IMHO you are as likely to aquire and infection in your puppy by visiting the vet, plenty of sick animals been in the waiting room !!

I agree completely.  I've only ever seen Vets wipe the table.  A Vets' surgery, with all the sick dogs visiting, is the last place that I want to take an unprotected puppy.  When I take my pups for eye testing, they are kept in solid cardboard cat carriers and I spray with Parvocide as they're taken out to be tested hold them in my arms while they're being tested and I spray the boxes before I put them back in! :)

We can bring infection home on our shoes if we walk through traces of faeces and urine, our clothes will bring in airborne viruses etc.  Most people don't have a parvocide mat at their doors although I have to say that I do until the last pup, apart from the one that I'm keeping, is gone.

I avoid pet shops in the early days but carry my pups in the High Street and take them to visit non-dog places like Estate Agents and Hairdressers, who are always happy to see them. :) 

It's all about risk assessment and balance. :)

I too would take my pups out before 2nd jab and in fact before first jab. As Brainless says it is risk assessment.  I also recommend my puppy owners to do the same and for none of them to vaccinate before 10 weeks old.  Everyone has their own way of doing things and I take advice from both a conventional vet and a homeopathic vet, together with advice from breeders of over 20 years experience.

Wiltshireone

Advice given by vets is a carefully balanced cocktail of science and fear of litigation.

No vet will tell you it is safe to take an unvaccinated puppy to a public place yet they are well enough versed in epidemiology to know that puppies face considerable risks by visiting their surgery and by coming into contact with their owner's other dogs ( some who mix with other dogs in risky situations - shows, dog training etc).
The very short time you have to wait until the second vac will have little or no effect on your puppy's housetraining and will pass very quickly.
As others have said, this is a totally personal decision. Although, for what it's worth, I take my puppies out to a public place before their 2nd jab and have done for 30 years.

Not all diseases are airborne they are also transmitted by body fluids.  Personally, if I was going to risk putting him down outside it would not be on the grass where the moisture will be keeping these things active and where many dogs would choose to toilet but would choose some dry looking hard surface away from uprights that male dogs may have used as I think the risk will be less there.

Most people take them out a week after although many vets say 2 weeks, but more are also stating a week later.  In reality it is whatever you feel is worth the risk.  I wouldn't do it before a week though,

Wltshireone .. I have GSP's

To help stop pups suckling from mum I use the two t-shirt trick .. one over front end, one over rear end and then pin toghter with nappy pins . I use this to good effect for last litter when my poor girl developed toxic mastitis and needed radical surgical resection of mammary tissue. She was more settled and would rest if she could mother her babies but obviously I couldn't let then get to her breast so the t-shirt trick worked very weell. Worth a try perhaps ?? 

K

thanks, i was going to buy her a babygrow and do the poppers up her back!!
I seem to have cracked it with a tiny dot of yellow mustard on each nipple - tiny, not enough to upset tummies. Son doesnt like the smell and hasnt even tried to eat it. He ate his dry food with gusto today and mummy is definately shrinking.

Jack and Rory's mummy loved them so much that at 6 months she would still roll over for them.  Bless.  She's hated them since they turned into adults :-)