Shorkie

No general recommendation covers every Shorkie. The plan comes from your vet, built around your dog's age, weight and health, and the kibble should be small, because small teeth cannot manage large pieces.

Shorkie puppies need meals three or four times a day so their blood sugar does not fall, which is the specific hazard in a very small young dog. Adults eat less often.

Keep the dog lean. The published range spans 7 to 16 pounds, so a Shorkie at the top of it is not necessarily overweight and one at the bottom is not necessarily thin; body condition score is the useful measure and your vet can teach you to read it in a minute.

Feeding is also a trigger to know about. In a dog with tracheal collapse the honking cough worsens with eating and drinking as well as with exercise and excitement, so a new cough around meals is a symptom rather than a habit.

Grooming a Shorkie takes more of your time than housing one takes of your space. The long, silky, human-like hair is prone to matting and needs brushing every day, with a bath at least once a month.

Treat that monthly bath as a fixed part of the schedule rather than something you do when your dog gets dirty.

Dental care is where the Shih Tzu parentage bites. Teeth easily overcrowd a small mouth, which is what makes periodontal disease so common on that side of the cross, and brushing at home at least three times a week plus professional cleanings is what holds it off.

Check the eyes while you brush. This cross can inherit cataracts, dry eye syndrome and progressive retinal atrophy from its Shih Tzu parent, so cloudiness, redness, pain, increased blinking, a mucus-like discharge or new clumsiness all deserve a call.

Around 30 minutes of exercise a day is what a Shorkie needs, and the requirement is as much mental as physical. It will happily play the lap dog for the rest of the time.

The small stature means that half hour fits into an apartment, a house or anything between. This is a cross that adapts to the home rather than demanding one.

Use a harness rather than a collar. Both parent breeds carry an increased risk of tracheal collapse and pressure on the windpipe is one of the things that sets the cough off, along with heat, humidity, excitement and stress.

Split the time if that suits the weather or the dog. Two short outings in cool air do more for a Shorkie than one long one on a hot afternoon.

Shorkies are social by descent. Both parent breeds were developed to spend their days alongside people, so training goes with the grain rather than against it as long as the work is positive and consistent.

Socialise across ages and species early. This cross typically gets on with people of all ages and with other animals, and early exposure is what turns typically into reliably.

Set the rules around children and larger dogs. At 7 to 16 pounds a Shorkie is easy to injure by accident, and the training that matters most may be the training you give everyone else in the house.

Choose the breeder carefully too. Work with someone committed to health over profit who performs genetic testing before breeding, because the liver shunts and eye conditions this cross can carry are inherited rather than acquired.