Now then, these Designer Breeds ….

Can't hear video on phone but get the gist.
We are in Norfolk for a couple of days and what I want to know is... Does anyone have a designer crossbreed with any training at all? I have seen nothing but manic, whingey, badly behaved poo things. I cannot believe they are all untrainable so have to attribute it to the owners. Perhaps if you are the sort of person who seeks out a 'poo you love it so much making it heel or not yap would be bullying.
 
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Love it!

Out walking one day, I heard someone shout 'oh look, a miniature Doberman!' It took me a moment to realise they were talking about my dog. She's a petite JR x Norfolk Terrier. Black & tan and smooth coated, but really, really not a Dobe!
 
Clodagh said:
Can't hear video on phone but get the gist.
We are in Norfolk for a couple of days and what I want to know is... Does anyone have a designer crossbreed with any training at all? I have seen nothing but manic, whingey, badly behaved poo things. I cannot believe they are all untrainable so have to attribute it to the owners. Perhaps if you are the sort of person who seeks out a 'poo you love it so much making it heel or not yap would be bullying.
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I've met a few labradoodles who are normal but agree, most of the small designer crossbreeds are hysterical, yappy things. Or maybe we just notice them more, just realised I met a poodle/spaniel walking today who was extremely pretty and looked well mannered.
 
RunToEarth said:
I wish I could laugh at that videos ridiculousness but seriously they walk among us-
https://www.pets4homes.co.uk/classifieds/1833193-gorgeous-goberian-puppys-portsmouth.html
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My neighbours have a Labradoodle X Husky. He is a nice dog a bit brainless. On the other hand the Greyhound X GSD they got was not such a success: it got into a field of sheep - the GSD part of the brain rounded them up and the Greyhound part did what Greyhounds do to small fluffy things (in this case large fluffy things).
 
CMcC said:
My neighbours have a Labradoodle X Husky. He is a nice dog a bit brainless. On the other hand the Greyhound X GSD they got was not such a success: it got into a field of sheep - the GSD part of the brain rounded them up and the Greyhound part did what Greyhounds do to small fluffy things (in this case large fluffy things).
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Ouch. Presumably they don't have a labradoodle x husky any more then..... :( Poor dog, idiot owners!
 
I dare to admit that I have a designer cross breed of the poo variety! Paid a lot of money for him, yes for a mongrel.

However, he is super trained, recall, manners, is very loving and great company. He comes to the stables, helps me muck out by eating the horse poo. Comes out on a ride with me without a lead, sits patiently without moving in the corner of the school without moving if I’m schooling, is chief carrot sorter at feed time and then home for a snooze on the settee.

I think he is just perfect.
 
Mahoganybay said:
I dare to admit that I have a designer cross breed of the poo variety! Paid a lot of money for him, yes for a mongrel.

However, he is super trained, recall, manners, is very loving and great company. He comes to the stables, helps me muck out by eating the horse poo. Comes out on a ride with me without a lead, sits patiently without moving in the corner of the school without moving if I’m schooling, is chief carrot sorter at feed time and then home for a snooze on the settee.

I think he is just perfect.
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Sounds just like a greyhound :p In all seriousness, I am glad he is perfect :)
 
Yep. My working cocker x poodle comes with me to stables where she stays out of the way, has the best recall of almost any dog I know, and is starting her agility career (incidentally, there were a few 'designer crosses' at crufts agility finals last year)
I would agree that they can be delinquents in the wrong hands - the problem is that because they are very social, many people think they are ideal first dogs (she is my first dog, but I knew what I was getting into!). In fact the working crosses in particular are just a step down from border collies in terms of their need for stimulation.
 
The problem where I live (and yet again I realise that there are regional variances) is the animals being 'selected' to breed from.
I don't see any social cockapoos around here at all, which I assume are all coming from the same source, just nervebags that gob off at everything that moves or makes a noise. They are untrainable because they are so busy on fixating on all the scary external stimuli that they can't focus on a toy or food. Yeah, sure they are cute and energetic but what good is a 'family pet' that can't cope with normal family life, which by nature is noisy and things tend to move, or going for a walk.
The main reason that animals are being selected for breeding is how they look, not how they function or how physically or mentally healthy they are.
If you breed animals with bags of 'drive' but low nerve threshold, of any breed or crosses of breeds, you are just asking for trouble.
The labradors and retriever crosses around here are massive and look pretty hard to handle, but are generally more pleasant.
 
