athenix

I agree with the suggestions you've been giving. One other thing to keep in mind is that anyone who wants to is allowed to come in, pick out a puppy, and take it into a private "puppy room" to play with... this concerns me, as while the dogs are being handled, it's difficult to tell what some people may be doing in those puppy rooms and whether they are clean enough to be handling young puppies of that age. If you need any help, please feel free to e-mail/PM/IM me; I'd be more than happy to assist in proof-reading, or anything else you may need!

First of all, take a deep breath. Maybe you will have to start over. But not in the way that you're thinking. Start looking at Hazel as a puppy and go back to square one. It won't be easy, and it probably won't be fun, but it might just work out best. You need to show her that *you* are Alpha. She may be the center of your world, but you can't let her think that. Make sure she understands that she's well below your parents, too; have them employ some of the same training that you're providing. It needs to be across the board ;) As for breaking leashes and getting loose, here's a suggestion... use a horse lead. The thick nylon/cotton ropes. I've had horses who have tried their hardest to break/chew through these, and it just never happened (unless, of course, you leave them alone long enough ;). If you have a local tack shop, they will have them, or if you'd like, I'd be happy to dig up one of my old ones and ship it to you, if you think this will be a good idea. A crate may be a good idea. Keep her crated whenever you (or a parent who feels that they will be able to handle her) aren't around and at night. We did this with Maggie, and one day we just "forgot" and came home to nothing disturbed. As the training progresses, you can provide more and more freedom. Companion leashing is also a good idea (and also a good way to get a velcro dog!). When you're out walking, every so often ask for a "sit". We used to do this at every corner. Hope those ideas helped, and if you have any questions or just need support, feel free to ask, or PM; I know how hard this is. I went through this awful period with my horse, but we got through it (he eventually had to be sold due to financial reasons and the logistics of keeping him boarded at a place where I couldn't ride, but he went to a happy home with no additional basic training necessary ;), and I'm sure that you will, also.

I'm so glad to hear that you found a wonderful vet ;) The vet we used for Maggie was wonderful - you could tell that he really cared about her and genuinely liked her. Wasn't afraid to spend the entire time he spent talking with us down on the floor cuddling with her. One of the things that meant the most to me was that before he put her to sleep, he sent my mother home to give me a call and tell me what was going on: showed that he really understood how much I loved her and cared about my feelings. And, by the way, speaking of Pennsylvania, I'm located in Erie with close ties to both Pittsburgh and the Titusville (if you're familiar with that area, I'm so, so sorry ;) area.

:) Just be glad that you aren't referring to the "replaced cabinets". When Maggie was a puppy she gave my mother a woodworking chore (good thing that was her passion at the time!): replace the lower kitchen cabinets because the corners had been chewed off. Oh, we tried everything, but that dog had tastebuds that baffled even the vet. When the prescribed stuff didn't work, he just sighed and said "you know that killer hot sauce they advertise? might as well try that... the burning tongue might just deter her". She lapped it up. And asked for more.

How about the much-beloved-by-those-lacking-in-sleep hedgehogs? Maggie's early Christmas gift last year was a very large, very green-and-purple moose with the same sound mechanism. She never had a thing for the squeakies (we used to "de-squeak" them by opening the thing up, removing the squeaker, and sewing it back), but oh my, she loved Moosie. And the sound was awful. Awful. It had squeakers in every possible appendage, too... she used to love setting it off, and then leaving it conveniently in the hall for those in-the-dark bathroom trips. To demonstrate the horror of Moosie to my boyfriend, without saying anything, while on the phone with him, I stepped square on him (the toy, not the boyfriend ;). His exact words? "Sweet Jesus, what did you just kill?????" I now have her favorite toy (who found its way into my suitcase when I moved and I retrieved for her as a present two days before she died... she loved that thing), "Puppy", who was intact... and sometimes I'll roll over in the middle of the night and hear a squeak. Yes. All of Maggie's toys were named. She knew them by name, too. If you were sitting in the family room with her and said "where's Mommy?", she look at my mother. "Where's Nellie?", she'd look at me. "Where's Daddy?", she'd gaze down the hall where he was reading. "Where's Big Mean Kitty?", she'd look over at Big Mean Kitty.

