[Keechak]

I wouldn't ever breed a mixed breed but I don't see whats wrong with it IF the breeder does OFA testing and only breeds tempermentaly stable dogs, and sells the dog on a spay/neuter contract to a Sporting home with a return request if the new owner desides they don't want the dog anymore.

my breed wouldn't exsist if dog breeds weren't allowed to mix for proper reasons.

I know there are more unethical mixed breed breeders outthere than there are purebred breeders but there are also ethical mixed breed breeders(even though they are rare) just as there are also ethical purebred breeders.

the reason I posted this was because I was reading some posts where people where saying "people should NEVER breed mixes"

 

[skelaki]

I wouldn't ever breed a mixed breed but I don't see whats wrong with it IF the breeder does OFA testing and only breeds tempermentaly stable dogs, and sells the dog on a spay/neuter contract to a Sporting home with a return request if the new owner desides they don't want the dog anymore.

Someone just putting two dogs in the backyard and letting them do their thing, or a person putting two, probably poor quality, purebreds together to make money off the latest designer breed fashion is highly unlikely to do any testing, have contracts, or be willing to take the dog back. In the first case, it would probably be due more to ignorance and in the second more to greed.

my breed wouldn't exsist if dog breeds weren't allowed to mix for proper reasons.

There is a hugh difference between random breeding of mutts or even intentional breeding of two different purebred breeds and creating a new breed. Creating a new breed takes having a definite plan or purpose in mind and being willing and able to make the tough decissions that come along with creating a breed. Two "new" breed examples that I can think of are the Alaskan Klee Kai, and the Kyi-Leo. The people who created those breeds wrote breed standards and spent many many years working towards the new breed until the breeds bred true generation after generation.
I know there are more unethical mixed breed breeders out there than there are purebred breeders but there are also ethical mixed breed breeders(even though they are rare) just as there are also ethical purebred breeders.

There are no ethical breeders of mutts with the possible exception of those working to create a new breed for some definite purpose. This will not include someone sticking a whatever breed with a poodle and calling it a what-poo. With that you might not get what you expect or what you're told you're getting.

the reason I posted this was because I was reading some posts where people where saying "people should NEVER breed mixes"

Go to your local shelter sometime and just take a look at all the random bred dogs, Poo crosses, and even purebreds (almost always from BYBs or puppymill sources) that are there. Then come back and tell us you think we're wrong.

 

[wvasko]

One big problem I can see is that the 2 dogs being bred with all the health tests and temperament tests etc could indeed pass tests/exams etc with flying colors. What about their parents/grandparents, great grandparents etc. Who tested them? I believe this is another question throw out here that will just a useless ruckus. Instead of asking what's wrong with the breeding, the question should be what's right with it. I'm in and out of this thread. Everybody have fun and play nice.

 

[Farore]

So many people think that their dog is so "great" and such a good dog which may be true, but we have so many dogs already put here by those same people. The problem is, that usually people only want to see puppies and then realize they have to get rid of them. They can't really sell them because they are not purebred or even pure mixes. Besides, each mutt is completely different, seeing as it came from a different family. You have no idea where it's come from or what its family was. Even if you have two dogs that look alike, they may have completely different breeds.

 

[tirluc]

i think what Keechak is asking here is, if a person has in mind a certain look/temperment/purpose/etc. in a mix and are striving to obtain that, and is going thru all the "right" tests, etc, what is wrong w/ taking say a Lab and a Poodle to make the ultimate service dog for those that are sensative to the coats of Labs.....i'm not saying that it's going to happen overnight, it takes yrs and generations to achieve, but, let's face it folks, alot of our breeds (actually, i'm assuming all, here) we have today wouldn't even exist if it weren't for even those mishap breedings....they happened, someone saw a whole new type of dog in that litter, for something more than what the parents were used for, and continued the lines....no, you won't get the same things every single time so, just like when you don't get exactly what you want in a purebred dog, you "weed out" (not allow the breeding of) the unwanted traits and concentrate on the wanted.....this is how all new breeds developed over time....even in the best of lines today you will have pups that just don't measure up...it happens...some gundogs are gun shy, some herding breeds could care less about livestock, etc.....but they still make someone a good pet (s/n)......

 

[skelaki]

I didn't get from the OP's post that she was talking about creating a breed, just about breeding mutts if the breeder tested and otherwise acted like a responsible breeder.

 

[KaseyT]

Consider the following - note the numbers I use are ballpark for illustration of my point. I believe they a representative of the actual situation:

In order to maintain the dog population at the level necessary to allow people to have dogs as pets, 6-8 million puppies need to be born each year regardless of the number of dogs in shelters.

Reputable breeders produce, at most, a few hundred thousand, certainly less then a million, puppies each year, and show no interest in increasing that number.