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Mahoganybay said:
I dare to admit that I have a designer cross breed of the poo variety! Paid a lot of money for him, yes for a mongrel.

However, he is super trained, recall, manners, is very loving and great company. He comes to the stables, helps me muck out by eating the horse poo. Comes out on a ride with me without a lead, sits patiently without moving in the corner of the school without moving if I’m schooling, is chief carrot sorter at feed time and then home for a snooze on the settee.

I think he is just perfect.
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Me too. I have a labradoodle. She is the most well behaved dog I have ever known. I once asked her to lie and stay while I went to catch a pony. Pony proved to be reluctant to be caught and so I ended up doing 35 minutes of approach/retreat. Dog was exactly where she was left. Would not dream of leaving without permission. Her recall is excellent no matter how far away. And we discovered (accidentally!) at Christmas that you can leave her in the front room with trays of leftovers on low nose-height tables and she won't eat them! She will stare longingly but nothing more. I can hack out with her on the ground. She will stay 'to heel' if asked, or will go on ahead but come back whenever asked. She is not allowed on the yard off a lead so at the end of the ride she will lie and stay on command while I ride onto the yard, sort out the horse and then go and get her . She is also the friendliest dog I know - loves all other dogs and all people. On holidays if the garden in open I can spend 5 minutes showing her where the boundaries are and after that she will never go beyond them even if there is no physical barrier at all. And even if visiting dogs cross the boundaries. My parents in law don't allow her in their smart living room and again she will lie in the hall with the living room door open and never try and cross the line into the room.

She is amazing.

She DOES however shed! We bought her instead of a lab (like our old dog) because we were under the impression they were non shedding. Sadly untrue!
 
I don't really understand the desire to spend shedloads of money on buying a dog or a cat. I had a dog when I was a boy, a border collie ✕ shetland sheepdog.

My mother worked in a school, a teacher had a bitch and dog and bred them together; we went out to his place in the country where we watched all the pups running around together, saw which ones were the most happy and lively, handled them a bit to see which ones were most comfortable with people, and I picked out a pup.

At the time we were still living with my grandmother, and when my parents bought their house and we moved out, the dog stayed with my grandmother.

I admit that I didn't do a great job of training him, but he was well behaved enough that my grandmother never felt unsafe walking him on the lead on an icy pavement. And in my early teens I would take him for a long walk every now and again along the river valley to the post office and shop, and we'd get a half dozen eggs to share raw, and I'd let him off the lead in an empty field to run around as much as he wanted.

That dog lived to be around 16 or 17, before falling ill with kidney and urinary problems repeatedly and was in the end put to sleep.
 
Back in the day you paid a bit more for dogs you wanted to show or work, the ones that didn't make it sold for a little cheaper, mongrels and crossbreds were sold for buttons if not given away.
However dogs these days seem to be treated as a 'thing' to 'have' rather than a lifelong (and/or purposeful) companion, like a TV or a phone, except people do less research when they buy a dog than when they buy a household appliance. Is is suitable? Will it fit? Is it value for money? Will it tear up my kitchen because a walk around the block once a day won't cut it? You can go online and buy any dog you want now.
And people with no motivation apart from making money will happily supply it.
There are dogs who's recent ancestors were killing bears and wolves on the Steppes just a couple of generations ago, which will grow too big for any person to control, now living in people's back yards in urban areas.
It boggles my mind that people are prepared to pay high hundreds if not thousands for a pet dog (cross or pure bred) with no health testing or any sort of proofing behind it, and then satisfy themselves by saying that it looks nice, is a good companion and well behaved, as if a £200 dog or a health tested dog wouldn't be.
However I suppose if one is happy paying for someone else's foreign holiday or conservatory rather than covering the outlay of carefully though-out breeding plan, including health tests, stud fees and competition record etc, then fair enough.
 
Both my dogs parents were KC registered and I researched their lines. They were both hip scored plus each had the tests relevant to their breed (epilepsy, PRA, etc), and I saw the certificates for these. The mum was a proven working gundog. I paid about the same for her as a cocker spaniel would cost. That seems fair to me given that exactly the same outlay had gone into her breeding and rearing as into a pedigree dog.
Unfortunately people tend to assume that I picked my dog on the basis of her being fluffy, and nothing will convince them otherwise.
 
