Sorry to be a buzz kill/part pooper/evil person but posts like this make me cringe. Also excuse me if i am at all blunt, but it is sometimes hard to candy coat things without losing the meaning behind it.

1. If you ever want to buy someone a pet as a present make really REALLY sure they want one and can deal with the time/financial requirements. Generally it is best to allow them to come with you to pick the pet to make sure they bond with him/her. Even if you think you know them better than you know yourself better to be safe than sorry when dealing with a living thing.

2. I know this is a present for your girlfriend, but generally if you are adopting a dog (epsecially a pure breed) there will most likely be a reason why they are up for adoption (skin problem/developed bad habits through bad training/other health problems/"not so cute") so do you really want to give that kind of issue to your girlfriend.

3. Is your girlfriend in a better financial situation than you are? If you can't afford to spend RM2000 on a pup, can she afford to spend the money required to responsibly keep the dog (Food, Heartworm medication, Shampoo, Toys, Grooming trips, Vet trips etc.).

4. Not wishing to pass judgment on your relationship here but sometimes people break up. In the (i'm sure very very small) chance that this happens, what will happen to the dog. If it is a bad break up will she grown to resent the dog and either loose interest in taking care of him/her or give him/her up for adoption again.

5. Its great that you put up info explaining the experience you have with dogs, especially poodles in particular. But occasionally walking and feeding a dog when the owner is busy is a very different thing to having a dog of your own.

Finally, I can't repeat enough how important it is to make sure you are getting a decently bred puppy. It may seem like a lot to spend now but it will save you 10x as much in the future. Not to mention the heartache you save from not having to watch your dog go through countless rounds of antibiotics/medicated shampoos/injections to counteract bad breeding practices leading to skin problems, allergies and in later life more severe issues leading to a shortened life expectancy.

This post has been edited by Divas: Sep 20 2010, 05:06 PM

@yeowa - If you don't mind me asking... why are you switching from Revoltion to heartguard?

Also thanks for your kind words but really not necessary, i find out a lot of info about all areas of pets through my job (and my own pets/research for them at home). Knowledge is made to be shared so i share it .

@huey80 - I kinda disagree with you. Well i agree that people who are set on getting a dog/pet won't listen, but it is still worth saying as perhaps someone else who was considering getting a pet for the wrong reasons/wrong place/whatever will read it and learn something new.

@yeowa - isn't revolution a spot on product not a jab? also if you switch to hearguard keep an eye out for ticks and fleas and get advantix or frontline if you see any.
Also i'll pm you good training tips for biters tomorrow.

@huey80 - I have worried that sometimes my message doesn't get across because of my language. But i don't mind repeating and repeating and taking abuse and repeating. Seeing just 1 person become better informed and make better decisions about their pet makes it worth it.

@mudz - If your dog has already given birth (or even at the age where it is safe for them to do so) you should already have a vet that you trust and can rely on. Did you not have an emergency contact for during whelping? how did you know how many puppies you were expecting?
Too late for all that now i guess.... look on the vet thread will give most of the vets in most areas. If you are around Subang area, i would recommend Healing rooms or St Angels.
I would also strongly recommend reading (at least) THIS site. Obviously skip all the prenatal and whelping stuff, the weekly lists of things to look out for as well as things to be doing is very complete and can guide anyone though raising puppies responsibly.
Good luck with the pups and get mum and pups to a vet asap (should be within 24hours of whelping if you aren't sure of the number of pups you were expecting) to get everything checked out. If you need any more info on raising the pups pm me and i will try to find a guide i wrote a while back for you .

That's quite crazy. I really hope they come to their senses soon and let her back in, or at least let you adopt her (or find someone else who wants).

or just tell her straight out that you are worried about her dog. Tell her that teacup dogs are extremely fragile and that if she doesn't have space in her home any more due to the baby that you will be happy to take care of her.

you should start a new topic with this. It is important info that would be useful to a lot of pet owners . I never knew about it but it does explain why SO many people come to my clearly labeled "Grooming salon" asking if we do vaccinations/check ups/surgeries, always wondered about that.

I don't mean to sound rude but kellvin have you done any research about owning a dog before picking up your puppy?
A lot of the questions you are asking are very very basic things that are repeated about a million times on the internet.

None the less, i have a complete 'puppy guide' floating around my laptop somewhere, i will pm it to you, please read it

That is something you need to train her out of. If she is prone to play with the drinking bottle instead of drink from it, set her up with a bowl instead.

Or watch her and divert the chewing to a chew toy instead and praise her when she drinks. Although some of my dogs drink in strange ways. My Papillon girl often looks like she is chewing the end of the bottle attachment. What she is actually doing is holding it with her mouth and pushing down the stopper ball to let water trickle down her throat instead of having to lick it constantly to get water .