This leaves at least 6+ million puppies that need to come from somewhere.
Between .5 and 1 million pups come from mills, and 5+ million come from BYBs and oops litters.

Each hybrid pup produced from tested parents and raised in a healthy environment reduces the demand for a mill or bad BYB pup and therefore improves the overall welfare of dogs.

 

[Keechak]

well what came to mind for me was the alaskan husky. there are some people who specialize in long distance races here in the US and I have seen some of them who used to breed siberian huskys to greyhounds to get their desired speed. these few people of course needed a very healthy dog (other wise they would loose the race if their dog suddanly came up lame from hip dysplatia or droped dead from a hearditary heart problem.)

and if some family is really into hunting and within this family just happenes to be two MH dogs perhaps one a golden retreiver and one a Labrador retreiver. these two dogs have both proven their working ability. and if all the proper testing is done ect. ect. whats wrong with them breeding these two to create their ultimate field retrieving dog?

I guess I didn't make it clear in the first post. what I mean is mixing breeds for a purpose other than simple looks.

 

[Kyllobernese]

The first time I went to some Sled Dog Races, other than a couple of teams of purebred dogs, all the rest were crossed with Greyhounds and other breeds to get the speed they now expect in some types of races. I am talking about a huge amount of dogs. I doubt very much that very many of them were tested in any way. They certainly were not the type of Sled Dogs I expected to see.

 

[craven.44]

Kasey- When every single dog in a shelter or rescue has a good home, then I will have to agree with your post. If there is no alternative to shelters and people were educated about rescue, maybe we could accomplish getting everyone out of shelters and allow people to breed.

 

[sheltiemom]

and if some family is really into hunting and within this family just happenes to be two MH dogs perhaps one a golden retreiver and one a Labrador retreiver. these two dogs have both proven their working ability. and if all the proper testing is done ect. ect. whats wrong with them breeding these two to create their ultimate field retrieving dog?

This is what my uncle did over the summer...bred his golden and his lab...he hunts with both and wanted another hunting dog. I have mixed feelings about it, on one hand, large lab mixes, puppies and adults, are flooding the shelters around here. On the other hand, he was breeding working dogs for a purpose. The pups he didn't keep were given to his friends, other working homes. It's tricky, the people who took those pups are not people who would have gone to a shelter and adopted a mix...even though they didn't care about breed, they wanted pups out of proven hunting dogs. Not saying I approve of this, I just don't know. I was offered a puppy too and turned it down.

 

[Dogstar]

One big problem I can see is that the 2 dogs being bred with all the health tests and temperament tests etc could indeed pass tests/exams etc with flying colors. What about their parents/grandparents, great grandparents etc. Who tested them? I believe this is another question throw out here that will just a useless ruckus. Instead of asking what's wrong with the breeding, the question should be what's right with it. I'm in and out of this thread. Everybody have fun and play nice.

This is it, exactly. Because the ethical purebred people are NOT going to let you buy a puppy from them to produce a mutt, or breed your purebred girl of another breed to their dog, with VERY few exceptions. (And I suspect a lot of those exceptions are more accidental than intentional- ie, they knew you intended to breed the dog but didn't realize to what.) So at best, you've got two dogs with health testing on themselves, but nothing much done on the parents and so on.

Next, the problem I have is that typically people breeding mixes are not proving the dogs by working or performance sports. The flyball dog crosses (staffiejacks, etc) and the working farmcollie crosses (usually ES x collie or BC x collie) are two exceptions, but I see every other doodle breeder bragging "Non-allergenic! Bred for service dogs!" when there's not a single dog with an OBEDIENCE title in the pedigree, or anything else to indicate trainability, good nerves, and good drive. (And it's not to say that dogs from untitled parents or rescues can't be good service dog prospects, but when they're advertising them like that? That's INCREDIBLY deceptive.) CGC certificates are nice - but they're not much of a test, to be honest.

Cait

 

[tirluc]

Dogstar, i agree w/ you....and don't get me wrong, i have no intentions of starting my own line of Border/?.....but if the parents are titled, certified, proven, etc., and they were crossed to get the best of both (and yes, there are already breeds out there that can probably do what most anyone would be trying to achieve) and they only breed selectively, for certain traits, then they are not doing anything more than the purebred breeders doing the same thing....the difference being, i still don't think that any mix should be going at 2,3,5 times the amount as any purebred that has proven lines for generations back.....but, neither should the "run of the mill" purebreds you can find in the ads, either....'doodles, 'poos,"Teddy Bears" all being sold at $500 and better?...let's get real...they are still a mix.....

