[PupperLove]

I am totally against breeders crossing dogs. If someone wants a mixed breed then they can go to any shelter and get one that needs to be saved. I have a huge problem when I open the paper, scroll through pets sections and see "cavachons" "multipoos" "yorkipoos" "teddybears" and the best one yet, the guy across the street who told me about the purebred cockapoo he used to have. Commonly these designer mixes sell for $400-800+. They make up about 75% of the classified ads in my area. It's really disturbing. I will never support someone who is intentionally crossing breeds because it's what 'they believe' is the best dog ever!

 

[KZoppa]

This could have been a issue she was prone to genetically, it could have been an early training/socialization issue or a combination of both. If you go to the aggression section of this forum, you'll find plenty of posts from people who have problems with their GSDs too. People breeding dogs without concern for temperament is not limited to "designer breeds" and people dropping the ball with early training and socialization isn't either.



:help: They are also popular (Poodles) and extremely popular (Goldens) service dogs, the most competitive breed in competition obedience (Goldens) and the breed that competition obedience was designed for (Poodles). And Goldendoodles/Labradoodles are becoming increasingly popular as service dogs. Guess there must be some smart ones out there...

A lot of people think GSDs are neurotic/flighty/fear biters/aggressive/etc. Often the issue is that the ones those people have had experience with are. Like with Goldens and Poodles, often the dogs people see most are poorly bred examples. I work at a grooming shop and see Goldens a lot and big Poodles fairly often. IME it is not at all common for either breed to be "nasty" (more common to meet nasty or at least very difficult GSDs to be honest). The Goldens can be difficult because many are scared of the dryer or just very exuberant and don't hold still. Most of the big Poodles are really tolerant. The little Poodles tend to have common little dog issues, which often are actually little dog owner issues.

Different dogs appeal to different people for different reasons. You (general) get to decide what dogs you want but not what is right or wrong for other people to want. And that is what the issue of crossing breeds really comes down to. Regardless of how some people feel about it, there are a lot of people who want purposely bred mixes for whatever reason.



I agree and didn't vote for the same reason.

i understand that goldens are popular and so are poodles in service work. But i rarely see THOSE good ambassadors of those particular breeds. Like i said, in my mind, goldens are stupid and poodles are ugly and high maintence. Some people like them some people dont. I'm one of those who dont. Its one of the reasons i'm not a particularly huge fan of longcoated GSDs. I dont care for it and i dont want to have to worry about tangles, daily grooming to remove burrs and whatever else has gotten tangled in their coats. Its all about preference. I'm in the middle on crossbreeding as spending a couple thousand on a mutt makes absolutely no sense to me, especially when you cant have a better understand of the dogs temperment whether you meet the parents or not. Its just like i'm iffy on going a breeder that breeders more than one breed of dog.

 

[Jessiewessie99]

A big pet peeve of mine is just because someone had 1 or 2 bad incidents with a certain breed they assume all the dogs of that breed are bad. You can't really judge one breed based on 2 incidents because it does come down to the owner or breeder.

 

[KZoppa]

A big pet peeve of mine is just because someone had 1 or 2 bad incidents with a certain breed they assume all the dogs of that breed are bad. You can't really judge one breed based on 2 incidents because it does come down to the owner or breeder.

this is true as well. i agree. i'm not a fan of akitas and chows but thats me. I love pitbull type breeds despite the common fear. They're sweet and good dogs. I'm not a fan of goldens though our neighbor across the street has one and he's a decent dog, i still wouldnt personally have one. never liked poodles. I think goldendoodles look funny. pugs annoy me. cant stand english bulldogs. i think what i cant stand most about designer dogs or intentional crossbreeding, is the annoying celebrities that get those breeds. Like Perez Hilton and his golden mixed thing. I feel bad for that dog. The guy doesnt use his dishwasher for dishes but to store his dogs outfits! seriously?!

okay... i'm gonna walk away from this thread for now because i'm annoyed just thinking about it... I guess i'm just a PB preference person.

 

[HI_]

I don't like cross breeding i just like them purebred=)

 

[selzer]

I voted that I dislike cross breeding of dogs. I do not think it should be illegal to do so.

What I do not like about it, even with the cav example, just putting titles on a dog, and doing some health screening, does not create a new breed or even the best of both worlds. Taking the get from this breeding, and taking the get from a similar breeding pair and breeding that, and down the line, does not make a new breed.

Most likely, you will have dogs that have a variety of the traits you wanted and the traits you do not want and are susceptable to all the health concerns for both breeds.

To start a breed of dogs properly, you would have to have a ton of people involved, and a massive amount of money and time invested. You would have to start with a vision -- a medium small dog specifically to hunt and kill spiders -- yeah, I would probably go for this.

First you would have to find dogs like Rosa that are good at killing spiders and research their make up. Maybe find five or six breeds of dogs that would be used in the mix. Then you would want each of their breed history, health history, etc, so that you would get specimens that would be excellent to start off with. And down the line, you still may find that you need to remove an entire line of dogs, and be willing to do that.

generations pass, with anal attention to every single breeding, what it produced, what were the results, etc etc, and then you decide you need to inject more terrier, or something that will make them more low key, or something that will give them more or less height or weight, and you add a little of something else in there.