I worked with a dog trainer for a while, puppy classes mostly. Good mix of pedigrees and crosses. I didn't see or suspect any clustering of characteristics around any attribute. The pedigrees seemed as likely to be badly bred impulse purchases with daft, untrainable owners as the crossbreeds. The crossbreeds were just as likely as the pedigrees to be either nervous wrecks or confident, happy things. Some pedigrees were sickly little things as were some crossbreeds. It is in no way a proper study obviously but really no real trends jumped out over the few years I was doing this. The main thing was that tense, untrainable owners made for tense untrained dogs. Owners who were chilled and willing to listen and work hard at it got relaxed, happy, well-trained puppies.

I have two crossbreeds, one deliberately bred as a working spaniel, who is mad but wonderful, and one accidental Collie x Spaniel who I picked up for a token amount of money and is worth his weight in gold. I wouldn't pay through the nose for a "designer crossbreed" but that's just cos I wouldn't pay through the nose for a dog full stop really. Hopefully when I am next on the lookout for a pup I'll be able to find myself another nice farm mutt.
 
As part of my research into potential dog ownership and advert for puppies popped up that were Siberian husky x malamute x cocker spaniel x border collie. My mind was boggling. They are all breeds that are beautiful to look at but I’m not sure what complimentary traits they have which made them worth crossing. And a hefty price tag too.
 
well, I've said it before :p but you can barely find proper mongrels anymore-I wouldn't mind a proper mongrel but would have to import a European rescue and you know how I feel about that :P .

Of course I did have one a couple of years ago, she was at least Beagle x Staffie x something else (she was very leggy and had a curly tail). She was a fabulous wee rescue dog but PTS at 5 from epilepsy and broke my heart, so hybrid vigour doesn't always work. Personally, I yearn for those little black and tan mongrels that I are up with-last seen in the 90s.
 
I know a Goldie x Ridgeback who is the softest, soppiest, most well mannered dog I've ever met.
I also have met a beagle x Springer who was a total nightmare! no recall what so ever and unfortunatly in a totaly unsuitable home so was frustrated because it never went anywhere off the lead and got walked for 30 mins a day tops.

Finaly whilst growing up I had a propper mutt, and he was amazing. We think he was a springer x long haired dacshound x something! Amazing little dog!
 
I think I am being unfair on small 'poos. I wonder if they are bought as they are fashionable and therefore suffer more from numpty owners than many other dogs?
 
We had a Collie x greyhound when I was at school. She came from a rescue at 18 months. She was the most wonderful dog I’ve ever known, and it broke my heart when she was PTS at almost 19. She came everywhere with us, I remember coming home from school on many occasions and she not being there because Dad had taken her fishing with him. He didn’t like dogs, so he said :p

Aled, and now Luna are the first dogs I’ve had since I lost her. Big paws to fill, but they’re doing a pretty good job.
 
MotherOfChickens said:
well, I've said it before :p but you can barely find proper mongrels anymore-I wouldn't mind a proper mongrel but would have to import a European rescue and you know how I feel about that :P .

Of course I did have one a couple of years ago, she was at least Beagle x Staffie x something else (she was very leggy and had a curly tail). She was a fabulous wee rescue dog but PTS at 5 from epilepsy and broke my heart, so hybrid vigour doesn't always work. Personally, I yearn for those little black and tan mongrels that I are up with-last seen in the 90s.
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well my terrier is a heinz57 so i would say mongrel.....mum is lhasa apso/yorkie/border terrier/patterdale and dad is jack russell/chihuahua so a mix of 6 breeds. this was one of the reasons i bought him and im hoping that he will be healthy, but who knows?
 
MotherOfChickens said:
well, I've said it before :p but you can barely find proper mongrels anymore-I wouldn't mind a proper mongrel but would have to import a European rescue and you know how I feel about that :P .
.
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I agree you just don’t see dogs for rehoming, much less adult dogs. My elderly in laws wanted an older small dog,’I haven’t seen one that’s not a European rescue at all. Whilst this could be a good thing I wonder where all the unwanted dogs end up? They can’t all go to rescues surely?

Back to the breeding of crosses. I know a couple of Cockerpoos who are lovely dogs and I think poodles generally make nice dogs if crossed with most things. When I asked a neigjbour why on earth she spent so much money on a mongrel she explained that it was worth every penny as it didn’t moult. I thought that was a fair point!

What doesn’t seem to work as well is crossing JRT’s. I know a few that cost a lot of money and aren’t very nice dogs at all. I’ve recently met a Husky x Pomeranian that is a basically a husky in a smaller body. Still the character of a Husky though so I’m not sure how that will work out.
 
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