Advice for dog-owning virgin please?

[Pacific]

We are currently thinking about taking one of my friend's puppies. They are the result of an accidental breeding of a skye terrier/Papillon both of whom are pedigree.

We have never had a dog before but we have two very placid cats. We have a good enclosed back garden and access to the countryside for walks.

For the first two months that we will have the puppy, it will occasionally have to be left alone for a few hours but after that there will be someone in the house all the time.

Vet bills/expense is not a problem.

Can anyone give advice? Do you think the puppy will settle with the cats? Is it likely to be yappy? (we do not have nice neighbours.....they will not tolerate any barking) Are there any drawbacks with this crossbreed?

Any comments/advice welcome.

Good luck with your new puppy. I hope it works out for you. A good book to start out with is 'The Perfect Puppy' by Gwen Bailey. Gwen also oversees classes for puppies www.puppyschool.co.uk which are very good. A second book worth reading is 'The Culture Clash' by Jean Donaldson, which isn't about puppies as such but will help you understand a bit more about dog behaviour and why they do things and hence how to start dealing with any problems that come up.

FWIW, I agree with what Scuttle has said earlier in the thread.

I'd also like to pick up on what silentcatastrophe has said about inbreeding and health problems... inbreeding has been done in the past for many reasons, not all of them bad, but it is extremely rare for inbreeding to happen among reputable breeders these days. Linebreeding is more commonly done, and with good reason and not always a bad thing either, but it's essential someone who does it knows what they are doing. If parent dogs are properly health tested and someone knows the lines very well (which anyone breeding should do!) then such breeding is very unlikely/not going to produce affected offspring. Health testing can mean detrimental conditions can be bred out eventually with good breeding, even if that includes linebreeding or even occasionally inbreeding where the existing gene pool is very small.

In comparison, someone could cross two different breeds, not health tests the parents and end up with affected offspring as both parents were carriers. 'Hybrid vigour' is quite contraversial since corssbreed dogs aren't actually true hybrids and any vigour seen is usually in 'true mutts', ones who's parentage is completely unknown as opposed to cross breeds. I know far more people with unhealthy crossbreeds than I do pedigree dogs, presumably because of the lack of care that usually goes into breeding crossbreeds. (and I know far more people with pedigrees than crossbreeds)

Sorry, midori. I don't really understand what you are saying. I don't understand the terms you are using.

Both the mum and dad were healthy pedigree dogs. My friend is not a breeder. She rescued the mum then discovered the pregnancy too late to stop it. The puppies were all checked by my friend's vet and my puppy has been checked by my vet. It is the best we can do under the circumstances. Hopefully there will be no major health problems. If there are, we will deal with them appropriately at the time.

I still love him and won't part with him now.

Like you said, you have the puppy now, I was merely attempting to dispell some of the myths surrounding pedigree dogs and it was in relation to another poster's comments.

But, the point is that just because a dog looks healthy it doesn't mean it is, even if a vet says it is, because the sort of genetic problems that can arise in dogs need specialist testing for and these tests aren't usually done by normal vets.

I appreciate your friend was in a diffcult position in that they were given an already pregnant dog and didn't allow an 'accidental' breeding to happen themselves, but it is actually possible to terminate a canine pregnancy until quite late on, which should really be the preferred option in these cases, due to the sheer number of dogs in rescue and being PTS each year.

Obviously it's commendable that you are willing to deal with any health problems that arise and stick with your dog no matter what, but surely you can see it would still be far better if litters risking sick puppies weren't bred in the first place as the dog still suffers no matter what?

Anyway, good luck with your puppy and do look up the books I suggested, the first in particular will cover pretty much everything you need to know about puppies.

Thank you for your comments midori. I will get the books you recommend.

Can you explain a bit more about the terminology you were using? 'True hybrids' and 'vigour' etc. I am interested to find out more. I don't know much about breeding and pedigrees and need it explained in simple terms!

Thanks

I think it means this:

With plants and animals there is a lot of talk of "hybrid vigour" this means that if you cross breed between varieties you get stronger and more healthy stock. With dogs a mating between two pedigree breeds may not achieve this because there is the risk that they will inherit any defects that are prevelant in both breeds, rather than elimnate them altogether. With a real mutt that is a mixture of loads of breeds and none the risk of breed defects becomes less and hybrid vigour is ore likely as the genetic influence of defects will become very dilute and the "survival of the fittest" comes into play - your mutt's ancestors will have survived and bred because they were fit and well. Does that make sense?

I have owned one true mutt - she seemed to have German Shepherd, whippett, spaniel and collie in there, somewhere ( infact she had Collie eye anomaly, so maybe not the best example) she was utterly wild in behaviour until she was 5, could not be trusted off the lead until she was 9 and could leap in and out of my estate care until shortly before she died aged 17 - and she was extemely clever and very devious. Still miss her despite her wicked ways!