“The helpline has been busy and the numbers of new owners seeking help with their new puppies seems to be increasing.
Sadly this doesn’t reflect too well on some of the breeders, who often seem unable or unwilling to help and simply refer the hapless and worried owners to the helplines.
Some vets too continue to show their ignorance of the breed by giving bad advice and making things worse for the dogs rather than better.
“One choice case was of a first-time breeder who had one puppy whose eyes had opened but at four weeks had progressively closed and clearly needed tacking.
Their vet agreed but pronounced that the puppy needed to be ten weeks old before they would tack.
However the case would be that after ten weeks of discomfort this poor puppy would need more than a simple tack.
“Luckily, the breeder was put in touch with a Shar-Pei-friendly vet via the stud’s owners and a simple tack done immediately has now led to a happy puppy with no sight problems at all.
It would be nice to think that all such stories had equally happy endings.”
The Kennel Club (London), in the run up to Pedigree Dogs Exposed, banned pups being shown post-tacking. But two years on it’s still happening. Are we any further on? And how would you know if a dog had been tacked as a pup?
Shar-Pei & Tacking..
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