We’re adopting a puppy soon. We’re already planning on neutering, but exactly what’s required in the way of vaccinations, microchip, tags or papers, etc?
You only get a tag with the rabies vaccination, AFAIK. Just recently, they started giving a little yellow tag with the microchip. It’s cheap plastic and it won’t last long. It has the microchip number on it. Even the rabies tag has never lasted a year on a collar. They wear out and fall out within six months. It’s stupid.
As for papers, you need to give personal info such as ID or passport number, phone number and address in order to register the microchip in your name, and as for vaccines, you get a small booklet that will keep track of them, similar to what people get for travel vaccinations.
There are different combinations of vaccinations available in Taiwan. The more common ones are 5 in one, 8 in one and more recently there is now a ten in one combination available.
There is a lot to be said about vaccinations and it is controversial especially in terms of associated risks versus benefits as well as how often the shots should be administered. The viruses that dogs can be vaccinated for are distemper virus, parvovirus, coronavirus, adenovirus, parainfluenza, bordetella bronchiseptica, Leptospira, lyme, giardia, Crotalus atrox(rattlesnake vaccine… Not needed in TW, obviously), Porphyromonas and rabies.
5 in one means that it includes 5 of them, 8 in one includes 8 of them and so on. Lyme, Giardia and rabies come on their own in a single injection each. Giardia is not recommended as are others due to possible side effects. Taiwan is rabies free so I’m reluctant to vaccinate the dogs for it needlessly, however, as an animal welfare organization, we feel that we have to collaborate with Taiwan’s efforts to keep Taiwan free of rabies so the dogs do get it. And of course, dogs with a rabies tag are less likely to be picked up by the dog catchers. My own dog wouldn’t get rabies vaccines… Unless I had to leave Taiwan. But that’s just me.
This said, some of them are absolutely necessary. Parvo and distemper are rampant in Taiwan and without proper immunization, a dog has great chances of contracting the disease at some point. These diseases will kill a majority of infected dogs, especially puppies, and if not, they can leave permanent sequels.
Here are a couple links with a lot of info about vaccinations. If you have questions, you can post but it’s not said that I will have the answer. You are tackling a very broad topic, here. 
What I personally recommend for puppies is 5 in one, then 8 in one a month later, and then one booster of 8 in another month later. In other words, there’s a two month period between the initial 5 in one injection and the final booster at the end of the second month. Vets recommend a booster every year, but my opinion, after reading the controversy about it, is that 18 months between boosters is just as safe. After the initial two months, you can decide to add lyme. Rabies is your choice. Lyme disease is nasty, although quite rare(we’ve never had one case). Giardia is quite common but easily curable meanwhile the vaccine is not recommended. If your dog gets giardia, there will be liquidy bowel movements scathered all over your house up to 3 feet up on the walls (explosive bowel movements 
). Hard to not notice the symptoms, and the smell is unbearable, too. 3 weeks of oral meds and it’s cured. Nowhere near as serious as parvo or distemper which are equally common diseases in Taiwan and which require intensive care and a lot of luck to cure.
marboulette
Thanks so much. We brought Ricky home today. He had his first shot 3 days ago and the owner said that he should have the second in about 20 days.
I think I’ll probably go ahead and get the rabies vaccine and a microchip.
I forgot to ask if they know when he was born, but they told me he’s almost 3 months old. When do recommend neutering?
He’s getting sleepy now and he already has a kennel ready. We definitely believe in crate training. He will certainly not lack for attention with my 2 teenage girls.
I’m curious as to what crate training means to you, what you want to achieve out of it, what you plan to use the crate for and so on.
Neutering a male is best done as soon as the testes drop(as soon as you can feel them in the scrotum). Waiting for the pooch to be older for behavior reasons is old school and it has all been debunked. OTOH, if you get it done when Ricky is a puppy, the discomfort/pain will be a lot less and the healing process cut down to nearly half. At 3 months old, males are usually ready to be neutered.
marboulette
We’ve always crate trained our dogs. The purpose is to give them a place to go when they don’t want to be bothered as the crate stays open during the day. We also lock them in at night or when no one will be in the house to keep them from possibly getting into things while unsupervised. My dogs have never been left alone in their crate for more than a few hours at a time. When we’re going to be away all day or longer when we can’t take them along, we have friends come by to let them out and play for a bit. Crate training has always worked well for us and has never shown to be harmful in any way to our dogs.
Ricky seems small for 3 months in my opinion, and he’s our 5th Chihuahua. I tend to doubt that age claim. I’ll have our vet check him out and schedule neutering as soon as possible.
You have to take what some vets say with a grain of salt regarding neutering because many vets in Taiwan are old school. They need to educate themselves. So long as you can touch the testes in the scrotum, the pooch is ready. That is what you need to base your decision on rather than the actual age. We neutered countless males at 7-8 weeks old and they heal incredibly fast compared with mature dogs. In some dogs, the testes take more than 3 months to drop, although it is rare, it happens. Sometimes one will drop and the other will not for quite some time after, and sometimes one or both of them will never drop.
As for crate training, I think it would be better discussed on topic in a different thread, although my bad, I asked.
It would be awesome if you could train your dogs to roam freely around your house at night and during your absence while never causing any destruction. Would be cool, eh? A crate can come in handy to train a young puppy to hold his bowels, but, IMOHO, should not be used to restrain a dog “just in case.” A dog might not be miserable in the crate when he gets used to it, and might even find it a secure place to be after a while, but said dog would be happier to have the choice to retreat in the crate as opposed to being locked up. In fact, we do not adopt out nor foster animals to people who use a crate in this way. No offense intended, just telling you my opinion.
The reality is that a majority of people are away from home for far more than 3 hours at the time, and they sleep on average 8 hrs per day. You do not get up every few hours to let your dog out of the crate, surely. At the end of the day, the dog spends on average 16hrs a day in the crate. It’s unacceptable. It’s called keeping a dog in a cage. Besides, it’s far better to develop a trust relationship with your dog, and as a bonus, you don’t have to bother friends or neighbors to come by and let the little guy out every few hours.
Just my two cents.
marboulette
[quote=“kjmillig”]We’ve always crate trained our dogs. The purpose is to give them a place to go when they don’t want to be bothered as the crate stays open during the day. We also lock them in at night or when no one will be in the house to keep them from possibly getting into things while unsupervised. My dogs have never been left alone in their crate for more than a few hours at a time. When we’re going to be away all day or longer when we can’t take them along, we have friends come by to let them out and play for a bit. Crate training has always worked well for us and has never shown to be harmful in any way to our dogs.
Ricky seems small for 3 months in my opinion, and he’s our 5th Chihuahua. I tend to doubt that age claim. I’ll have our vet check him out and schedule neutering as soon as possible.[/quote]
Doesn’t anyone care if their pets get autism?
HG
What do you mean? 
marboulette
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Doesn’t anyone care if their pets get autism?
HG[/quote]
Big long thread on the “dangers of immunisating” humans. Causes autism, ya know.
HG
[quote=“marboulette”]What do you mean?
marboulette
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Doesn’t anyone care if their pets get autism?
HG[/quote][/quote]
With pets, there has been some discussion about excessive use of vaccination, and its relationship with cancer. Especially with cats, it is reccommended not to apply the vaccines in the same spot every year. Particularly, the area bewteen the shoulderblades should be avoided, as cancers there are hard to treat.
The vet did give me a choice about the rabies vacination for my dog, saying that while Taiwan is free of such disease, it was advisable to apply it as he might go abroad -since he’s a furriner’s pet, I guess.