Hi all

One of my online friends has just got an 8 weeks old GR bless her :)
trouble is i feel like im constantly on her back with "advice" :rolleyes:

heres the story so far ....

She told me about her getting a puppy last week and this is how ...
She writes and says "im getting a Lab pup soon ...it took me a while to persuade my parents but they finaly agreed ...so we phoned around the adds in the paper and found a breeder with her pups just about 8 weeks old and she is having an open day on saturday to go see them ........... im working saturday but my boss has given me time to go see them and i hope they have some left as the lady told me she has had a lot of enquiry's"
then she told me
"Im getting so excited about getting a puppy ..not sure of a name yet or what sex ...ohh i am going to be pushed for time ..i will have to go straight back to work when i have brought puppy home" then the next was "ohh my dad said he thought we were gonna get another GR and i thought Labs were GR but different names"

Mean while i told her that i was concerned about the way she was going about it ..i asked her if she had asked the breeder about hipscoring and everything else and gave her a story of a relative who has a GR with bad hips and how much it has cost them in vet bills ect ect "ohh thats ok cause we are getting puppy insured so if tht happens we are covered" erm no your not friend ...insurance dont cover pre existing conditions like that and besides you ought to be a little more concerned about picking a healthy puppy
ohh boy i cant believe it was happening

anyway after much talking and persuading i got her to ring the breeder to ask
1 if she could go b4 sat to see the pupps and take her time to choose and then she could pay then and pick up sunday when she is off work.
2 ask about hip testing ect ect

and she did and to my surprize the parents had not been hip tested ect ect :rolleyes: so she decided against those pupps ...but it took her less than a day to find a new litter and she went on Sat and brought it home @ 8 weeks she rekons it has had its jabs and all its tests ..hummm ok and when she brought it home she left it with her parents and went back to work .... then that night they left puppy downstairs ALONE until it howled and then they took in turns sleeping on the couch next to it ... poor puppy must be sooo confused.
Today i got an update telling me that she sleeps under the kitchen table all evening after coming home from the stables where he has worn himself out playing amoungst the horses!!!!!!!
so i told her that she shouldnt bee doing that or she will end up with a sick puppy :(

my question is the following .... i have been told by 2 different vets each time we have had our dogs jabs done that the first injection can be done @ 8 weeks and not b4 and that the second is 10 days later and then you should leave 2 weeks b4 taking them out as they can still get infected b4 that ....is this true???? i have followed these instuctions to the letter each time ...and a friend of mine actually had her pup get parvo on the second week after the second jab and the pup died so i thought that was proof enough for me to stick to the instructions.

I am realy concerned about they way she is handling things and i am running out of ways to broach the subject to give advise so her puppy dont get sick or behavyour probs

anyone got any ideas?

thanks x x x x x x

It is a tricky one isnt it -
obviously you want to advise your friend ( and it does seem from your post that she has not done enough research before getting pup ) :(
but you dont want to push her away by her thinking that you are interfering and trying to take over .
Pup is 5 months old and we had his jabs at 8 weeks as you say and then we were advised the 2nd jabs should be between 2-4 weeks later - no earlier and no later and to wait at least 10 days before taking him out .I would never take a chance with a pup and as thye are into everything it is too easy for them to pick things up .
I am a little concerned by your mention of her getting pup and then going straight back to work . Eevryone I know has taken time off to welcome pup into the home , get him used to his new surroundings ( and new people) and then if they return to work there is usually some kind of "cover" to be there for pup .
Pup should also not be having extensive excercise with the horses - he is much too young and could sustain an injury from the horses .
Could you not approach your friends parents and try to offer advice that way ? May be if they listen to your advice they could filter it down to her without it sounding like its coming from you if you know what i mean . Maybe she would listen more to her parents advice rather than that of a friend ?
Hope it works itself out for pups sake
and what a nice friend you are to be so concerned :)
Lel

