http://www.cockapoosavvy.com/tips-on-taking-care-of-a-cockapoo-mutt/ Just another WordPress weblog Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:56:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 http://www.cockapoosavvy.com/tips-on-taking-care-of-a-cockapoo-mutt/comment-page-1/#comment-395 chzbrgr Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:53:04 +0000 http://www.cockapoosavvy.com/tips-on-taking-care-of-a-cockapoo-mutt/#comment-395 Being a mutt does not automatically make a dog more prone to health problems, but being the product of irresponsible breeding does. Left to their own devices, mutts produced by free breeding will actually be a lot healthier than your average purebred because natural selection works to weed out individuals with unhealthy, maladaptive genes from the gene pool. That said, the fact that the dog is a "cockapoo" and that it is 2 weeks too young to leave its mother means it's almost certainly from a puppy mill and is likely to have all kinds of infectious, parasitic and genetic problems lurking under the hood. Please get it to the vet as soon as possible for a thorough physical exam and full blood panel. There are a lot of great foods out there and a lot of really crappy ones as well. I recommend doing some research on this site and finding one that suits your needs: http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/ Chewing and biting are to be expected, especially with such a young puppy. For now try to make chew toys the more appealing option and don't give him access to other things when you're not around to supervise. When he's a little older you can start on real obedience training and then you'll have commands like "Stop" to work with. Keep that Chihuahua mix far away from him. He is only 6 weeks old, he is not going to survive a run-in with your cousin's aggressive, poorly-trained dog. And there's no way you can train him to stop crying. He is a tiny baby, too small to be away from his mother. Spend as much time as you possibly can with him and when you have to be away, try leaving him with something that smells like you (maybe an old sweatshirt). Leaving the radio on might help too. Being a mutt does not automatically make a dog more prone to health problems, but being the product of irresponsible breeding does. Left to their own devices, mutts produced by free breeding will actually be a lot healthier than your average purebred because natural selection works to weed out individuals with unhealthy, maladaptive genes from the gene pool.
That said, the fact that the dog is a “cockapoo” and that it is 2 weeks too young to leave its mother means it’s almost certainly from a puppy mill and is likely to have all kinds of infectious, parasitic and genetic problems lurking under the hood. Please get it to the vet as soon as possible for a thorough physical exam and full blood panel.
There are a lot of great foods out there and a lot of really crappy ones as well. I recommend doing some research on this site and finding one that suits your needs: http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/
Chewing and biting are to be expected, especially with such a young puppy. For now try to make chew toys the more appealing option and don’t give him access to other things when you’re not around to supervise. When he’s a little older you can start on real obedience training and then you’ll have commands like “Stop” to work with.
Keep that Chihuahua mix far away from him. He is only 6 weeks old, he is not going to survive a run-in with your cousin’s aggressive, poorly-trained dog.
And there’s no way you can train him to stop crying. He is a tiny baby, too small to be away from his mother. Spend as much time as you possibly can with him and when you have to be away, try leaving him with something that smells like you (maybe an old sweatshirt). Leaving the radio on might help too.

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