetic issues, the risk of supporting a puppy farm... When you get an animal, the fact is you DON'T really know what you're getting, no matter where it's coming from. But the genetic cross-section that you find at the pound is a better field from which to draw, if you follow me.
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