Crested

Ok, now I'm really mad! I've read articles about allergies and asthma and dogs. (Because I have both asthma and severe allergies) The statements I have heard are just rediculaus! First idiotic statement I have heard is: "An allergic and asthmatic person can have a dog that don't shed at all. They are hypo allergic." Man... How stupid people can get! What about the dander? Even if you don't SEE the dander it's still there! I've heard about breeders that sell Chinese Cresteds, Poodles, Schnauzers etc. as "hypo allergic". The truth is THERE ISN'T A DOG BREED IN THE WORLD THAT IS HYPO ALLERGIC!!!! In dogs (as in every pet and animal) allergens are in urin, poop, saliva AND dander! Offcourse dogs that get a big cloud of dander in the air every time you scratch them behind their ear causes more allergies then a dog that doesn't! And when a dog sheds a little ammount of dead skin cells (dander) gets stuck on the hair and that's visible dander! So when dogs don't shed people think that "Yay! They are hypo allergic!". First of all... If you can get a dog to not pee, not poop, destroy their saliva and get their skin so that no dead skin cells appear, then grait! You have just found a hypo allergic dog! First of all. When I'm buying a dog, the first thing I ask a breeder is: "What's your view on allergies and dogs?" and the second one "Will you sell a puppy to an allergic person?". I've heard some rediculaus things like: "Sure I sell a pup to an allergic! A Crested is hypo allergic. They don't have hair remember?" Geesh, and not having hair means that the dog don't get any dead skin cells?? I'm allergic. I have a Chinese Crested and don't get any reactions. Grait for me! My nephev (don't know how to spell that) starts sneezing every time he comes to visit and he's not allergic to anything else but dogs and cats!! Allergies can vary from person to person and it doesn't matter how severe allergies you have, you might be able to have a dog, but you might not. I have got many e-mails from the day that Ben came to our home to now asking: "I'm allergic. Can I get a Crest?". After a while I might get from the same person: "I got a Crest but got reactions. What do I do to get rid of them?". Again after a while: "I had to give my dog away, because I couldn't be near it.". First of all; none of theese persons who send me e-mails like this even listen to what I know and say. They just think that they know everything and there isn't a reason for them to understand that there aren't any hypo allergic dogs. They KNOW there are. They just need someone to say: "Yeah! Go ahead! ALL dogs are hypo allergic!!!" Now theese "new breeds" that have come up. Schnoodles, cockapoos, labradoodles tjat have been made just for allergics. To the breeders or people who came up with this: "WHAT THE H*** IS MATTER WITH YOU!?!? WE HAVE OVER 300 DOG BREEDS ALLREDY AND NOW YOU WANT TO CREATE MORE!!! YOU CAN [b]NOT[/b] GET A DOG TO STOP POOPING, PEEING, HAVING SALIVA IN THEIR MOUTH OR NEVER GETTING RID OF DEAD SKIN CELLS! IT'S LIKE SAYING "SPEAK" TO A STONE EXPECTING IT TO ANWSER!! GET SOME TRUTH FOR A CHANGE!! AND [b]NEVER[/b] BELIEVE A BREEDER WHO SAYS THAT THEIR BREED IS "HYPO ALLERGIC" BECAUSE THERE ISN'T SUCH A THING!!!!!! THE ONLY HYPO ALLERGIC DOG IS A DOG WHO'S DEAD!! DEAD DOGS DON'T PEE, POOP, HAVE SALIVA IN THEIR MOUTH OR GET DEAD SKIN CELLS OF THEIR SKINN. SO YEAH. GET A DEAD DOG THEN! :evil: Sorry about this, but I'm really fed up with this!

alicat: Right now I'm giving him home made food and he has eaten a LOT of that. Seems like he has tried to starve himself with his old food (Nutro Choise Maintance Mini - Chicken and rice) and now it seems like he's aftaid that that food will disappear if he doesn't eat it at once. Yesterday he ate [b]three times[/b] more then normally. Thanks to the salva Ben got, the itching area has become only half of its original size and it doesn't itch anymore either. And we started with the antibiotics last night so that hasn't started to take any effect yet. Only that he has started to feel more tired, so whenever someone goes on the couch to watch TV he jumps up and starts sleeping in ones lap. And if someone goes to bed to take a nap, he's there and goes under the same blanket next to ones tummy. When he's comfortable, he gives a big sigh and falls asleep. If no-one is watching TV or takeing a nap, he sleeps in front of our fireplace or on the sofa. But he has shown that he doesn't feel so ill as he did before. I'm so happy for that.

