25. High quality puppies and work

Written for a boy who wants to be a vet.


Quality is a lot of hard work, team work and knowledge.

It was the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, a Wednesday which was a working day. My assistant James did not come to work. I text messaged my manager Mark at 7 a.m. He had had told James to start work on Wednesday. James had taken advantage by coming back from Malaysia on Wednesday night when he should be present in the morning. Mark did not respond to my text messages.

There was an emergency Caesarean section at 8 a.m. Although the water bag had burst one hour ago and there was no greenish vaginal discharge, it was best not to delay. Any delay might kill the Miniature Schnauzer puppies.

Just a few days ago, another breeder had delayed seeking veterinary help. The delay caused 1 Salt & Pepper and 5 beautiful white Miniature Schnauzer puppies to die (see picture). The dam passed away on the operating table.



Now, this breeder had wanted an elective Caesarean around 12 hours ago, but I asked her to go to another veterinarian. She did not go for the Caesarean but phoned me the next day at 7 a.m.

Wednesday was the 3rd day of the Chinese New Year and many factories are still closed. But it was not a public holiday. James should be back to work. Mark should be contactable by phone. But he re-directed office phone calls to his mobile phone. On reaching his mobile phone, he had a voice mail asking callers to leave him a text message. He did not respond promptly.

Now, there was a problem because Mark and James were absent. I have such a small business unit and there are people problems. I thought of Mrs Formicelli running a global business.

How to solve my problem? Time was of the essence. We could not wait. She could go to another practice or veterinary hospital if she wanted. She decided to learn. To help in the monitoring of the anaesthesia. Just to make sure that the dam was breathing the gas normally.

"In the middle of the night, it is common for the breeder and the veterinarian of small practices to work together in Caesarean sections even in the United Kingdom or the U.S.A," I said.

Small practices provide breeders inexpensive veterinary fees and a veterinarian they know. The advantages of the use of veterinary hospital would be the sufficient manpower but breeders would not want to pay higher fees nor have a choice of veterinarians.

The breeder agreed to participate. I made sure by asking, "Would you faint at the sight and smell of red tissues and placentas?" She said no.

We started. The dam breathed regularly as the anaesthetic bag inflated and deflated rhythmically. 2 big pups were stuck in the birth canal. I took them out. One had yellow meconium (faeces) smeared all over its backside.

It was the same situation as another pup in a Caesarean I had done for this breeder just yesterday morning. When meconium is present, it indicated that the puppy was stressed and Caesarean would be recommended. Pups normally do not poop inside the mother.

Now, the operation was going smoothly. So good. Suddenly, the dam wriggled her head. A gargling sound as if she wanted to vomit. Another similar sound. The breeder looked at the dam, not knowing what to make out of this abnormal behaviour. She did not say anything as she did not know what was happening.

It was likely that the dam was going to vomit. Food and stomach juices would be vomited out and might go into the lungs. There was no standard operating procedures in the text books. Books cannot explain everything or give answers to unexpected emergencies.

There was no time to waste.

"Put the dam's head sideways by untying the strings on her paws," I shouted as I stopped my surgery. I could not help the breeder. Time was of the essence. She put the dog's head that faced skywards to the sideways position.

"Take out the breathing (endotracheal) tube now," I said. She did not know where to place the tube after taking it out.

"Put it on the table," I said. But she dropped it on the floor. We had to focus on the dam.

"Put on a gas mask to continue general anaesthsia," I said. The dam slanted sideways and it would be difficult to operate. However, she was rather stocky and did not slant all way to the side. Her back paws were still tied to the table. Only the front paws were untied.

So many things can happen in anaesthesia. A lack of focus would kill the dam and the pups.

All ended well. The pups were ripe. They cried when I cut the umbilical cord. The black and silver pups were identified by their black ears. The salt and pepper pups had whitish grey hairs in their ears. Would this way of identification of the more valuable black and whites be fool-proof? The breeder said yes.

This breeder produced high quality Miniature Schnauzers in 2007. To the inexperienced Miniature Schnauzer people, the pups are just black ones. But they are real high quality stuff.


Now, how did she do it?

She used top quality breeding parents.

But the whole production process was hard work. and knowing when the dam needed a Caesarean section (close observation and spending time with the dam) and finding a veterinarian who knew about Caesarean deliveries when necessary are equally important.

Otherwise, nothing would be produced. This breeder had 3 years of experience of breeding just Miniature Schnauzers. I remember her start-up partner very well.

