Putting my neck on line-breeding

W

WoopsiiD

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I know that this is a touchy subject but its something I have long pondered and would be interested in others opinions.
Lately on here I have been pointed in the direction of ads posted in the likes of Bargain Pages, GumTree and such like by what can only be described as idiots.
Ads for dogs such as Cockadoodles, Jack Spaniels
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These 'breeders' then charge £300+ for the privelege of owning what I was always led to believe is nothing more than a mongrel????
The last time I had anything to do with dogs/puppies I was under the impression that:
Pedigree Mother Of A* breed +Pedigree Father of A* breed=Pedigree Offspring of A* breed. Therefore worth the money.
Pedigree Mother of A* breed+Pedigree Father of B* breed=mixed offspring so therefore not a pedigree but a mongrel????
Mongrel=Heinz so not KC applicable so not as highly valued???

Why and How are these people getting away with making up breeds??
Surely if you are going to go through the effort and trauma and worry of breeding your bitch then you want to breed quality pups???
Totally Confuzzled
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I don't think I agree with the 'nothing more than a mongrel' characterisation.

I think people should breed responsibly. The bitch and dog should be free from health issues, preferably with checks for hereditary problems, with temperaments suitable for the purposes the puppies are bred for, and with people interested in owning puppies bred for this purpose.

I don't see why a breeder has to breed a pure breed to satisfy these requirement. In fact many breeders of pure breeds do not. If a breeder thinks they can satisfy these requirements why can't they do it by breeding a cross-breed? After all today's breeds came from cross breeding!
 
But if thats the case should a rescue centre not then be the first port of call?
They are filled to the rafters of poor cross breeds waiting for a loving home.
The 'people' who are advertising on some of the 'free' sites don't come across as people who have responsibilty at the forefront of these pairings.
 
I don't agree with indiscriminate breeding, whether the outcome is a purebred or a mongrel.

These "breeds" aren't breeds as they can't be registered, you're right. But I don't see this as any worse than some moron pumping out deformed/inbred, registered pedigrees.

Tinkerdog had puppies yes. But we had 6 owners willing to take pups, she had 5 pups so none were left homeless.


Some people are just stupid and will breed unsuitable/unhealthy dogs season in, season out, be they pedigree or not.
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But if thats the case should a rescue centre not then be the first port of call?
They are filled to the rafters of poor cross breeds waiting for a loving home.
The 'people' who are advertising on some of the 'free' sites don't come across as people who have responsibilty at the forefront of these pairings.

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Arrr....but they're not filled to the rafters with "cross breeds", are they? You only have to look at Cayla's recent posts on the dogs she's rehomed in 2009 to see just how many of them are actually pure bred, pedigree animals.

For the record, I personally wouldn't choose to buy a cross breed as a pup, for the fear of not knowing what it might turn out to be as an adult...after all they all look cute as a pup! I would, however, have no issues in having a fully grown cross breed.

I also think that mongrel or heinz 57 probably truly refers to dogs where you have no idea of the mixes in it's breeding. If the mum is a Cocker Spaniel for instance, and dad unknown, it's a Spaniel x...just as we have Part Welsh ponies etc.

One thing I do agree with though is that I cannot fathom how mixed breeds cost more than recognised pure breeds. I have just paid £400 for my pure bred Cocker pup. He was remarkably cheap (which I told the breeder) but as she advertised for homes before they were born, and mummy and daddy were not proven before, she wasn't sure of the quality of the resulting pups....even though mummy and daddy have excellent breeding.

I can't imagine the second litter, if and when that happens, would be as cheap as they threw a wonderful litter all very correct to the breed standard and well marked. I certainly wouldn't pay more than that for a cross bred anything. Then again, I am shallow!
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The two dog rehoming centres that we visited recently I can honestly say had about 70% xbreeds. The other 'popular' throw away breed in this neck of the woods is sadly the staffie.
Patches-I think you have just made the point I was trying to make but made a right hash in writing down-its a slow brainer or a no brainer day in my case today! I can't get my head round some of the prices people are asking for some of these dogs. I'm also a slightly concerned at some of the breeds they are mixing. There are some that I can only imagine make for a dangerous combination.
 
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People breed these dogs to make money, and as long as there is a market, they will continue to do so.

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That's the long and the short of it. We bred to continue our own line and better the breed.
There are a lot of people doing it better than we ever were, in terms of being able to use the best animals available, so we now leave it to them.
The world is never going to run out of GSDs, or any other dogs, pedigree or otherwise and while there are people with more money to put into a better quality of dogs and parentage, then why on earth would I bother?

If both parents are health TESTED to a suitable standard (not puppies being vet checked - that just means a vet has looked at a puppy, they don't have x-ray eyes or crystal balls to see what the puppies will turn into) then I have no problem, but this is not happening in the large majority of these litters.
 
