Good thread.... I guess this would help many who are new dog owners....

Type of Breed
- Apartment dogs got to be medium to small size. Big dogs are hard to care for they are big, so space may be a problem. Big dogs are prone to joint disorders so if they are kept in an apartment with no daily excercise, they can lose the ability to walk properly and joint problems are very painful. Small dogs, people can always go for toy poodles, silky terrier, chihuahua, shih tzu, maltese, cavalier king charles spaniel, pugs... all dogs will surely bark so one must train them to be quiet in an apartment. If one has landed property, any dog would be suitable for the home but the type of dog depends on the person's lifestyle... mongrels are the best if someone has a busy lifestyle since they do not need much grooming and are not too big.

Brand of Food
- The best is of course Holistic. If you were to get a dog that is prone to skin problems, one should give California Natural a try. It really does improve the skin and fur. Other holistic types of dogfood are Canidae, NutriEdge, EaglePack Holistic, Innova Holistic... there are more brands but I will just mention those for now. If you can't locate holistic, go for super premium like Eukanuba, Nutro, Blackwood, ProFormance....
- How to locate a good brand of dogfood? Look at the ingredients, the first 5 listed food ingredients used should not be corn or wheat, should not be Meal, should not be Chicken Digest or by-products.... Choose one that says Chicken or Lamb.... not meal but the meat. Dogs can be allergic to beef and beef can attract more ticks.
- If one wants to feed a homecooked diet, you must take into consideration of the amount of meat, rice and vegie. Also, homecooked meals may not contrain minerals that dogs need so you must give vitamin supplement tablets and also Omega oils to keep the dog healthy. Dogs on homecooked meals are also proned to teeth decay so the owner has to clean the teeth after everymeal.

Times to be fed
- A 2 month old puppy would need 3 small meals a day.... the best is soaked puppy food. Soak the food with a bit of water is good enough. When it is about 5 to 6 months old, the feed can be lessen to 2 meals a day but the portion should increase since they have grown. Adult dogs should be fed twice a day also but if one can't feed twice a day, make sure the once a day meal is sufficient for them. Well, the best is still twice a day. Amount of food depends on the brand. On the packaging there is a diagram that gives a guide on how much food should be fed to dogs according to weight and size and age.

Puppy cries at night
- A young puppy will normally cry at night during the 1st week. Barks and whimpers and whines.... but you can lessen that. First, place your puppy in it's cage adn crate that it uses to sleep. Take an alarm clock that makes loud ticking noise. Place the clock next to the cage. The ticking noise can calm and sooth a puppy for it sounds like their mother's heartbeat. Then, you can add a soft toy to make it feel secure and get a hotwater bottle and wrap with a cloth to make it feel warm....
- A puppy likes company and they dislike being alone. For me, I let my puppy sleep with me. Just place the cage in your bedroom and it should be fine. If you want the pup to sleep in other place, follow the cage and clock method. The pup will still make noise at night but it should be much less.

Toilet training
- This can be done at an early age. You must be aware that puppies will pee and poo every 4 hours. So the best time is after it wakes up from sleep, after play and after food. Newspaper can be used as a training tool. Get a piece of newspaper with some urine soaked into it and use that as a guide. Everytime you notice the puppy circling and sniffing the floor. Carry it to the newspaper spot and make sure it pees and poos on the newspaper. You must stay and watch. When the puppy has done its business, straight away praise your pup, give lots of hugs and pats and use a happy tone. You can reward with a piece of dried dog food or its favourite toy. If this fails, can always buy doggy training pads, it may work.

Health care
- Pups should be taken to the vet as soon as you get them home. Ask the vet for a full check up. Normally the pup has already been vaccinated at the breeder's place. A pup can start vaccination at 2 months old, along with deworming. Then it will need to get a few more jabs before it can be done yearly. This you can ask the vet for they will give you a medical card with the details of when the next jab should be. Deworming can be done every 6 months. Once the pup is about 7 months old, you can start giving heart worm medication, again ask a vet for advice.
- if you are not breeding your dog, females should be spayed coz their heat(period) can be messy and attract many male dogs to your house. Male dogs may spray their urine everywhere to mark their territory so if they are nuetered, they will not simply urinate everywhere. Cleaner I would say.

Training and commands
- when you 1st bring home the pup, you must train it to anwser to its name. No need to go into other commands first, just make sure the puppy knows its name. Keep calling it during play and everytime you cuddle and pet it.... soon it will get the picture. Then you can move to the command "come". Use a leash to leash up your pup, then call it to come and pull the leash gently to bring the pup to you. Do this with treats and praises. Then once come is mastered, you can move on to more commands...
Keep training twice or 3 times a day. All training sessions should be not longer than 10 minutes coz puppies have short attention spans... do it everyday and in 3 days to a week, a puppy can master a few commands in no time.
The best is to get a guide book on training also.