Well actually... what Ben will go through is about the same thing that I did a few years ago when my allergies became worse and it's not such a big thing for me. I know what Ben has to go through and because I have done the same, I think that will calm Ben down. I know how angry and sad I was for the first couple of weeks thinking it's my death sentence because I can't eat the same things as I did before, but with time we experimented with diffirent foods and saw what I am allergic to and what I am not. See I'm too allergic for a "Prick test" (they put a tiny hole in your skin and drop one drop of liquid containing things that might be allergy causing. Then you see by the swelling what you are allergic to and how much) so we had to do it this way. So I'm still on my diet but now it's not because I have to, but because I like it. Sure, I can't eat that many things but I'm still doing experiments with diffirent things and I'm still finding more about myself. And with Ben it's the same thing. He will just have his food for a while and no treats (that is to see if he has any allergies for this food. If we would give him treats and bones and such, he might be allergic to them instead of the food... So we would take the food away, but have the allery causing bones and treats to give him still). After 4-6 weeks we can start testing diffirent things one by one to find out what he is allergic to and what he isn't. It's a pretty simple thing actually... [quote]I would go to an allergy specialist to find out exactly what he is allergic to.[/quote] Well... There aren't that many allergy specialists here in finland that I know of (for dogs). Actually I haven't even heard that there are any, but probabely there is only a couple in Helsinki and I do not live that close to it... I still feel bad for Ben... :cry:

I found out today that my little poor Ben is allergic... :cry: I have fed him for like 6 months allredy Nutro Choise Maintance Mini and now he has become allergic to it... Poor little guy. The picture on the left shows just how much he likes to have his throat itching. (took it today) At friday he started to scratch his throat like a madman and I put some 2,5% Hydrocortison on it and decided that if it wouldn't get any better I'd go to the vet on monday (today). Well... It started to get better and on sunday it wasn't that red anymore, but he wouldn't eat at all last weekend. And sunday night he started to run around the house and acting really weird. He even tried to tear down my little armchair that I have in my room (I mean REALLY tryeing to tear it down...) scratching and biteing it as hard as he could. Poor little boy... :( So I went to check on him. He was just fine a moment ago and he was eating about 10-15 minutes ago and now his skin on his throat was scratched so that it even started to bleed a couple little drops. So I put again the Hydrocortisone on it and it helped him so that he slept the night a bit easyer. This morning I called the vet and explained the whole situation and she thought it would be best if I would come with Ben to see her this evening. So I did. And within a couple minutes afterwards it was clear that it was allergy. So we talked more about what could be the cause of it and we came to the conclusion that it is Bens food... So Ben got 10 days of antibiotics and then allso salva to ease the itching and redness and to prevent any infections that might come out of that and she allso put some salva on for Ben to sleep easilly tonight. And then she allso recomended some allergy food. I never remember the name of that (yet), but it was something like Hill's Egg and Rice... Something like that... And so she orderd that and I'll get it within 2 weeks... And now Ben can't get any bones to chew, no treats... nothing. Just his food for the next 4-6 weeks. If he doesn't get anything of that, we can try one thing at the time to see what is the cause for Bens allergies. Poor boy will probabely think he has done something wrong when he suddenly will not get any bisquits, dried meat balls, dog chocolate, chease or anything else he's used to get from the time he was a pup... I'm really heart broken for him, but the main thing is to try to make him better... But still... It's not easy to see your dog whineing and scratching himself. :cry: But I have noticed that during this day, the connection and trust between Ben and me has grown. Ben has allways seen me as the "big bad boss" in the family. I have allways been "the bad guy" who does everything that he hates (washing him, cutting his nails, washing his teeth... you get the idea...) while my parents have allways showerd him with treats and acted like he's the little prince in the family who gets everything he wants whenever he wants it... But now he has understood that I want the best for him, but that I don't want him to think that he's "the boss" over me. So now instead of him sleeping in my parents bed, he is sleaping in mine. You can never believe how good that feels. But still I feel sorry for him. I just wish that his allergies will NEVER EVER get any worse as they have a tendency to do... /Crested

Oh, I'm so happy. I might have a summer job for the next summer!! At a breeder's home. She's really nice and I will have a chanse to be with dogs (unfortunately not Chinese Cresteds, but still...), learn from them and get to know more about breeding and puppy birth. All the dogs know me and love me. And I think I could take my dogs there too for as long as I work there. I would be working there for just a couple days a week, but I think it's enough for me, because once a week will be my little girl's obedience course and once a week Ben's agility course (Ben loves jumping over and crawling under things, so I have decided to try agility instead of letting him crawl under the tiny table in the livingroom or jump over books... :lol: ) Well... Got to go now... Merry Christmas... Ben got offcourse x-mas presents too... He got a squeeking dog (wich has become his favourite toy ever. He even sleeps with it as his pillow :-? ), a kind of pulling rope with a dog head that barks when you push it in the middle (wich he doensn't know what to think of :D ) and a mouse to chase (not even interested about that...). Offcourse he got allso a bag of goodies and a couple bones to chew at. And today I taught him one MORE trick (besides the dancing wich he loves. That's basicly that he walks on his hind legs and goes in circles as he wags his tail.. Really cute actually..). I taught him to jump over my arms. So I put my arm infromt of him and he jumps over it or crawls under it... Depending on what I want h

bullygirl29532: Yes I did... I allso mentioned that I was going to go to dogshows with her. :)

