Newbie here - Shipoo and Shih Tzu

Hello Everyone! How wonderful to find this forum!

A short intro ...

We rescued a Shih Tzu back in November and absolutely fell in love with our little angel Gabriel who is now almost 4 yrs old. He was raised by an elderly couple that had to give him up because their son was terminally ill and they could not be home to take care of him. He is an excellent dog but was only around his two owners and thus pretty much just laid around most of the time and thus was not socialized or knew how to play. Our boys have taken care of all of that. While Gabriel still has some issues with being too timid in new environments, little by little he is coming around and is adapting far better than we could have even hoped. Other than his lack of socialization, he truly is one of the best raised dogs we have ever seen. What a blessing it is to have a dog that is so well behaved and loyal.

We have since added another love into our lives about 4 weeks ago. A gorgeous (absolutely no bias here eh?) little Shipoo, that our boys lovingly named Lil Miss Sophie. Her first vet visit at 8 weeks had her weighing in at 2.11 pounds. Currently she weights in at 2.8 pounds. She was the runt of the litter, but had the most loving personality and endeared herself to us immediately.

When we brought her home and found that she was in fact a little spitfire! LOL For a while we thought her name should have been Snapper or Turtle - as she truly snapped like a turtle! She has since outgrown that behavior and now is full of ginger and spice and all things nice. She is a cross between paper training and crate training. Currently we have a large vicious dog next door that has attacked out Gabriel several times (I know - working on it). Anyway, I dare not take the pup out as the boxer would kill her. So for now, we are settling for paper/crate training. Hopefully she will train outside once we can safely take her out. Right now I am trying to take her to the park and etc but am not having much success but am not surprised, as it is not constant enough. She has already learned to come when her name is called, and gives tons of kisses on demand. She is still nipping a bit, and from what I understand, this in somewhat normal until she have went through teething? Any thoughts - advice? At any rate, it is barely nipping once in a while, a far cry from the hard snapping she did when we brought her home.

A couple of things that have been buzzing in and out of my mind these days that maybe someone here could give me some direction? Is there anyway to guess at what size Sophie might be when she is grown? Also, I have read on other posts about color fading ... Sophie is an Auburn sorta with white tipped feet, tail, and markings on her face ... is there any way to guess at what her full grown color might be? I don't have any idea of what to expect growth wise, and I could not find a growth chart pertaining to Shipoos (which btw, is what I was looking for when I ran across this forum). In the end, her color and size do not matter to me as long as she is healthy, and growing on schedule. I am just a bit curious of what I might expect.

As I have been reading the other posts, I have enjoyed peeking at all the other furbabies (thank you for posting their pics - BTW). Since I saw so many requests in other posts for pics, I snapped a couple photo's of our little babes, and will try to post them here, if you care to peek.

Okay, it won't allow me to post IMG's because I have not met the requirements to do so just yet. If someone here wants to PM/email me, I can give you the photobucket links to post? I don't know any other way to share my pics ... sorry!

BTW - my name is Tammy and thanks for reading all the way to the bottom of this very long post!

 

Your fur babies sound absolutely adorable. I have a female Shih-poo named Kristel. She will be 6 months old on April 25. I just had her to the vet today as she was just spayed and this was part of her follow up appointment. When she was weighed today, she was 7.9lbs. When I first got her at 8 weeks, she weighed in at 3.3lbs. The vet thinks she will be approx. 10-11lbs when she is full grown and about 11" at the withers.

She was pure black when I first got her back in December with a little white patch under her chin. Now she is starting to fade and has alot of gray in her under coat but her face is still quite black. She has stolen my heart and I can't imagine what life would be like without her. The house felt so empty when she was at the vet having her surgery.

Kristel was a bit "snappy" at first but she has calmed right down. Most of her baby teeth have started to fall out and I think that has something to do with it, plus I always gave her something else to chew when she tried to do that.

Post some pictures soon.