Good wor hehehe.... yups, good advice I think the best advice would come from a book.... I think I got 3 dog care books with me, read till memorize some stuff already. The vaccination, 3 jabs are done in 1 year.... after that cycle is over, jabs are done annually.

Also, puppies very smart. If they cry and we go to them, soon it will become a bad habit. Sometimes we must be stern and ignore them when they bark too much.

Your friend bought the puppy from where? Normally a good breeder would help you by guiding and giving advice... petshops normally won't give the correct answers...

Anyway, 2 chinese soup spoon? It is better for your friend to weigh the food.... or get those measuring cups from the petshops.... How many times does your friend feed it? A growing puppy should eat as much as it wants for now... limiting food, especially when so little can cause growth problems... maybe slow growth or weak bones.... anyway, your friend should have 1/4 cup of dogfood, divide it to 3 meals... then feed the puppy 3 meals. Young puppies should eat 3 meals a day.

Has your friend brought the puppy for a check up yet? Dewormed? I could be it ate it.... you can always check by smelling the mouth. I know it sounds disgusting but a puppy is like a baby, they dunno what is right and what is wrong so you must keep up with them. Puppies poo more often than adults.... so if it doesn't poo, it could be constipation or if can't find the poo, it could mean it ate it.

Wahhh... so your friend is asking you to research for her but not doing it herself?

2 tablespoons of food is not enough for a puppy if fed twice a day.... if she feeds 3 or 4 times a day then yah, it is ok. As said before, petshops have limited knowledge sometimes.... 2 tablespoons of food works for a chihuahua but not a shih tzu pup lah.... later stunted growth then susah loh.... Last time my shih tzu, I will give him a handful of kibbles.... let him eat till he full, then leftovers I take away.... so how many times your friend feed the pup?

Toilet training is simple.... for now, puppy doesn't know anything yet so of course pee and poo everywhere.... where did the puppy poo? What your friend should do is let the pup finish pee and poo before playing.... just place the puppy in the spot with newspaper, let it smell and sniff the newspaper and when it pees and poos, praise it like crazy and make it know that you are damn happy about it. Doing this a few times will let the puppy learn than whenever it do on newspaper, owner sure happy. Then the newspaper, no need to clean all.... Leave a piece that got some urine so that the smell can attract the pup to pee there. For me, the best place to train is grass.... coz dogs seems to know grass is for peeing hahah.... learns faster too but newspaper is the basic. Just keep on doing this positive training, and the pup will be able to master newspaper training in a week. The Golden Tip, keep repeating the method and praise pup like gila gila happy happy.

Soaking kibbles in water is when the puppy got problem to eat hard food. So if your puppy can eat the kibbles with no problem then no need soak lah.

Finger won't putus. You must not show you are scared of the puppy. If you show you are scared, it will never listen to you and will bully you when it is older. You must be stern. Deworming should not be done often.... actually, once your pup finish all the vaccination and can take heart worm prevention medicine then no need deworming tablet. Heart Worm Prevention tablet is called Heart Guard, it is given monthly. Normally give puppy when they around 4 to 5 months old....

Do not slap your dog. The thing is, in dog body language, if you slap the dog during play, means you want to play more. What you should be doing is when she start to bite or be naughty during play, you say NO and move away. Do not play with her till she calm down. If she calms down, then only play with her. If she likes to bite fingers and toes, then what you can do is a trick. Buy a dog repellent herbal spray. It taste bitter. You spray on your hands and toes. Let her bite and taste it. Soon she will think that hands and feet are bad taste.

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Added on March 19, 2007, 4:24 pmThere is a special syringe for feeding tablets. First, fill the syringe with water. At the mouth of the syringe got a clip to put the tablet. Then place the syringe in the dog's mouth and squirt the water. The water will wash the tablet down the throat. You can find this syringe at Pet Safari payment counter, or Ptaling street pet shop.

This post has been edited by crazymouse_yyh: Mar 19 2007, 04:24 PM

My answer in blue.

Merged... questions and answers are here.

HAhah... yah... well, give it time for awhile... and see who is free to summarize everything heheheh....

If your pup is from a bad breeder or petshop, yes, you will have to test him for heart worm. Certain animal clinics got do heart test, takes about 2 days to get the results.

HeartGuard is a heart worm prevention drug. It needs to be eaten every month. Once a month. The active ingredients that are in HeartGuard not only kills heart worms but also tape worms and round worms and hook worms as well so you do not need to deworm your dog often. Yes, the normal deworming pill can be excluded. Dogs will get worms if they eat rubbish, old dogfood, dirty rotten food and unfresh meat.

Just do a blood test lah if you wanna make sure. No harm to it. Ask a vet for advice.

For the HeartGuard, best is to start the puppy after all vaccination. Normally I let my dogs start HeartGuard at 5 months old to be safe.

Draw blood till become ill? Maybe the vet reused needles...