Again, breed, breed, breed, evaluate, cut, remove, until you are producing something with enough regularity and with the origianal purpose that you can actually write a standard and stop allowing the addition of more purebred dogs in.

With all of these experiments and breeding pairs, enough so that you will not have to miserably inbreed for, where are all the puppies going that are not selected for breeding? Where do the washouts all go?

If there is actually a need, say for a bomb sniffing dog under eight inches, then I would approve of going ahead and trying to develop that. But for the most part, we have bird dogs for all occasions, hound dogs for all occasions, herding dogs for anything you want to do. And the list goes on and on. If you really cannot find a dog that covers what your needs are in all the breeds that are currently recognized by some kennel club, I guess you might have a case.

Most people do not have the resources or following to do it right though.

 

[DJEtzel]

Curious why you feel it's ok to do crossbreeding with Cavs but anyone else is doing it only for money?

I never said everyone else is doing it for money. I just said they weren't doing it right.

Yes, there are a few breeds that have been crossed up that are for a purpose. These are done correctly. The cavalier is the best example I have and what I support the most in cross breeding. There are virtually NO healthy Cavaliers out there anymore so they are crossbreeding them with the clumber spaniel I believe and having a lot of success breeding out the health issues and restoring the Cav. to AKC recognizable status. Done for a purpose by people who know what they are doing.

Crossing a border collie and jack russell terrier together because they're both good at flyball means nothing to me and I wouldn't support it. I bet a border/JRT mix would excel at agility too, but that's not a good enough purpose to mix breeds, imo.

 

[Dennq]

Isn't cross breeding how we got all these different pure breeds today?

 

[DJEtzel]

Isn't cross breeding how we got all these different pure breeds today?

Yep, but all of these were bred for a purpose. A golden doodle serves no purpose, neither does a husky/GSD mix or a shorkie.

 

[selzer]

Most breeds come from a variety of breeds in the back ground, not just a lab and a poodle. When dogs were used much more than they are today, different areas developed different dogs that excelled at tasks needed for that area, and were capable of handling the environment. Usually these dogs existed and were used by farmers, or hunters, until one day, someone got the great idea to refine and preserve the breed. Max started with shepherd dogs of the area. He fiddled with them, and in bred and outcrossed, and removed dogs, until he had the basic dog he was looking for.

And this is really the story for many of the breeds out there. They were not a random mixing of two purebred dogs.

 

[Jessiewessie99]

Or those people who breed to create the "Ultimate Guard Dog" is just crazy and a no no.

Didn't the guy who created the Labradoodle or one of the doodle breeds actually regret doing it?

For now, If I want a mixed breed I will go to the shelter.

 

[DJEtzel]

Or those people who breed to create the "Ultimate Guard Dog" is just crazy and a no no.

Didn't the guy who created the Labradoodle or one of the doodle breeds actually regret doing it?

For now, If I want a mixed breed I will go to the shelter.

Yep. He did it for a client that needed a service dog and was allergic to dogs. Later regretted it.

 

[LaRen616]

We have Labradoodles here at the Cancer Hospital I work at.

 

[AgileGSD]

I voted that I dislike cross breeding of dogs. I do not think it should be illegal to do so.

What I do not like about it, even with the cav example, just putting titles on a dog, and doing some health screening, does not create a new breed or even the best of both worlds. Taking the get from this breeding, and taking the get from a similar breeding pair and breeding that, and down the line, does not make a new breed.

The Cav/Clumber breeding is not being done to create a new breed. It is being done to introduce genes for normal hearts back into the breed. Likely very few Clumbers will be used. If a breed has an extremely widespread genetic issue (I believe at least 90% of Cavs suffer from a genetic heart condition by the age of 10) the only way to breed away from it is to introduce normal genes from another breed. To be honest it's the modern idea that any cross breeding is bad which got some breeds into this sort of mess to start with. Closed studbooks on low number breeds is a disaster. Really closed stud books are a very modern idea and have only been around since the early 1900s, developed at first only in the interest of show dogs. Prior to that and even continuing for quite awhile afterwards, it was pretty common to go outside of the breed you were breeding if you wanted to add a trait that didn't currently exist or was hard to find in your breed.Even once the studbooks were established, it wasn't until even more modern times when the registries started to become strict about them. Some of the first Malinois in this country were originally registered and bred as GSDs until Belgian Sheepdogs (as they were all initially called) became a recognized breed. Once they did the GSD registered Mals were registered and bred as what they were. Even now there are some interesting things that can go on with AKC concerning the registration of the Belgians as separate breeds.

For information on how to introduce normal genes for a problem into a breed read Dr Selzer's information on the Backcross Dalmatian Project:

About The Dalmatian Heritage Project - Dalmatian Puppy Breeding & Adoption - Hayward, California

And for a bit of a different take, check out the Bobtail Boxer project, where a BoxerxCorgi cross was used to introduce the bobtail trait into Boxers. By the third generation, they looked like Boxers. By the fourth generation, he had show quality Boxers in the litter.

