A Red Toy Poodle Story

Recently there was a video circulating online, it contained a short clip of a guy confronting 2 maids, who were supposed to be walking their employer’s dog. The intentions of the guy were clear - he was concerned that these dogs were not exercised as they should, instead they were just sitting and chatting throughout. He did receive a lot of negative feedback and I could also see why. As a dog owner myself who also had a share of experiences with maids in the past, I would like to share some tips and opinions on this matter. I’m not going to go into details on who’s right and wrong, but towards the welfare of dogs and if maids are suitable. Please note that like many of the articles in Amber Toy Poodle blog, this post shares my personal opinion on this matter, so if anyone can’t accept straightforward views then it is best not to read on. It is not uncommon for employers in Singapore to have maids taking care of their household dogs, this includes cleaning up their me...

Looking at this photo below, it may seem like nothing more than an owner walking her dog, but what lies beneath are potential risks that can actually endanger both the owner and dog’s lives. Owner is standing too close to the edge of the road, together with loose leash that is at least 1 meter long, this creates potential life threatening situation where the untrained dog can easily dash towards the road and get knocked down by incoming vehicles. Same thing for pathway, cyclist and e-scooters has higher chances to injure your dog if you do not practice proper leash handling. At times of panic, most dogs will tend to dash. With a short leash, you get more much control over your dog’s movement and can react much better in times of need. On top of the above points, staring at your mobile phone while crossing the road increases the chances of accidents happening at a much higher rate! This is a very common sight that I encounter regularly and I feel that owners should be more careful...

Even after Bubbles death, I was having dreams about her and found myself not ready to let go of this case, I was sure that there are many more victims like her and truly hoped no more puppies would suffer in the hands of this breeder. We decided to first share the breeder’s contact online, many started asking if we could show the breeder’s face but unfortunately, all deals were done at the void deck. All I could learn from the owner was that this breeder is a young chinese female in her 20-30s. We started with nothing but this My first attempt I WhatsApp the breeder asking if she was still breeding toy poodles. Got blue ticked (read) but no reply whatsoever. When I tried calling the phone was turned off. On the next day after sharing the above screenshot, I got a private message from a lady through our Facebook page, urging me to contact her mobile ASAP. After asking if it was linked to Bubbles, she started sharing her experience that she had also gotten a puppy from...

If you’ve been following our Facebook page, we recently shared a case on a toy poodle named Bubbles, who was euthanized as she contracted distemper. It got to her brain after failing to fight the illness for a couple of weeks.  Click here for the post For general knowledge, distemper is a highly contagious disease that kills 80% of puppies contracted with it, there are no cures available at the moment. Distemper can trick the dog believing that it is well for a couple of days, and then fall sick out of a sudden, this can go on until the dog is finally too weak to fight the illness, then fatality will occur. The way distemper work is so tricky that even vets themselves may get fooled into believing that the dog is recovering from a mild sickness. Most distemper cases come from bad breeding practices and pet farms. I first met Bubbles at a private training session, she was still 2 months then. The owner had just bought her from a home breeder and because she had not finish...

It’s been awhile since I’ve been to Thomson, I knew there were quite a few new pet stores set up there and curious to see for myself the condition and if it has improved ever since my last visit in 2013. On my first stop, I noticed one pet shop that had closed down and taken over by another pet business, they sold puppies so I went in right away. The whole shop was clean and bright with individual space to hold individual puppies, there were with no grills underneath their paws unlike what I’ve seen with the previous store. The condition of the puppies looked okay at first glance, but after awhile I started to notice a number mixed breeds being sold as well as weird labeling, price was also rather high, with some up to 2 times the market rate. Some examples - Toy poodles selling at $2600, Chi hua hua with bloated stomach and a Maltese being labeled as “Compact Maltese”. What does compact means? Maybe they were replacing the overly used Mini? Other than that, I honestly felt th...

Recently I stumbled onto a post with an owner sharing his experience about his dog being humped by a large dog at a grooming centre. After I commented on his post saying that this could cause his dog to be fearful, I was notified by Facebook whenever more comments were made on that thread. In those comments, I saw a few that caught my attention. Out of 10 comments, there were about 3 that were made by individual groomers themselves, whether they were the one handling this owner’s dog I do not know and wouldn’t assume, but they were extremely defensive in my opinion. If you are interested in the content, they were trying to explain that it is impossible to prevent other dogs from getting humped due to the fact that many owners will complain if their dogs were caged before and after grooming. After reading through more and more comments, I started to wonder, why wasn’t any groomers asking about his dog and how it was doing? Was it because these groomer wanted to help clear up misund...

Please note that this post is created to share our personal experience, if you are unable to accept honest and/or straightforward opinions then this blog may not be suitable for you. We always have the habit to bring Amber for yearly check up together with her vaccination. When Amber was 5 years old, the vet at Light of Life, which is also our regular and only trusted vet at that point of time, mentioned that Amber's teeth had accumulated plague but didn't require immediate attention. We decided to wait another year before sending her for dental scaling, which was just recently. The vet at LOL also mentioned that we could use a round object, for example coin to scrap off a bit of plague from her teeth for the time being, honestly i did not agree with this but kept my opinion to myself. By the end of 2017 Amber would be 6, i noticed her breath was getting worst with some tartar build up along her gum line, so the first thing I did was to do a check on different vets...

Click for link E-Collars, not to be confused with Elizabethan collars, are a type of training device that can send shock, vibration or even spray to the wearer. Many like to call them shock collars. image from google Shock collars were originally used the 60s to train hunting dogs, the amount of shock were rather strong, which was necessary in a way as people wanted to minimize the chance of the dogs not responding. For example, getting the dog to return, to stop chasing after the wrong target, to let go of prey and so on. As the years go by, shock collars were being redesigned to cater to regular dog owners that wish to have their pet dogs trained to listen. The size of the collars were reduced to fit smaller breeds, shock levels customizable, vibration and even sprays are being incorporated into shock collars these days. So, is it wrong to use shock collars?  Are they really good as those users like to claim, or actually bad as positive trainers li...