I have puppies that are purebread shih tzu s. they were born on July 28th and I want to know when to start feeding them puppy food and not letting them milk off their mom?

Due to personal reasons, I will not answer your question directly. You have asked a very basic breeding question. Click on this link:American Kennel Club - Responsible Breeding Steps (http://www.akc.org/breeders/resp_breeding/index.cfm)

After you do some reading on breeding and proper puppy care. Take a look aroundBluegrass Shih Tzu Rescue - Kentucky (http://www.bluegrassshihtzurescue.com/) . We have many Shi Tzus in rescue and shelters. This site is just a sampling of hundreds out there. Sometimes people have the money to purschase a Shih Tzu but when the going gets tough they seem to become disposable and end up at the mercy of strangers. The ones that are given away for free find themselves in the same predicament when a irresponsible pet owner ends up with them. So be very careful where your puppies go or they may end up having crappy lives.ASPCA: Adopt: Spay/Neuter (http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=adopt_spayneuter) Here is another link that you may find helpful. Beside the fact that spaying/neutering prevents millions of unwanted puppys in our already overcrowded shelters, there are real health benefits to having your dog spayed/neutered.

The accepted age to wean puppies is 4 weeks. Like the 2 above, I strongly feel people should educate themselves before even purchasing a dog for breeding. Producing quality dogs requires extensive research and great care. Since those, failing to do so or just not caring, produce so many low quality dogs, we end up slaughtering millions of them for lack of homes. That is abhorrent to anybody that cares about dog at all.

Ask your vet for a recommendation, my opinion would be puppy chow at 4-6 weeks..