Spaying & Neutering

RedTeddy recommends all our families delay spay/neutering until after the puppies are fully grown, which means age two. We do not recommend neutering or spaying for responsible pet owners who can prevent accidental breedings. 

Vaccinations

We vaccinate for  Parvo, Parainfluenza, Adenovirus and Distemper around 8  weeks.  We will discuss future vaccination schedules with families when they come to pick up their puppy.

For puppies who remain with us for our Board and Train program, we will do the second round of vaccines at 11-12 weeks.

Be careful about over-vaccinating.
This may be more important for Toys and Mini Poodles than for larger breeds, since the vaccines are usually one size fits all. the Rabies vaccination is the only vaccine that is required in most states.

However, the Rabies vaccine should not be administered until your puppy is at least three months old. Talk to your veterinarian about the best time to begin the Rabies vaccine cycle. It must be repeated one year after the first vaccine, and after that it is done every three years.

Vaccinations: talk to your vet about limiting vaccinations to only those that are absolutely necessary.

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About Crating

We provide crates for mother dogs and for puppies for as long as they want to use them

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We do not crate dogs during the day even if no one is in the house with them, but they can go into the crates on their own if they want to, and many do.

Crate training is not cruel if done correctly. It can help puppies to feel safe, and can be an excellent way to help train puppies to be house broken.

•  Our mother dogs like to keep their puppies in the crate  when they are sleeping. The puppies rarely venture out until they are about 2-3 weeks old. As they get older, they explore more, returning to the crate when they are scared or tired. 
• At around seven weeks they may choose other comfy dark areas, such as under a couch or behind furniture. Even when they are older, we always put them in their large puppy play pen overnight. This is a safe place where we keep their toys, food, water, beds and an open crate.  
  
• Some of our adult dogs come from other breeders who use crates more than we do; these dogs do tend to like crates more than the dogs who grew up at our house and who were not crated often when young.
  
• After many years of experimenting with crates - having them around but not requiring them, we have found that most dogs view them as a safe place and chose to use them when they want to. They feel especially safe in them at night when there is no human supervision.

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Socializing your puppy.

It was love at first sight for Jayden.

A good test of a well socialized puppy
want to know if a puppy you are interested in is well socialized and
has had good experiences with humans?

Look deep into their eyes

Veterinarians are seeing more dogs with phobias and anxiety, likely due to inadequate early socialization.

RedTeddy's veterinarians recommend that our puppies meet 50 people before leaving our home, and have lots of free play with other friendly dogs of different size and ages. This helps our puppies become confident, happy and healthy adult dogs.

RedTeddy is following New York State guidelines for social distancing,  and not allowing visits as of May 2020.

We were bringing puppies to stores and parks before Covid 19, and we will resume this practice and visits as soon as our Governor, Andrew Cuomo, says it is safe to do so. It will most likely take well into summer to bring puppies into a store to meet and be handled by lots of people. While we limit visits, we continue to safely socialize on site with staff and our well-known friends and associates

Dog Parks

Is the dog park safe for my puppy?

NO.
Dog parks are not safe places to exercise or "socialize" any dog under a year old.

Dog parks do not miraculously help develop confident, friendly dogs by mixing all different sized, ages and temperaments together willy-nilly. And, your puppy could bring home fleas, intestinal parasites, diseases, fears and bad behaviors that can be very difficult to correct.

According to New York Times 2/6/20 article The Dog Park is Bad, Actually by Sassafras Lowrey, dog parks are not good places to bring your puppy, and might not be good for some adult dogs, as well.

Ask your vet to recommend a good doggy daycare or dog group, if you feel that your puppy needs canine friendships, or work with a network of friends that you know take adequate care of their dogs, and know their dogs' temperaments.

Start slowly, and if the dogs get along, you will have found a doggy best friend without the risks of unknown diseases and unpredictable, possibly aggressive, temperaments.

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