Monday, May 1, 2006

Choosing the right dog for us (part 2)

We did a few on-line surveys, including the one on Pet Net, to help us decide which kind of dog would be best for our family. The select a pet questionnaires kept telling us that a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel would be a good dog for us. And this lead us to consider getting a cavoodle.

In this photo you can see Butterscotch with his mum, Peggy, who is a cavalier. We think Buddy is the one closest to his mum's head in this picture. You can already see he is a beauty!

Choosing the right dog for us (part 1)

It took us a long time to decide we were ready for a dog. And while we were thinking it over we spent a lot of time researching what kind of dog would be best for our family.

We wanted a dog that was going to be good with children but that would happy inside most of the time and didn't need a lot of exercise. My hubby was also pretty keen on a low-shedding kind of dog, so we were attracted to the idea of a poodle-cross.

This photo is Peppy the poodle, he is Butterscotch's dad. We liked the idea of a poodle because they are so smart and the new poodle crosses (hybrid dogs) are supposed to be great with kids.

See Burke's Backyard website for his road test of various dog types:
Top Ten Dogs (both cavaliers and poodles get a mention)
Cavoodles (a dog that combines the best of two breeds ... we think so!)