Before you buy
What Comes With Your Puppy
What goes home on the day, what to have ready before it arrives, and the first week in a new house with an eight-week-old Shih Tzu.
Every Royal Silk puppy goes home with its health documents, our one-year health guarantee, food, a blanket from the litter, toys, treats, pee pads, a collar and lead, and a puppy care guide. Everything a new family needs for the first days, and us on the end of the phone for the years after.
What goes home with your puppy
- Health documents. The vaccination and deworming record with every date on it, and the vet check.
- Our one-year health guarantee. In writing, in the contract.
- Food. A supply of what your puppy is eating now, so you can change over gradually.
- A blanket from the litter. It smells of mum and the littermates, and it does more for the first two nights than anything you can buy.
- Toys. A toy or two of its own from the litter.
- Treats. The ones it already knows.
- Pee pads. To get you started.
- A collar and lead. Sized for a small puppy.
- A puppy care guide. Feeding, house training, the vaccination schedule and the coat, written down.
- Us. On the end of the phone and email for as long as you have your dog.
You will also have read and signed the contract before the day, and the vaccinations in the health documents are listed below.
The vaccinations, and when each is given
We give our puppies the vaccinations a puppy needs, each one at the age that is right for it, and the record that goes home with your puppy shows every date and what is due next.
- DHPP, the core puppy vaccine. Protects against distemper, hepatitis (adenovirus), parainfluenza and parvovirus. The first dose is given at six to eight weeks, before the puppy leaves us. Boosters follow at ten to twelve and fourteen to sixteen weeks: given by us if the puppy is still here at that age, otherwise by your vet, with the due dates on the record.
- Worming. From two weeks old and every two weeks after, on schedule, with each date on the record.
- Vet check. Every puppy is examined by our vet before it goes home.
- Rabies. Given at twelve to sixteen weeks, so usually by your own vet once the puppy is home. The record tells you when it is due.
- Optional vaccines. Bordetella and leptospirosis depend on where the puppy is going and what it will be doing, so that is a conversation for your vet.
What to have ready
- A small crate, or a pen. A Shih Tzu finishes small, so the puppy size is the adult size and you only buy one.
- A pin brush and a metal comb. Two minutes a day from the first week is what stops the coat matting later, and it is far easier to start the habit at eight weeks than at eight months.
- Food and water bowls. Small and shallow suits a flat face.
- A vet appointment in the first three days. It starts the health guarantee, and it gets the puppy on the books before you ever need somebody urgently.
- Somewhere it cannot reach cables. Everything goes in the mouth from about twelve weeks.
The size it is growing to, which is not very big.
The first night
It will cry. That is a puppy that has never been alone before, not a puppy that is unwell. Crate or pen beside your bed for the first week, the litter blanket inside it, and a hand through the bars when it whimpers. A puppy that can hear you settles in twenty minutes; a puppy shut in a kitchen on its own cries for hours and learns that crying is what nights are for.
The first week
Keep it small. One room, the crate, the garden or the pad, and the people who actually live in the house. Three or four quiet days and the puppy comes out of its shell on its own; the dog you meet in week two is the real one.
House training runs on the clock: out or onto the pad on waking, after every meal, after play, and last thing. Mine have started this before they leave, but a Shih Tzu takes longer than a big dog and it is normal for it to take some weeks. Accidents get cleaned with an enzyme cleaner rather than anything with ammonia in it, which smells like urine to a dog and marks the spot as a toilet.
Food, and changing it
I send enough of what the puppy is eating to get you through a changeover, and the changeover is the point. Swapping a puppy’s food overnight gives you several days of loose stools, which then gets mistaken for illness. Do it across a week: three quarters mine and a quarter yours for two days, then half and half, then the reverse, then all yours. If the stools loosen, hold at the current ratio for two extra days rather than pressing on.
A small-breed puppy food, fed three or four times a day at eight weeks and down to two by six months. Small dogs have small stomachs and run out of fuel quickly, which is why little and often matters more with this breed than with a big one.
The full guide
Everything above, and the months that follow, is written out week by week in Bringing Home Your Shih Tzu Puppy, with more guides on the blog.
The coat, from day one
This is the thing that decides whether living with a Shih Tzu is easy or hard, and it is decided in the first month. Two minutes with a brush every day, down to the skin, touching feet and ears and face while you do it. A puppy that is brushed daily from eight weeks stands for the groomer at six months without a fuss. A puppy that is not becomes a dog that has to be shaved because the mats cannot be brushed out.
The first professional groom happens around sixteen weeks, once the vaccinations are done, and then every six to eight weeks for the rest of its life. The puppies, and how yours travels.
Questions about bringing your puppy home?
Ask us anything. We are here before, during and long after.