Loving Your Lhasa Apso Mix
The beautiful little lhasa apso adds life and joy to most households. The breed is known for its loyalty to home and family and has been used a tiny guard dog or sentinel in Tibetan monasteries for centuries. This little dog fits well in apartments and small homes. The biggest surprise, when first meeting a lhasa apso, is the huge bark that dwells within the small sturdy body. Breeders are very careful to maintain the best qualities of these dogs and don’t welcome experimental mixing of breeds to further control or alter size or to create designer dogs. The recent tendency to breed smaller and smaller dogs can lead to dogs that are so tiny that they are not healthy and don’t have a very long life expectancy. So, breeding for size and mix breeding can create a lot of problems. Occasionally, however, there’s one of those accidental events and someone ends up with a litter of lhasa apso mix puppies.
The chances of getting all of the wonderful qualities of a well bred lhasa apso in a lhasa apso mix are about fifty-fifty. When the traits of another breed or even a mixed dog are added to the gene pool, there’s always a chance of unfortunate results. There’s a possibility of the pups having the appearance traits of one breed and the personality of another as well the health qualities or issues of either breed. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the best traits of either breed will carry forward into the puppies. And sometimes, there’s an unfortunate hybrid look to the puppies and they simply are unusual to say the least. But most dogs inspire love in the proper owner and each and every animal has value.
If that breeding accident does occur, then the subsequent offspring should be spayed or neutered to avoid even more dilution of the breed. Of course, spaying or neutering is an important responsibility of dog ownership and shouldn’t be questioned. Unwanted animals that can’t be cared for or even fed are a major issue in the world anyway. Adding more mixed breed puppies, irresponsibly, helps no one and accomplishes nothing. The lhasa apso is a great little dog and doesn’t need to be improved.