I'm a "dreamer" girl with my head up in the clouds moast of the time, but I still try to be as realistic as I can. My dream is to be a breeder that is as responsible as possible and that doesn't make too many litters a year. I think it's wrong that a breeder has like one litter a month every month... It's too much. I think a responsible breeder has just a few litters a year so that he/she can really think the coming litter through. I mean... If you would to have like several litters a year... can you remember every person you have sold a pup to? I hear too many times about breeders who anwser the phone and say: "Owner of wich pup?" followed by: "oooh... Now I think I remember..." You shouldn't have to explain to a breeder from witch litter your pup is. He/she should remember you the minute you call and say: "Hi, it's me.". You shouldn't have to introduce yourself to the breeder for the tenth millionth time. Atleast that's what I think. I think a responsible breeder looks for a responsible person to sell his/her puppy to. You know... A person who ask questions, is truthfull and isn't afraid to anwser any questions a breeder might have. Let's take me for example... When I bought Ben I asked a zillion questions. Some I got an anwser to... some I didn't. But atleast I asked. Now when I'm buying this pup from Sweden I think the question asking is MUCH more important. When I told some friends of mine about my plans, one of them said: "Yeah, well... Breeders from other countries like to sell pups that aren't that perfect to them who are from another country." That's when my warning bells started to start ringing. What if that would happen to me? What if I would end up with a pup that has Legg-Perthes or Pathella-Luxation?? ...just because I'm from Finland and the pup would come from Sweden. So I asked the breeder about it.. Told what I've heard and just confronted her, because I want to have a honist relationship with the breeder. Do you know what she said? "I don't sell pups like that to people who live in ohter countries, because for one, it's very bad publicity for me as a breeder." That was the exact anwser I was hoping for Then I told everything about myself and Ben. And I didn't tell just the good stuff, I told the things that I had done wrong in my eyes and the things I have done to try to fix it. I told her what I've done to try to raise Ben up as good as possible (remember that Ben is my very first dog in my entire life) and the things I didn't exacly succeed in in the beginning. Then I told her why I wanted the pup and how I was planning to raise her up together with Ben. Her reaction to that was that she thinks I will probabely be a good dog owner. That was this fall... We've been in contact atleast once a week even since and I'm happy about the fact that I can be honist and truthfull to her. That's the kind of relationship I want to have with a breeder. Well.. got to go to bed now... Ben's walking around my chair whining for me to go to sleep. ;) He's a funny (but smart) fellow... :) /Crested

Oh, and if you want to go see my added 27 links on my homepage, the address is: [url]http://www.geocities.com/miia_1985[/url]

Stupid little me decided to put more links on my homepage... So I found 27. :o (as if I possibly couldn't find any less... :roll:) So I started to put thoose with all the tables too at 3:30PM today... Now it's 6:10PM according to my clock on the wall and I'm finally finished... :o Yeah... "how hard can it be to put [b]27[/b] links on your homepage"? Ehem... Right... :oops:

Roo: I agree with all you are saying. :) The story you told... It's so sad. I could never, EVER use a male for stud if he would be sick even if he would be the most promissing male in the world, I would never use him for stud. The reason for it is that the only ones who are going to get hurt are the puppies and their owners! Ok, now Ben is growling and whineing in his sleep... I'd better go and check on him... /Crested

Hobbit: I can't help beeing offended by what you said, because first of all I'm VERY much against puppy mills and back-yard-breeders. Secondly, there isn't a word in english (that I know of) wich would exacly mean "jalostus". So I looked it up in a book, but it said that "jalostus" is to improve something. But in this case what I mean, it doesn't. So I don't know how to explain what "jalostus" and "jalostaa" means. I got Ben when he was a puppy, yes. By what you wrote I can assume that you don't know much of Chinese Cresteds. They don't have full teeth (like none of the hairless breeds). The only teeth that are required are front, corner and back teeth... I'm really bad at explaining, but I found this picture on the net wich mabye helps you understand what I mean. Here is a set of a dogs lower jaw. [url]http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/pregastric/labteeth.jpg[/url] Now on cresteds the jaw would look a bit diffirent... Because the P1, P2, P3 and P4 are not required. (on neither jaw) On Powder Puffs they are, but not on hairless ones. Here is another page with a couple better pics... [url]http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/pregastric/dogpage.html[/url] On each picture, take away all the Premolars. THAT is how a Cresteds mouth could look like. Ben has 28 teeth... That's VERY good for a TRUE hairless. Hairy Hairless' (the ones you have to shave so they would look hairless) some haven't got ANY premolars. Guess how much it would do to the breed if every Crested would have FULL set of teeth! And what you said about the Pug. That's what I ment with "jalostus" ("improvement"). And how can I be a back-yard-breeder if I allredy have for a year collected information about breeding. Would a back-yard-breeder try to improve herself and try to be open to ideas? Would a back-yard-breeder make herself crazy tryeing to think of the perfect combination between two dogs? Would a back-yard-breeder care about where he or she would put her puppies?? Sorry, but I don't think I will EVER be a back-yard-breeder.

