A friend of mine returned last week from a sister isand with a new Bichon Frise puppy.
This evening she told me this poorpup isn't 6 weeks old until tomorrow!
This seems too young, too late now she has been with her since last Friday.

I understood toy breeds should be with there mother for 12 weeks 8 at a minimum.
She bathed her as soon as she got her home as she was so dirty and she said she was carrying fleas although theay must have been few as at the vets there were none to be seen she had cleared them all.

Karen

    Wow, 6 weeks! 

While some toy breeds are better kept for up to 12 weeks, perhaps Bichons can leave earlier.  They are not tiny toys.  But I would not have been happy about the breed leaving mum before 8-10 weeks. 

6 weeks tomorrow, meaning she allowed her to go at just 5......................

That's just sick.:( I've had toys not even eating solids properly until 5 weeks -they are much slower to mature.

If the pup has fleas then chances are it has worms too as they tend to go hand in hand for pups.

Yet another breeder in it just for the money, selling the pups as quickly as possible to avoid having to clear up after them, if only buyers would walk away instead of supporting this type of breeder

Up to 5 weeks puppies are quite easy to care for, will usually happily stay in the puppy pen, and Mum will do a lot of the work, and cleaning up is not so bad.

From about this age puppies want to explore the world, need and demand lots more attention, and are eating loads more, and Mum will be starting to wean them by staying away more, which they will object to loudly. 

So this is a stage someone breeding purely to sell puppies will want rid of them.

Oh dear, poor baby. Your friend will have to make sure she gets lots of good experiences and socialisation so she grows up able to interact with other dogs properly.

Oh dear.......... poor little thing should still be with her mum and siblings learning about play and socialising.

Pups of this age are all about exploring and they use each other to gain confidence the braver will venture the others will follow they need their siblings and the dam to learn and gain confidence, it is very important that this pup is very well socialised, she will obviously bond extremely closely to your friend, she will have to be the dam and siblings rolled into one, she needs to carry her around (prior to full inoculations) introducing her to noises and new things with a nice calm even toned voice, to make sure she will not grow up nervous and afraid of things.

So to start with she needs to be close for company and socialising, as she is too young to be on her own, but once the pup gets to 12 weeks and she is settled and happy she will have to start early in making sure this pup will not suffer from separation anxiety as this too could very easily happen.

I would highly recommend that you get your friend to join CD so that we can help over the coming weeks, months. :-)

Just to add - extremely doubtful under the circumstances that this is the case, but you never know?

If (haha) this litter is KC registered something you can do to save the fate of other bitches and pups is report them to the KC.

If as suspected they will not be, then be a good citizen and yourself or your friend (who you no doubt will fill in as to how unacceptable this is) should contact the tax office and let them know that there is dog breeding going on and a possible investigation needs to happen.

People like this need closing down and fast :-)

o dear :( poor babies...hardy pups we have 1 but no way would i get 1 before 8-10 weeks! and like carrington says get them shut down!!