@kellvin - what brand is the shampoo. Also are you sure you washed it all out properly (poodle coats can retain shampoo like crazy. Also what kind of odor do you mean, is it sour/musky can you describe it?.

@Kelvenwai -Genia is very cute but i'm sorry, "teacups" make me shudder. I find it slightly immoral to breed dogs to such a small size that their organs are barely able to support them and they are so prone to disease and illness. If a "teacup" is produced due to being the 'runt' of a normal litter, then of course it is necessary to try and give them as much of a normal life as possible but to purposely create such a fragile life simply for the 'cute' or convenient factor to be frank makes me feel a little sick.
sorry, i am trying very hard not to make this seem like i am attacking you personally. I'm sure you are a very responsible owner who takes great care of their dogs, i put this information up more to ward off inexperienced owners who would buy a "teacup" and not care for it properly (which is bad enough with a normal sized dog, but for something so fragile... eek... i'm thinking of suzannetan's neighbor discussed a couple of pages back and the like).

I wouldn't recommend using a strongly perfumed (or long lasting perfumed) shampoo as it dries out the coat and damages the skin.
but if you use a good shampoo most of the time it shouldn't cause problems.

I agree that all brown specific shampoos smell really bad . I use a perfume after the shower to cover up the smell . The Percell one is REALLY good, works great on boys and girls.

I heard Pet Esthe is really good, but haven't been able to find the supplier for it as yet. Can you give me an idea of the price?
I use Chris Christensen range for pretty much everything as that is what i was taught with in school and i find it to work well for pretty much everything, but it is hard to get hold of and there are plenty of other decent shampoos out there.
As an extra thought... has anyone ever tried the Avoderm shampoo?

Sounds good. Do you dilute it or use it neat? I much prefer shampoos that are dilutable (if that is a real word) as my boy's coat is VERY thick and a watery substance gets down to the skin much more easily... lol. If i use a neat shampoo it takes hours to get all the way through

I have heard decent things about Yu and know of 1 grooming salon that uses it (or at least used to). But i haven't tried it myself... actually come to think of it i'm pretty sure i have some samples lying around the shop somewhere, perhaps i will do a test and get back to you sometime....
I generally follow the principle that if it smells strong and the smell lasts a long time (excluding medicate shampoos that stink anyway), it probably isn't that good for your dog's skin and coat.
If you want a lasting smell and don't like any of the perfume products, you can always try mixing in a strong conditioner to your shampoo (although be warned this will make the coat take much longer to dry... like A LOT longer), or get conditioning treatments done during your professional grooming sessions.

If your puppy is under 2 months, the breeder shouldn't have given him to you yet. A puppy should never go to a new home under 2 months of age. For exceptionally small puppies responsible breeders will sometimes hold them for longer than 2 months to allow them to grow to a safer size before being rehomed (especially if the new owner is not so experienced with dogs).
Deworming is either a pill or liquid form. For small puppies liquid form is usually used as the pill comes (most commonly) in 10kg doses so getting a small enough dose for a 1-2kg pup is difficult.
The breeder should have dewormed your pup every 2 weeks since they were 2 weeks old. If your pup is now 2 months you can do it once a month (most good vets will deworm while doing the vaccination if you haven't deowrmed yourself).

You need to have a supplement paste (nuti-cal, puppy paste, nutri-gel) and give your puppy 1-2 pea sized blobs a day for energy. Very small puppies can faint if they don't get enough energy so this is a great product to use as a precaution, especially if your puppy seems to not have much energy. A very high quality food is also a very good idea to give him the building blocks he needs to grow properly. What was the breeder feeding him?

Most importantly, if your puppy doesn't have the energy to play don't force him. If you want to spend time, sit with him and talk to him or put him on your lap and stroke him gently. With any puppy it is important not to over tire them as they need their energy to grow.

Watch your puppies stool, if there is any signs of diarrhea or if he stops eating for more than 1 meal go to a vet immediately. I would also highly suggest getting the vaccination done asap (as suzanntan already said) don't wait a week, do it now. Puppies should be vaccinated the first time between 4-6weeks old and then every month until they are 3 or 4 months old.

I wouldn't suggest wiping down your pup everyday (especially as he should be staying in your house so won't get dirty enough to need it). You can clean his butt and face daily if you wish, but weekly showers should be enough for now. Very small puppies get cold very quickly which is why bathing can actually be dangerous.