GENETICS CAN BE FUN - Part 4

To start a breed of dogs properly, you would have to have a ton of people involved, and a massive amount of money and time invested.

You do need some people involved but I'm not sure how much more time or money it would take than normal dog breeding. Knowledge of genetics would help but our modern breeds may or may not have had that going for them when they were developed. Many breedings were simply done based on performance. And we have seen many new breeds developed over the past 30 years or so. Off the top of my head:

Silken Windhounds ISWS - International Silken Windhound SocietyShiloh Shepherds Shiloh Shepherds Home: Shiloh Shepherd pictures, breed, club, registry info!Alaskan Klee Kai Alaskan Klee Kai Association of America - AKKAOAHangin' Tree Cowdogs Hangin Tree Cowdog Association, Inc.Carolina Dog The Carolina Dog Association: Carolina Dog Breeder Information - American Dingo Dog Breeders Carolina Dogs
Miniature Aussies/North American Shepherds Home page

There is no one set way to go about creating a breed. Most of them are actually started without anyone sitting down and saying "I'm going to create a new breed". They evolve simply from breeding for certain traits over generations. The definition of being purebred is having not outcrosses to other breeds for X generations and "breeding true".

With all of these experiments and breeding pairs, enough so that you will not have to miserably inbreed for, where are all the puppies going that are not selected for breeding? Where do the washouts all go?

It depends on the purpose but they could go to pet homes or less demanding working/sport homes. This is the case with Alaskan Huskies (which are work-bred mixes), if they don't pan out for say Iditarod training, they can still go to recreational mushers who don't need dogs with the same the speed or endurance. The flyball-bred mixes can generally find a place on some team, I've never heard of anyone having a hard time placing their Boderjacks or Borderstaffs or what have you into flyball homes. Again you have a range of different options, not all dogs have to be on the most competitive teams. Of course those are purposely bred mixes and no one is attempting to make them into a breed. They will always be purposely bred mixes. But I suspect the same is true for people creating new breeds, there are always options for homes depending on what sort of dog you are breeding for. Most people who get as involved enough with dog breeding to work towards creating a new breed likely are involved enough to know people who are interested in the dogs they are attempting to breed for and likely have resources for finding homes for their puppies. And again, most people don't start with a kennel full of multiple breeds and an idea to breed them together to start a breed. Most breeds start because people start selecting for certain traits and over time, more and more people become interested in having dogs with these traits.

If there is actually a need, say for a bomb sniffing dog under eight inches, then I would approve of going ahead and trying to develop that. But for the most part, we have bird dogs for all occasions, hound dogs for all occasions, herding dogs for anything you want to do. And the list goes on and on. If you really cannot find a dog that covers what your needs are in all the breeds that are currently recognized by some kennel club, I guess you might have a case.

With that line of reasoning the GSD should have never been created. There were already plenty of shepherd type herding breeds in Europe that could also to protection work. GSDs are a relatively new breed, just a bit over a hundred years old so many of the European Shepherds were around before them.

Obviously people involved with the newer breds feel that no other older breed quite suits their needs as well. Or in the case of performance/sport/work bred mixes, they couldn't find what they wanted in an existing breed.

 

[CaseysGSD]

Just curious what the mix was?

Sorry took so long.... She was a schnoodle (toy poodle, mini schnauzer) we did take her to training classes (not to be mean because she was so sweet to me but she wasn't very smart) as well as we got her at 8 weeks. I think the problem was my father in law got her for my daughters and he bought her from a puppy boutique, come to find out after doing my research the dogs came from a total puppy mill (even though the store of course told him all the dogs come from private breeders) So I think that's where the problem lies, while yes I'm sure there can be good breeders out there with the best in mind unfortunately when a cute mix become popular the mills crank out these really cute genetically poor animals to fill up our ever growing number of pound animals (yes, I did rehome our mix but only because it was not safe for our children and she went to a great forever home, I would have never abandoned her we just carfully kept her until the best place for her was found)

 

[Rerun]

Yep. He did it for a client that needed a service dog and was allergic to dogs. Later regretted it.

This is exactly my point previously. Why not just use the standard poodle? If the only reason was allergies, it doesn't make any sense. The poodle can do everything the lab can for a service dog, and is every bit as intelligent, similar size, willing to please, etc.

 

[LaRen616]

This is exactly my point previously. Why not just use the standard poodle? If the only reason was allergies, it doesn't make any sense. The poodle can do everything the lab can for a service dog, and is every bit as intelligent, similar size, willing to please, etc.

Because Poodles are ugly?

 

[Hunther's Dad]

"Designer breeds" are all about marketing, in my opinion. I have a friend at work who actually convinced a couple of idiots that his Boston Terrier / Pug mix was a "miniature pit bull, they used to use them to swarm over other animals like a school of piranha, that's why they're illegal to import now. I've got the last one in the U.S." :rofl:

They were reaching for their wallets as he walked away, trying not to laugh out loud.

 

[Rerun]

Because Poodles are ugly?

And you find these attractive?
labradoodle - Google Search

 

[LaRen616]

And you find these attractive?
labradoodle - Google Search

I sure as heck dont! I hate Labs and I hate Poodles so the combination is disturbing to me.