Trinity: Thanks. I do know that you just want to help. It just in the beginning felt like everyone is out to judge me. :oops: Silly me... But I'm glad that everything I was thinking was only my immagination. :D My top prioirty is to breed healthy and happy dogs. Sure their look counts too, but wich one would anyone choose from: looks or health? I think health is more important then anything and with my first litter (that I hopefully could get in 2

Hobbit: Yes.. Sorry... :oops: I ment 6 months... Bentley's dad: The book was first published sometimes in the 70's but they made some new adjustments to it and corrected the text there and gave it out again year... was it 2000? Oh I can't remember... But something like that anyway. So it SHOULD have accurate info in it...

Sorry about the "I don't want to try to improve the breed" -part... I couldn't find a right word for it... In Finnish it is called "jalostus" or "jalostaa" depending on the phrase. I looked in a very OLD book what is "jalostus" in english and it said it's to improve. Well ok.. In SOME cases it might be that, but in this case it isn't... (I'm Finnish) I'll try to explain what I mean... See when people have tried to take away faults in for example dogs, they have instead done something else that might be even more dramatic. I think everyone can live with having a dog who has a couple zits or blackheads from time to time (atleast during puberty). I want to improve the breed yes, but I don't want to do anything drastic. Ben's family has a good set of teeth and so does C

Guest pat: I think a "cull" means a litter. Atleast in Sweeden it's "kull" and seems to be very close to "cull". It's just a guess... Everyone wiser then me, speak up... :D

I was reading this Finnish book written by a guy named Saki Paatsama. It's called "Terve ja sairas koira" (sick and healthy dog). When I came to the part about whelp and puppies (it's about a dogs entire life from birth to death basicly) it said: [quote]To insure that a bitch has the best births in her life she should be bred at the age of 6 weeks if she is a dwarf dog. At this time the hips will bend enough and it will insure that she will have easier births in the future.[/quote] (meaning that the hips are allredy bent so that it will not hurt as much) But WHO WOULD BREED A DOG AT SIX MONTHS?!?!?! :o I think only a puppymill breeder.... :mad: /Crested

Trinity: Actually, I was offended by what you said, because it felt like you want to put a

I didn't mean that I'm becoming a breeder RIGHT NOW... :D LOL! Naah... I think I'll wait atleast a couple years! ;) Ok to your questions... Guest pat: I didn't just say what others were saying, they were my exact thoughts BEFORE I even posted anything here. I just wanted to see if other people have the same thoughts as I do. Ben's pedigree on my homepage if you are curious... (oh, and there is allso music on my page.... ;)) He has 9 champions in his 4 generation pedigree. (3 in his 3 generation pedigree) C

Thank you, roo! This seem like a fun place to be and I'm happy to be here! :D Ok... I want to become a breeder and this is the kind of breeder I want to become... Do you think I just have my head up in the clouds? Do you think I will be a good breeder if I become someone like this? See, I know I'm just 17, but a girl like me has to have dreams... :D This is just a short list, because the whole story would be too long for anyone to read. ;) I will: *Just have max. 2 litters / year (with 2 diffirent bitches) *check the both dogs that I'm thinking of matching up for all the diseases that the cresteds inherit.. (sorry, my horrible english... You know how it is when you have the Finnish "Mika H

My second Chinese Crested will be a girl and this spring I'm going to Sweden to get her! I'm SOOOOO exited!!! :D But it just seems like over 6 months is a long time to wait... :( Ohhh, why can't Celine be here NOW?? Oh... I'm going to call her Celine, by the way. :)

No way! Cresteds are the moast wonderfull creatures in the world and not ugly at all! Look at my Benny boy! :) (avtar) He's cute, huh? And I'm getting another Crestie this spring too! Oooh, I'm so happy!!! :D

[color=blue]I've been wondering at this thing with who are responsible breeders and who are not. So now I'm asking you; what do you seek in a breeder? What qualities does he or she have to have? What are the "ingredients" of a RESPONSIBLE breeder? /Crested[/color]