Some other things to think about:
Start brushing him gently so he gets used to it (you need a slicker brush).
Play with him feet and ears so he is used to it (it will help your groomer out loads when it comes to ear cleaning and nail clipping)
Decide where you want him to pee/poo and start enforcing it now.
Decide where he is/isn't allowed to go and start enforcing it.

Don't panic. Both Parvo and Distemper have an incubation period of much less than 2 months so you are safe on that end of things.
Make sure you feed him a really good quality food and give him nutritional supplement (nutri-cal, nutri-gel, puppy paste) until he is 6months old to ensure he gets the best chance to grow right (most bad breeders will use very very crappy food so giving them the best you can to make up for any potential lack of nutrition in early life).

I'm glad that you were lucky, as you have had such a close call and experienced the panic (if thankfully not the heartbreak) of having a puppy from a less than reputable source keep spreading the word about negligent breeders. If your friends are considering getting a dog help them understand what makes a good breeder.
What parasite did the vet find? Are you sure it was antibiotics he prescribed? or was it an anti-fungal/anti-parasitic was it a worm of some kind? Ticks are dangerous, especially for small pups, i'm guessing he doesn't have any now.

What is his sneezing like? Is it like a sneeze when we get dust in our nose, a cough like if we have a cold or a strange 'honking' sound coming from the throat. Did you let the vet know about it? It could possibly be a mild kennel cough which will go away on its own as long as you use a nutritional supplement and keep him warm and dry as much as possible.

Let your girlfriend know that Teddy should be fine. Anything he could have possibly picked up from the breeder's place would have shown itself by now. Observe him (which you should do from a dog from anywhere) for signs of diarrhea, lethargy or otherwise not acting himself and consult a vet if you are worried. If you have a vet that you trust and always go to you can call them up anytime you are worried and they will be able to tell you if you need to pay them a visit or if it is nothing to worry about .

As a side note. If you don't mind spending the money, it is a good idea to get a full check up for your dog once a year.

Did they say 'in six months' or 'when he is 6months'.
It is quite normal for the certs to arrive when the dog is 6 months old as it takes them a few months to process it.

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Added on October 21, 2010, 4:29 pmAlso as a side note. From my calculations you bought your dog at 7weeks old which is a bit young really. Puppies should stay with their mother and litter until at least 8 weeks to learn some pretty important stuff.

This post has been edited by Divas: Oct 21 2010, 04:29 PM

Urm.... shaving a Poodle's coat can make it more harsh and wiry (as shaving does for any dog). I would never suggest shaving down a Poodle (or really any other dog for that matter) as it can in some cases cause them to get a flu from a combination of being cold and also the stress related to an owner suddenly making a huge fuss of them (as well as projecting a lot of pitiful/sorry energy).

If you plan to keep your Poodle's coat short, most groomers will use a clipper to maintain it (however if you really want to treat the coat right, find a groomer who you can ask to do full scissoring, they will charge you more for this though). But they will usually not use such a short blade which won't damage the coat as much as the 'shave down' blade (shave down is a blade 10, but blades range from 40 to 4 plus a range of attach combs for even longer clips).

If you are managing to keep the tangles out of your dog's coat I really wouldn't recommend a shave down as it will leave your dog looking ugly for no reason. Any groomer who tells you that shaving the coat is beneficial for anything other than convenience is somehow misinformed i'm afraid.

Small correction if you don't mind. SOME groomers might always advise to shave. I can tell you 100% that i would never ever give this advice to my customers and actively discourage shaving unless the tangles are too take up by hand.
There are good groomers out there who know what they are talking about, you just have to look for the signs and be prepared to pay a reasonable price for the work we do.

Lol its ok. I think i was just being a little pedantic.Write how you are comfortable, most of the time i will understand . Slowly learning to understand Malaysian English.

As for learning to groom, if it just for at home i would suggest watching stuff online. There are loads on youtube etc showing you how to do everything. I am just looking through some to find the good ones and will post up the links .

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Added on October 23, 2010, 1:01 pmOk found a great place to start.

E-HOW GROOMING

This link should take you right to the list of all the video's by Anne-Marie Ford. Her instructions are easy to follow (although she didn't choose the best model, her Portuguese Water dog is black making it hard to see some things) and she covers the correct methods as well as the reasons for doing the grooming for each area. If you are interested in home grooming this would be an ideal starting place.

This post has been edited by Divas: Oct 23 2010, 01:01 PM

I'm sure Pet's Icon gives a good course. However from what i know the main teacher studied in House of Groomers so why study from the student when you can go direct to the teacher .

Because of the part time? HOG also has. I think most of the grooming schools offer a part time course, usually in the evenings from what i know.

I would go into all the ones you are interested in, talk to them to see how well you get on with the teachers and stuff.