Its not just the designer dog breeders that are idiots

There are many byb who breed purebred dogs, and do it very badly.

Take this stellar example. Not only do they breed very out of standard dogs, in all sorts of 'designer colours' Cocker Spaniels should not come in. (really colour should not be a primary reason you pick a dog) They also sell, suprise suprise, crossbred dogs.

"We also breed Cocker mixes, and you may see pictures of our Bologco pups, which are a mix of one part Bichon Bolognese and one part small Cocker Spaniel, at our Bologco website." Great, breeding their funky Cockers to to likely equally funky Bichons.

They no longer do dews and tails (which is fine, its obvious none of these dogs will EVER enter the show ring or field) but its their reasoning that scares me.

"And please note that all of the puppies in these litters will come with their tails and dewclaws fully intact, as we no longer have these surgical procedures done on our day old puppies due to losses to MSRA staph infections from these surgeries--all done in a vet's office--in the past."

My breed has dews and tails done. What kind of vet does them on day old pups (standard is 3 days) and what kind of after care are these pups receiving?

You can see what is important with this breeder. This is the entire paragraph descriping one of the dogs:

"Our other merle litter will be from our beautiful little blue merle tri girl named SunCatcher's ZuZarra (call name Zarra), shown above as a young girl, to better show off her fabulous merle tri markings, and our handsome red and white male named Beau, and we do expect all sorts of colors and markings from this litter, including blacks, chocolates, reds, silvers, sables and merles--in both partis and tris."

There is no comment about health, temperament, structure, type etc-just colour.

They even admit they are breeding dogs with no hunting drive:

"We do not object to hunting at all--or to hunting with field strains of Cockers who retain hunting instincts. But we are not producing dogs for hunting, but only adorable companion pets."

Wow. So this breeder doesn't like the look of cocker spaniels (needs to make them come in new designer colours) and doesn't like the correct temperament of the Cocker Spaniel. They adamantly don't want their dogs to do anything other than sit on a couch and look 'interesting'. Wow again. They are not allowed to do anything not suitable for the breed.

To give this breeder credit they do require puppy buyers to sign s/n contracts. And also states that they are not to sell or rehome the puppy without contact the breeder. At least in this respect they are ethical.


An example of a breeder with no ethical responsibility towards the pups they produce. (this was passed along to me) WOW is all I have to say. The person who forwarded this to me said it better than I:

Quote:

My objective as a breeder is to provide the best possible quality puppies that are well-cared for and well-socialized without obligation to spay or neuter. I leave the decision to breed to new owners - the responsibility of determining whether a puppy is of breeding quality will be theirs.

I love how the very first sentence on the site says that spay/neuter is not mandatory. And since when is the average pet owner knowledgeable enough to decide if a dog is worthy of being bred?!

Quote:

I own three Corgis -- they are all beloved family pets...first and foremost...and they are the only dogs I own. I have never entered my dogs in a conformation show or had them evaluated for "show" potential. They are AKC registered.

Wahoo, let's brag about never having breeding dogs in a show.

Quote:

Scout (AKA Ditto's Lil Miss Scout About) is our newest family member. She is my 12 year old son's dog. Her complete care, feeding, and grooming is handled by him. When I retired Sunny from breeding two years ago, the kids begged and begged me not to. They just LOVED having the puppies around. I stood fast -- saying that Sunny & I were both tired. Then, when my son approached me about him becoming a breeder...I reconsidered. I am his mentor and provide all the guidance and experience. He gets the work part. He worked at several business ventures (selling farm fresh eggs & vending machine snacks) to acquire the funds to purchase Scout and finance this endeavor. She joined our family last fall.

Aww...how sweet. A 12 year old breeder!

now a few comments of my own..
They even say that champion dogs are very distant in the pedigree. Now I am not a fan of conformation shows as being the sole way of determining merit when it comes to breeding. But any dog that is being bred should have SOMETHING extraordinary about them. There are countless great dogs in shelters, why produce more dogs, unless you are doing it for the betterment of your chosen breed. These dogs have done nothing, and there is nothing recent in their pedigrees to merit reproducing. Simply looking on petfinder any one can see that there are lots of corgis in need of homes.

Puggles, doodles, and jugs Oh My!

A designer dog sounds cool, the term seems to denote its better than a 'generic' pure breed. People will tell me they have a pure bred puggle, or cockapoo, or labradoodle etc etc. I try really hard not to laugh at them.

No to start off with, I am all for the intelligent creation of new breeds. I am not one of those people who say 'all the breeds we have today are all the breeds we should ever have'. But the creation of a new breed is not simply the crossing of two badly bred dogs, coming up with a catchy name and starting up. Silken Windhounds are a new breed. They very carefully bred dogs together with a specific aim in mind. They bred only healthy mentally sound dogs together. They didn't keep just breeding two breeds together, mangling the names of both breeds, and selling the pups in the local flea market.

So why do people cross breed dogs? Very simply, because idiots buy them. Pure and simple. If people would do their research. Then these people would stop doing it.

Myths about designer dogs:

Hybrid vigour- this only applies to actual crossbreeding of species, not within the species. You are just as likely to get the genetic diseases of both breeds, as the dogs used in creating these pups are NOT from good sound breed standard breeding stock.

That the breeder can tell you what the pup will grow up to be like -this is just not true. It takes many generations to predict type. Even top show breeders who spend much time and effort to producing dogs off all the dame type, will get variations.

Crossing breeds insures you get the best of both breeds- you are just as likely to get the worst of both breed traits.

Make better pets than purebreds-picking the right dog is the key to having a great pet. Show breeds, or working breeders will have dogs in their litters for what ever reason don't have what it takes to become a working dog or a show dog, but does have what it takes to make someone a loving pet.

Designer dogs are rare-shelters are full of cross bred dogs.


You will notice on these sites they only show puppies. All puppies are adorable. Take puggle puppies, they are very adorable, but google them. Most are hideous as adults. 99.99% of the websites I have came across that offer pups for sale over the internet. The contracts are silly or non existent. The health of these pups is never guaranteed. There is no stipulation that if the new owners cannot keep the pups that the breeder will take them back. These breeders are as bad as millers.

Now there are breeders out there particularly with goldendoodles that are breeding F4 or higher goldendoodles. The problem is that a new breed needs a new name. No one is going to respect a new breed that is just the mangling of the old breed's names. A new breed needs a NEW name. Its only common sense.