"Falling in love" with pet dogs

Article and photos: NGUYEN TRINH

Working as a restaurant manager but with an unstable income, 8X guy Nguyen Chi Hieu (37 years old, living in Long Xuyen city, An Giang province) decided to quit his job to open a Poodle farm with an income of over 1 billion VND per year.

Mr. Hieu and his "beautiful standard" dogs are kept for breeding at the farm.

Mr. Hieu's Poodle breeding farm currently has the position and reputation, quantity, quality of breeds and the largest scale in the West. From raising dogs to satisfy his passion for pets, he started a successful business to get rich.

The opportunity to start raising dogs was also by chance. Previously, Mr. Hieu worked as a restaurant manager, but his married life was full of difficulties and struggles. In 2017, he decided to quit his job, with little capital in hand, he had to borrow more money to invest in opening a dog farm. Initially, he chose to raise breeds such as Alaska, Husky... which were popular at that time. However, this type of dog "fell out of favor" over time due to changing needs of dog owners.

In 2019, after researching the market, he realized that young people like Poodles. In addition, this breed of dog is intelligent, attached to its owner, small and has the talent of walking on two legs. So, he decided to spend all his money to buy 4 puppies for tens of millions of VND each to breed. The small, smart dog breed, with a happy and adorable face, made him love and attach himself to them more and more. After successfully breeding them, he became more and more dedicated and expanded the scale of breeding.

Currently, Mr. Hieu's dog farm has more than 160 Poodles, the value of the herd is up to more than 2 billion VND. "Raising and caring for Poodles is quite simple, but with hundreds of dogs, it is quite a hard job. At first, there were times when I had to witness dozens of dogs die at the same time, losing hundreds of millions of VND," said Mr. Hieu. The Poodle breed at his farm is mainly super small teacup size with many coat colors such as yellow, apricot yellow, reddish brown, white, chocolate, reddish brown, black, smoky gray, gray, white... and the rarest color is cow's milk color.

According to Mr. Hieu, Poodles have lines such as the common line, teacup, and tini, with weights ranging from 1kg to more than 20kg. The smaller the dog, the more valuable it is. “I used to raise the common Poodle line, which is many times larger in size and weight than the teacup line, but the value is not as good. Later, I multiplied the herd and completely switched to the teacup line because of its higher value,” said Mr. Hieu. To successfully breed the teacup line, it requires a source of quality male offspring, a complete pedigree, and must have a super small size from the father, mother, grandparents, and grandparents to be able to breed a standard dog. “The standard for evaluating teacups is a height of 16-19cm, and a back not longer than 15cm. As for weight, depending on the care method, it can range from 1.5-2.5kg,” said Mr. Hieu. Regarding care, this breed of dog must be regularly cared for, have its hair trimmed, and be fed regularly. This breed of dog eats a lot from 45 days to 4.5 months old and gradually decreases as they mature. Therefore, during this period, dogs must be fed regularly to have enough energy. Dog food is mainly ground meat, dry seeds... and vitamins to help dogs have good resistance. Regarding reproduction, this breed of dog should not be pregnant with more than 4 puppies when breeding, which will affect the mother dog and cause poor quality of the puppies. To export the litter, they must be cared for until they are 4.5 months old before they can be sold.

Poodles are popular because they do not shed hair, have a very high IQ, are small and cute, and are very suitable for small houses or apartments. Teacup Poodles are currently priced from 25-30 million VND/dog, while males are more expensive, even up to 50 million VND/dog. Thanks to that, Mr. Hieu earns more than 1 billion VND/year. In addition, he also has additional income from opening a dog spa.

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