Her partner had this niche idea of just marketing high quality Miniature Schnauzers. He was a foreigner. A new pet shop specialising in the sale of Miniature Schnauzers. A first in Singapore. People thought he was a wacko and his pet shop would close down soon.

Like so many of the 200 pet shops in Singapore. Every year, many would start up and many would close. Nowadays, the pet food suppliers refused to give credit to the new shops. When they close, money could not be recovered! Most Singaporeans go for "cheap and good" puppies.

Well, the pet shop operation is in its 3rd year. Only high quality Miniature Schnauzers or nothing are sold nowadays.

Nowadays, I do not source the Miniature Schnauzers for this pet shop although, at the start, I got many for the founder.

I knew that a start up had to survive its high overheads. Breeding top quality Miniature Schnauzers in sufficient numbers take some years. The founder was not keen on accepting some of the puppies.

"You could sell them at lower prices," I advised. "High quality means high prices. And not many Singaporeans can afford them or want to pay for high quality. In any case, you do not have the numbers of puppies to maintain your overheads. Just selling 3 or 4 high quality Miniature Schnauzers can bankrupt you in no time. When you are established, you could focus on only high quality Miniature Schnauzers.

"When prospects come to the pet shop and see you just have the same 3 or 4 Miniature Schnauzers, they don't come anymore or recommend their friends. In a puppy selling business, you need to have sufficient numbers to attract viewers.

The founder accepted my advices of getting outside sources of Miniature Schnauzers. The other breeders knew that he wanted only Schnauzers and raised their selling prices whenever they had better quality ones. Or even low quality ones.

After the name is established, the pet shop does not accept any outside Miniatures Schnauzers. The breeders in general did not have the high quality. So there was no point sourcing from them.

As far as profitability of this pet shop business, I have no comment as I don't know. High quality is a business strategy in a competitive world. If a person can ensure high quality, he or she will usually get the better quality customers. If this high quality is consistent and maintained over the years, money just flows in.

Unfortunately, there will be manpower problems as the operations become bigger and globalised. The founder must be very interested in the overall operations or find a good motivated team to do it.

What has this to do with a boy who wants to be a vet? You always must ensure that you produce high quality work to your professors. Know what is required of you. And what you can do to produce high quality reports.

One example is digital photography. Get on to it. Produce high quality pictures to support your written report for your professors to differentiate you from your classmates who probably do the minimum.

You need more than a good camera to produce high quality pictures. You will need to read up widely and know the techniques of digital photography. To be hands on. It will take lots of hard work and time.

For example, this report is quite boring without a picture. However, a poor quality picture is also not interesting for the reader who loves to read such articles. It takes me many years to get the pictures interesting. Even then, out of 17 pictures I took of the dam and her 5 puppies, only this one was of sufficient quality that could be used.



In assessing my 17 pictures, I was thinking of a Miniature Beret Maker who could not produce a perfect Miniature Beret. Producing a high quality picture may or may not be equivalent to producing a high quality beret.

But both productions had similar problems. I know very little of the Miniature Beret maker's difficulties in producing a high quality beret. But to produce a high quality picture, I share with you what you would need to do:

1. Extensive technical knowledge of digital photography. Read widely every thing but in particular digital photography magazines and books. Attend course. Consult other photographers. In my case, it was reading widely all the hundreds of photo magazines and books from the various branches of the National Library.

2. Hands-on experience. Take a lot of pictures. The Beret Maker must make a lot of berets, but it is much more expensive if he has not much technical knowledge. He is experimenting on the company's money. Many things go wrong during production. In taking pictures, the positioning of the puppies and the dam affected my quality. Puppies nearly fell off the table, not co-operating. I had the good morning lighting at 9 a.m. The sun could be hidden by the clouds, so I had to be fast. A picture without this good sunlight would be dull unlike the one you see here. There are many factors but hands-on experience is very important.

3. Software. Digital photography is much cheaper than in previous years where I spent lots of money developing negatives. Now, it is much cheaper with software. Still you need to know how to use the software to get the picture. It takes at least 20 minutes to produce this picture you see.

4. Report writing. You need to research to be able to produce decent high quality reports for your professor. Content is important. Presentation with high quality pictures make your report worth reading as the professor has so many mediocre reports to read and probably is very weary.

This report also takes 1.5 hours to write. It takes you 1 minute to read. Start thinking high quality and make sure you pass your examinations in this first year. Otherwise, you will be kicked out during the 2nd year when deserving but unfortunate Biomedical undergraduates with excellent first year grades replace you.