Bec, I think the point that we were initially trying to make (and have strayed from), is that this mixture of Cocker Spaniel and Poodle has become a rapid "fad", and that breeders of these animals are marketing them as "purebred" and charging outrageous prices for what is essentially a mix, or "mutt". The real problem lies in the fact that the breeders are not being upfront about what their product is; maybe if they were, then people would go to a shelter and find an unintentional cockapoo there, and save a life... It's the deception that I find most bothersome; the fact that the pet store I applied for a job at charges $1399 for a Cockapoo sickens me. "Fads" create all sorts of problems within breeds, due to inbreeding (I'm not talking about the sort of inbreeding that inherently creates a breed) and overbreeding. St Bernards after "Beethoven", Dalmations after "101 Dalmations", and because of the popularity of Goldens, all of the various problems that some have today; Maggie was a wonderful animal who managed to do her CGC with me by 10 months (lots of work... lots of work... patience ;), but I'm beginning to suspect that the reason she succumbed to cancer so early on is the popularity and overbreeding that has happened (we did buy from a reputable breeder but as I've learned in talking to other breeders and our vet, this is becomingly exceedingly common and unpredictable... why is up in the air, though). I'm more concerned about whether or not these Cockapoo breeders are researching the genetics and traits, or just throwing a good show Cocker and a good show Poodle together.

I know that I'm really late on this one, but you might want to check that it really is urine. I know we used to come home to find amazingly large wet spots on the bed, which we first thought to be something along the sort of leakage. After a few hours of observation we discovered that she was actually chewing on a toy or licking her paw and the wet spots were actually umm... slobber. The poor thing would salivate so much that she would move around on the bed to avoid the wetter areas (and at times she would just find herself right in the middle), creating an even wider area. This led to the institution of covers for the beds; just throw them off at night and a quick jab with the foot closest to her when you could tell she was doing this during the night ;) Funny thing is that this was the only time beyond when you had something she wanted (food...) that she ever drooled...

If he actually is a Great Pyr/St Bern mix... I can't wait to see the size of him when he matures!!! Regardless of the actual mixage, though, he's an absolute darling. Congratulations! :) And I agree with Dexter, "Dex" for short. It's a good, strong name, but it kind of has the goofiness that his picture implies (and goofy definitely isn't a bad thing ;)

A few thoughts... 1. A "mutt" is commonly defined as "a dog with unknown heritage, or a dog with purebred parents of different breeds". Therefore, a cocker spaniel crossed with a poodle, no matter how pure the parents were, or how great the dog is, is still a mutt. That said, mutts can make the best pets :) 2. Cockapoo seems to be, from everything I've seen/heard, by now, an "accepted" breed. I use the term lightly, as I certainly don't accept it as a breed! As a perfectly nice dog, yes... a recognized breed, no. Let's say a few cockapoo breeders got together and made a real effort to have their dogs recognized by the AKC, and succeeded. Well, with the popularity of all these various poodle crosses, can we see what happens next? Suddenly all sorts of breeders are pushing for AKC status and litters and litters of puppies are being bred in order to "perfect" the breed. Where do all of these dogs go? With the amount of homeless dogs in the US today, I have a hard time believing to purely good homes. 3. I've seen a trend in mixing any old breed with a poodle and selling at an absurd price as a "hypo-allergenic dog". Poodles do tend to not aggravate allergy sufferers as much, but it's not foolproof. Different people have different triggers. My boyfriend has an Aunt with a poodle; he's dying if he's around it more than ten minutes. He had no problem cuddling with my Golden, though, and when she curled up on a (too small!) loveseat with us, she was allowed to stay for about four hours of a long movie because he didn't have a problem. Attempting to cash out on someone's allergies is just wrong... And on the allergy topic, a labradoodle is half Labrador, so there would be no guarantees that the pup "inherited" its parents' "hypo-allergenic" coat... or would it? (I honestly don't know the answer to that one). It just seems to me an unnecessary waste of lives and people's money. And there's the danger of a person buying an expensive, purebred, cockapoo, thinking it's such a great breed, finding a mate, and breeding cock-a-doodle-poo's. The person needs to understand upfront that it's a mixed breed and it was bred through a mix of a cocker spaniel and poodle. Otherwise we'll have a litany of mixed-mixed breed dogs out there.

I fully agree. My Aunt was telling me about the dog that they recently purchased from the pet store, a purebred "Cockapoo". It took me about ten minutes to figure out that this was actually a mutt, and I didn't have the heart to tell her. A mixed breed is just that... a mixed breed. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. It seems to me that if you really want a Cocker Spaniel/Poodle mix (or any breed that has an "oodle or poo" affixed to the end), the smart thing to do would be to keep checking in at the local animal shelter to see if one shows up; that way you'd be saving a life and not just paying to advance an industry that is causing more harm than good, as I see it. But, of course, then, you wouldn't have the "papers" to go along with it...