 

[cshellenberger]

If the breeder is legitimately trying to develop a new breed and is doing things correctly, there's nothing wrong with breeding mixes. MANY of the breeds we have today were developed this way including the Doberman, which was developed using the Rottweiler, Beauceron, Manchester Terrier, Greyhound and the German Pinscher. It was developed as a protection dog for tax collectors The Standard for the Doberman was drawn up in 1899.
http://www.barkbytes.com/history/dobie.htm

The Bull-mastiff was developed the same way in England, a mixture of 60% Bulldog and 40% Mastiff (to curb the Bulldogs ferocity, we're not talking abut the EBs you see today) to guard estates from poachers.

http://www.bullmastiffinfo.org/thebmf.htm


IMO, there has to be several factors for development of a breed in this manner. Including the PURPOSE for development. The stock used should be of EXCELLENT quality (hard to do in this day and age because the breeders that produce top quality dogs DON'T sell to those who wish to mix). They should also NOT be selling to the general public until the breed type and standard is established (which takes 6-10 generations) and a breed club can start working to prove these dogs in their shows and working competition.

These circumstances are the ONLY time mixes should be bred. The CURRENT fad of mixing to provide 'fashionable' dogs by BYB and puppy-millers is wrong and is ONLY hurting the American dog population.

Also, remember that there are people on here that think NO ONE should breed while there are dogs in shelters. I think this attitude is extreame, but I understand where they are coming from.

 

[KaseyT]

Kasey- When every single dog in a shelter or rescue has a good home, then I will have to agree with your post. If there is no alternative to shelters and people were educated about rescue, maybe we could accomplish getting everyone out of shelters and allow people to breed.

No matter what you do to decrease the number of dogs in shelters, there still needs to be 5+ million puppies born each year in addition to the pups produced by "reputable" breeders in order to avoid the catastrophic effects of a major shortage of dogs.

If we are going to eliminate puppy mills and careless oops litters, something need to take their place. If reputable breeders aren't willing to do it, who should? Doodle breeders, or Mexican puppy mills smuggling half dead puppies through the desert in unconditioned trucks?

 

[Pai]

There will never be 'no dogs left' in shelters... it's impossible. There will always be dogs that, for whatever reason, will not find a home, whether because of health, temperament issues, etc. The shelters will never be 'empty'.

However, the current percentage of total dogs that are killed annually in shelters is only 5% of the total U.S. population of dogs.

Here at the beginning of the twenty-first century, over fifty million household dogs live in the United States. Europe houses an estimated thirty-five million. ... If I add Canadian dogs to these populations, I get one hundred million household dogs in the industrial West.

In the United States each year, households produce 3,700,000 puppies. Hobby breeders produce another two million, and half a million are produced by commercial breeders for department store and other retail sales. That is a turnover of 6,200,000 dogs a year. If the population is not going up or down, then 6,200,000 dogs die every year. That is a 12 percent annual mortality rate, which for a species with a life span of a little over ten years is a low mortality rate in the wild.

In the United states, four million of these dogs spend part of a year in animal shelters. For 2,400,000 of them it is the last stop. Almost 5 percent of our companion animals are dogs nobody wants, and they get "put to sleep." Culled. Again, disaster for the individual dog. Some of this culling may be related to competition between people and dogs for food resources. People soon decide they can't afford the dog, and turn them over to humane societies

Do shelters kill more animals than they have to? Yes, I honestly believe the numbers could be lower, and greater community outreach and education can achieve that. I believe that before the 1980s and the rise of Spay/Neuter education, nearly 15 million animals died in shelters... so things HAVE gotten better. But the number will never be 'zero', because people will never be perfect.
It is not reasonable to demand things be 'perfect' before people can be allowed to buy a dog or responsibly breed a dog without being demonized for it.

 

[Stelladog]

Breeding mutts seems fine to me. Shouldn't be any better or worse then pure breeding. But I've always assumed the whole pure breed/pedigree stuff was just made up as an industry/interest for people.

 

[cshellenberger]

If you're referring to those who mass breed, you're right. However, if you mean those who are responsibly breeding to improve the health, conformedion and working ability I their chosen breed you're VERY wrong. Responsible breeders don't turn a profit on their dogs. They are in the breed for the love of it. That's something you won't see with the type of people who are breeding mixes such as the currently fashionable designer breeds.

 

[wvasko]

If you're referring to those who mass breed, you're right. However, if you mean those who are responsibly breeding to improve the health, conformedion and working ability I their chosen breed you're VERY wrong. Responsible breeders don't turn a profit on their dogs. They are in the breed for the love of it. That's something you won't see with the type of people who are breeding mixes such as the currently fashionable designer breeds.

I believe to that 50 or 75 yrs and much longer ago when many breeds were started there was much more control of the started new breed. Now when somebody hears about a doodle online they want to try their hand at doodling. then you have new doodles coming up all over the world. I don't believe this helps start anything. I hope all this doodling was not confusing.

 

[RonE]

If we are going to eliminate puppy mills and careless oops litters, something need to take their place.

I'd say that's putting the cart before the horse.

AFTER we eliminate puppy mills and oops litters, THEN we can talk supply and demand.