The High jinks when Rusty met Cassey

The long and the short of the problem with a family's new puppy is that nobody is quite sure whether to call it a rottschund, a dachsweiler or even a totweiler.

For Rusty the tiny dachshund has managed to mate with Cassey, a 10-stone rottweiler bitch, and the result is six-week old Tinky, described as a miniature stretched version of her mother. Just how five-year-old Rusty, who weighs a stone, managed to play the mating game is a mystery to owner Dale Adams of Gunthorpe, Peterborough, Cambs.

Mr. Adams, 40, said: "We can only imagine that he nipped down to the shed and borrowed my stepladder. We couldn't believe our eyes when we first saw Tinky. Rusty always had a bit of an eye for Cassey but I didn't think she needed to be spayed because he didn't appear to be up to it. She looked down on him and wasn't interested."

Michael Quinney, a rottweiler expert, said: "It is unique and will look most strange. It probably shouldn't have been allowed to happen but at the same time I would be very curious to see this little fellow."

This picture was clipped from an unidentified British newspaper by the mother of an acquaintance.