Weds 27th May: Choosing a dog

We get a lot of adoption enquiries coming in all the time, and while some can offer great homes unfortunately many would mean very unhappy, lonely and under-exercised dogs.  It should always be remembered that dogs are animals, not babies or little people, and while they're intelligent and loving companions they have different needs from humans.

Lizzie has abnormal heart valves

The other frustration are the requests for purebreeds only, with some wanting such exotic breeds that I've never even seen one, let alone had such puppies for adoption.   As a rescue organisation we don't breed our own puppies or have any Portugese water dogs hidden away in the back, and labradoodles are not a breed, they're a cross, and you can't mate a labradoodle with another and get labradoodle puppies.  That's not how genetics work.

Cavalier King Charles Lottie has the typical heart problem of the breed

If you want a labrador or a golden retriever please make sure you research the very common, almost inevitable, inherited health problems, and understand that bad hips are just one of many.  In fact all breeds by the fact that they're created by inbreeding until the look becomes the norm will suffer from almost-guaranteed problems.  Some are extreme, like bulldogs, German shepherds and Cavalier King Charles, but without exception every named breed comes with a predisposition to some kind of health issue.

I have to admit that while in earlier times the "pure" Village Dog or tong gau was a healthy and hardy breed, it's quite rare to find any dog that isn't a mix of this and that, and sadly that does mean some having inherited those purebreed weaknesses.

Brush

Sometimes we see very strange things like the tuft of hair growing out from under Brush's eye, which isn't a health problem more an oddity which makes him special.  However, in the recent puppy intake of twelve there is one who has a similar tuft of hair growing IN his eye, so poor little Ben will need surgery to fix that unusual problem.  Luckily Ben is in foster (with brother Biggles) so he'll be fine.