Advice on costs of a new Puppy

[HiTempguy1]

Bringing a thread back from the dead...

My older sister informed my parents (as she is moving back in for 4 months at the end of April) that she had been gifted a shit-zu (8 weeks old) as the girl who got it had a change of plans and is moving far away. I gotta admit its damn cute, and she says he is very quiet, sorta shy.

Apparently the dog is from a known breeder, the parents were supposedly pure bred but the papers to get it documented are expensive so it wasn't done? Sounds fishy to me. Nonetheless, it sounds like its up on its shots, my sisters already had it to the vet, yadda yadda. Is there anything we should be looking for? This dog will have no expenses spared on it, as I've seen SO MANY dogs that haven't been treated right (bought, paid attention to as a puppy, mistreated for the next 10 years of its life) that we'll be taking good care of it.

Right now my sister is feeding him Iam's puppy dog food. Is there something better that we should look at?

The thread has been great so far, that one link dogbreedinfo.com has SO much info on it. I never knew you didn't let a dog walk in front of you (makes perfect sense though)!

[cancer man]

every dog has a diffrent personality,mine is trained to be in front
but always walks on the right side.
with aggresive dogs maybe training them to walk beside you might be a good thing.
glad you got the dog !!
you got all bark and no bite.

[clem24]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1
This dog will have no expenses spared on it, as I've seen SO MANY dogs that haven't been treated right (bought, paid attention to as a puppy, mistreated for the next 10 years of its life) that we'll be taking good care of it.

Right now my sister is feeding him Iam's puppy dog food. Is there something better that we should look at?

We feed our dogs Innova Evo. Supposedly it contains no grains and is made from human grade food. I do notice a difference when I switched over my sister's dog (he didn't stink as much). He was on Iams.

About the no expenses spared... Well, I think if dogs could talk, they would tell you that they don't need expensive things or lots of toys... They'd rather be walked and given lots of exercise and training/discipline (dogs would prefer to be non-alpha dog/pack leader). Other than that, enjoy the dog.

Congrats to your sister on the adoption.