Anyway, I sent my dog to Brickfield's vet for blood test before. My friend brought a german shepherd there too and had a heart worm test done before... but I forgot the price LOL....

A dog will eat food when hungry. Any dogfood will do as long can fill the tummy. If you change dogfood, there is a chance diarrhea can continue since her digestive system is now unstable, introducing new foods may make her sick.

You still never say what brand you feed.

Also, feeding human food won't help. You will just spoil her.

Diarrhea is serious coz it can cause the body to dehydrate and become sick. If it doesn't drink water and take some glucose or minerals into the body, it can be dangerous especially puppies. If human got diarrhea and never get treated, severe dehydration will come about. This is why when we go to doctors, they give us rehydration salt for diarrhea cases.

Some dogs eat slow and some eat fast.... My dog eats 1 kibble each bite and chew before swallow but my bigger dogs can finish their bowl in minutes....

Well terrorist, at least your pup eat lah but once your pup eat royal canin, later other brands it won't eat.... what was the previous brand you use?

Babymiki, California Natural is so pure that memang not tasty.... hahaha.... but if no choice sure eat wan. My dog was like that. When 1st intro California, she eat only a bit once a day. Then we change to NutriEdge to get her to fatten up and gain appetite... then intro California back then now she eats California Natural twice a day till finish. I guess it is a habit. If we spoil our dogs with choice and treats, they sure won't eat their own food.

My dogs don't eat those dog treats but natural stuff like apples, pears, carrots and egg and cooked liver.



This post has been edited by crazymouse_yyh: Mar 28 2007, 03:51 PM

Naturally puppies like to play. Since he got no one to rough play with him, he bored loh so go chew things. It is natural for puppies to chew coz it excercises his jaw bone and muscles.

But if he chews furniture and shoes .... bad lah.

If you ignore and let him do those things, it will become a bad habit in the long run.

Whenever you notice your pup is chewing something that is not a toy, quickly take your pup away from that area. Say no everytime you push him away. Then bring him far away and give him his chew toys. If he starts to play and chew his toys, praise him and play with him.

Dogs got alot of sign language.... my dad bought a book for me on dog body language, very interesting to read.

Anyway, you must be stern. Cry then let it cry loh. ahaha... it must learn that you are the boss. When it chews or does anything wrong. Say "NO" loudly, then take the pup away from the fun thing he is doing.

You got from a petshop?

Anyway, the cage, if rusty at the bottom then still can use. Just respray the bottom but if rusty all over, you must not use it coz puppies are always curious and will chew the sides of the cage when bored. The rust can cause health problems if ingested too much.

1 month old, that is really really young!!!! Puppies should never be sold at 1 month old lah. The best age is 8 weeks old, means 2 months. 1 month is very risky. Please take to the vet for a health check.

You can train it to know its name first. The first few things you can train a young puppy is know its name, "come" and "heel"... then later move on to "sit", "stay" and whatever you think is necessary.

Yah, 1 month old is really too young.... about the smell.... can't really explain to you bout my experience but last time fostered a few puppies, their breath got a slight sourish smell.... turned out to be worms in the tummy... after deworming, no smell... but it really depends coz those pups were stray pups from the road.

A 1 month old puppy will sleep more. I still think what the shop did was wrong, sell to you a 1 month old pup. It is too young even for vaccination. Normally good breeders separate at 8 weeks old.... petshops normally sell pups at the minimum of 6 weeks old, never younger than that.

Balloon stomach? That is the signs of worms ler..... means the stomach got worms.... or it could be she ate a lot but normally when the tummy is bloated, it means worms.

It is normal for such a young puppy to pee and poo every 2 to 3 hours. They got no bladder control now, this is why breeders do not sell pups that young. I think the petshop just wanna have fast sales....

Anyway, did you bring to a vet clinic for check up? Coz with a bloated stomach, need to do health check.

It is better for you to ask a vet what is the right age.... sometimes petshops just say stuff coz to them it is business... that is their vaccination routine.... from what I know, the best age is 8 weeks old.... so now you must not let your puppy come into contact with other dogs. There is a risk for her to get infected since 4 weeks old, immune system is weak.

How about the bloated tummy? Not worms?

Could be change of new environment.. also new food. Have you been feeding the same food or you give different food? Which vet? The one Chrisoys recommended?

Puppies pee every 3 to 4 hours.... they do not have great bladded control. The puppy cannot tahan that long and it is cruel to cage a 2 month old pup that long.

Get your pup when you are having long year end holidays. During that time you can easily train it to use the newspaper or cage or grass as peeing spot.... then when you go for classes, the pup will know what to do. I did that, I'm also a student but I do not cage my dog when she was a pup coz I trained her during my holidays.....

Watery means lau sai.... diarrhea..... you know what I do? I will grab some of that watery poo in a plastic bag and show it to the vet.... Hahaha... I know, sounds disgusting but that is what I do when my dog suddenly got some weird stuff in the poo or is too watery....