IN the olden days, when things were black and white and altogether less colourful and less confusing, Joe would have been called a cross, a mongrel, or a Heinz 57 variety.

Now, Joe is a Jug, which is a cross between a Pug and a Jack Russell to the uninitiated. Many people presume that tmating two average specimens of two different breeds will automatically produce puppies that inherit the best of both worlds.

Thus the doggie world (and our waiting room) is populated by Cockapoos, Labradoodles, Sprockers and, em, Bullshihtzus. Most are delightful. Most are happy and healthy. But Joe was not.

Joe, cheeky chappy though he was, looked like he had been designed by a committee with a morbid sense of humour and no sense of hearing or sight. He was a Pug head on a Jack Russell body. With a couple of subtle modifications. His new owners understandably considered him perfect. But then they only saw his character and failed to appreciate the defects in his anatomy.

The most obvious problem was his nose. Pugs naturally have a squashed face but Joe looked like he had gone ten rounds with Mohammed Ali. And lost.

As a result, his nostrils were pinched shut so tightly that he could hardly breathe. Unfortunately, this contributed to his pleasant demeanour, as he could barely inhale enough oxygen to have the energy to be badly behaved.

His breathing was exacerbated by the fact that he was affected by a condition called Pectus excavatum. Mother Nature had cruelly decided, given the reduced size of both parents, to cut his sternum short so that his chest was compacted. Put simply, his lung capacity was reduced.

Still, the fact that both his knees were abnormal meant he couldn't run about too much anyway. Poor Joe. Both his kneecaps freely dislocated. It's a condition, called Patellar Luxation, that is common in Jack Russells. You see them doing a sort of hop, skip and a jump as they walk, although most are not too bothered by the problem. Unfortunately, Joe had inherited slightly bandier legs from the Pug side of his family and this meant he hopped and skipped but really do the jumping part.

It's pretty hard to tell the owners of a new puppy, in what should be a happy first consultation, that the most recent addition to their family has got big problems.

Amazingly, some owners immediately blame you instead of looking to the breeder. Of course, your first advice is to return the pup to the breeder; after all The Sale of Goods Act applies to puppies as much as it does to washing machines. But rarely do people do this. So you do your best.

Joe had surgery to open out his nostrils and the attachment of his kneecaps was moved and pinned back to the bone in the right place. His chest could not be improved but then he's not a racing greyhound.

Designer pedigrees can be far from perfect.