Unfortunatly i dont know her parents :(
And also unfortunatly her parents are the ones telling her to do all this and its like a parent -daughter relationship where everything they say is law ! ..lol ( i know how hard that barrier is to step inside when my partner has the same relationship with his holyer than thou parents..hehe)
As for taking the puppy to the stables ...geeze I am too concerned about it probably ..i just keep getting visions of squealing puppy when horse makes a wrong step :( but she is not concerned in the slightest and says the puppy knows not to get too close ...humm ok he is 8 weeks and youve had him for what 3 days and he knows ??? ummm OK!
And i totaly agree with the taking time off work to get to know your puppy thing ..... it helps so much and also enables you to get a good start with toilet training ...someone else who i talk to online has a problem with a dog she has ..its 5 months old and is no where near toilet trained ..... she had him since he was 5 weeks as he was abandond ..... i told her the best time to train is when you are off wrok to watch his every move and then correct his accidents ...but she wont take time off work to do that ...boy ohh boy is she gonna be having problems .... i imajine she will have to replace all her carpets yearly ...surely even 2 weeks unpaid holiday is a saving in the end ?
one more thing i will ask ... my friend actually lives in the states so is it the same thing about jabs over there? i imajine so ...and dont they have rabies shot there too?

anyway thanks for responding x x x x x

Ok - I think you have to accept that there is only so much that you can do.

1. Jabs: The first can be given from 6 weeks - so she actually might be telling the truth/found a half decent breeder
2. Focus your efforts on stopping the puppy from playing down the yard - advise her on over-exercise etc

Then I would pretty much let them get on with it.... they have left the puppy downstairs the first night, which a lot of people do (I did with mine but he didn't cry), but at least they went down adn kept him company. It also looks like the parents are helping and are in with the pup so it could be worse...!

I would back off a bit, so that she starts to come to you for advice - thats the way to get her to listen :)

HTH
Chloe

i had a friend just like this, i got a border collie puppy and then three months later she phoned me to say she had just got a border collie puppy, thats fine you might think, however i should mention that she was a single teenage mum, living in a small council house with a tiny garden in a built up area with a 8 month old child and another one on the way, oh and she was so broke that we had to take in her cat because she couldn't afford to feed her! needless to say i was a little bit mad. I later found out that she had bought the puppy from the same place that i had and they shared the same father. ( boy did i feel copied!)
But things got worse. Needless to say she had no time to train the pup, he spent the vast majority of his time confined to a 8 by 4 foot garden by himself. if he did something wrong her answer was to smack him! She did get his jabs done, much to my surprise, however before his first jab at 10 weeks, she simply put his lead on ( without ever putting it in him before) and hauled him down the high street with a push chair. needless to say i did have a few words but she said that there was no risk and it fell on deaf ears. I believe that the first injection is done as early as 6 weeks but nearly always at 8 weeks and then you have to wait a further 3 - 4 weeks this is because any antibodies that were given to the pup via the mothers colostrum (milk), will interfere with the effectiveness of the vaccine and so it has to be repeated to make sure that it is fully effective. then you have to wait a week until the pup is able to go out. If the pup goes out earlier then it is at risk. It might be any idea to casually ask what vet the puppy went to and if she recieved a vaccination card. Anyhew, back to my friend, things got worse and the pup seemed to be badly neglected and mistreated, not through being nasty but through ignorance and lack of time so my other friend took it in when she had the second baby and the dog never went back.
Its terribly frustrating to see a gorgeous pup suffer through to ignorance. I would worry about the pup running with the horses, who knows what diseases it could pick up. One blow to the head from a nervous horses hoof could kill, and besides which the pup has no formal training, how does your friend know that it won't run off or get into trouble, stable yards can be dangerous places, forks, tractors, bales of hay and barbed wire fences to name a few. chances are the puppy diesn't even know its name yet so can't even begin to show the basics of a recall. The trouble is that by giving too much advice your friend probably simply say you are jealous and carry on. Perhaps a little present of a dog care manual wouldn't go astray. I'm afraid is really difficult but you may have to back off. However if you find that the puppy is getting in any way mistreated,through ignorance then i would step in.
good luck!