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Why and How are these people getting away with making up breeds?

[/ QUOTE ] Perhaps because buyers are less informed today?

E.g. it is not made easier by that in some countries, there is extra, new dog clubs where you can register both this and that today and thereby give the buyers the impression of that they're selling puppies of a FCI recognized breed etc.



I thought WoopsiiD referred to the nothing more than a mongrel as in reference to the price tag, yes health checks at the vet. clinic, feeding and other living expenses, costs the same regardless if you're breeding purebreds or mongrels but there is other, extra expenses that does so that if I breed purebreds, it will cost me more than if I breed mongrels. A difference in costs, which according to me, should be shown in the price tag.

For example :
There is a fee for registering e.g. HD results in my kennel club (SKK), they only register results from purebred dogs and if the result is not registered with SKK, it doesn't count to them and I can't breed purebreds (as in with certificates) but those intending to breed mongrels from their purebred dog, usually doesn't bother with registering the result and if you have a mongrel you can't register the result with SKK = no extra fee on top of the vet clinic's.

I pay for membership in my kennel club.
I pay for membership in two different breed clubs.
Some breeds also have a breed group club, with paying members of course.
I pay for membership in a club that you have to be a member of in Sweden, if you want to compete in e.g. different sorts of official obedience classes. To be honest, I actually don't know if mongrels are allowed to compete in any other of their classes than agility and canine freestyle? Anyhow, as far as I know, the majority of their paying members owns purebreds and I don't remember having seen anybody advertising mongrels saying stud dog and/or brood bitch have so and so official e.g. agility title.

Registering my puppies in SKK costs a so and so fee per puppy.
If the stud dog and brood bitch have not been showed at an official SKK dog show or received a certain minimum result, the fee for registering each puppy in the litter with SKK is significantly higher, than if the stud dog and brood bitch have been showed receiving at least that certain minimum result.

If my brood bitch have been showed, I have payed xxx fee to show her (hopefully also getting the certain minimum result) but if I want to try and make her a champion, I want more than one judges opinion etc, I have to show her more than once = paying more entry fee's. To that comes that unless I can get to the show a la some "Beam me up, Scotty" style, travelling to and from the show will also cost me money.
Unless I can bring food, I have to buy food while at the show/on the way to or from the show, which usually costs more than eating at home. If the show is to far away for a one day trip, I have to pay for staying the night somewhere etc.



I have to pay much more to be able to breed purebreds than someone who breeds mongrels, a meticulous survey done by the government who is in charge of collecting Swedish taxes a few years ago, showed that Swedish breeders of purebred dogs, can be happy if their hobby ends on plus/minus null every year, due to what our dog owning costs us.

Actually I think I've heard that of all the breeders of purebred dogs they looked into, they only found one who one year, was making a profit on their breeding but considering that anything on the plus side above null is considered a profit, their profit might not have been much to write home about.
So in a way, if you want to have a chance of breeding with a profit (in Sweden at least), your best chance is to breed and sell mongrels.





In a way I agree about that someone who breeds mongrels can satisfy the requirements about responsibility, health checks and breeding with a purpose etc. but in reality I see far to many adverts with purposeless crosses from not health tested breeding animals, to feel that most mongrel "breeders" fulfills those criteria. Maybe I'm lucky with that SKK rules makes most breeders of purebred dogs at least fulfill the criteria about responsibilities and health checks.


I've heard different views about whether or not one truly can say that all of today's dog breeds came from cross breeding. If I cross one wolf with another wolf, I wouldn't call that cross breeding. To be able to cross breeds, you first needs to have a dog and a bitch of two different breeds and the point in which a homogeneous group of dogs can be considered an own breed, can be a little bit hard to define.

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FL-that was the point I was very poorly trying to make!!!
My rambling is what comes from having a Thursday off from nursery! I shouldn't be allowed to converse with adults!!! 3/4 year olds are more my level!!! PMSL!
 
It makes my blood boil, when people look on breeders who keep dogs as only interested in the money. Indiscriminate breeding takes place throughout the animal - and human world, so why pick on dogs ? I agree puppy farms should be banned completley, but the majority of those are in Ireland, they look on it as a business, supply and demand.
I have specialised in one breed for 12 years bringing it back from a very unstable breed to some kind of stability . I have 6 generations of home bred dogs all sound healthy and fit .
They are my babies, I love each and every one of them, we breed only to replace older bitches and for the next generation, our kennels are the leading kennels for the breed, money doesnt come into it (well apart from spending).
But!!! a breeders licence for specialist dogs such as ours are lumped together with commercial puppy farmers, there should be a different approach for specialist breeders, otherwise we just get lumped together with these farmers, which is very wrong, especially as we have worked so hard on and with our dogs.
as for breeding our 5.1/2 yr old bitch has just had her first litter, from which we kept a bitch pup back , 1)to keep the line going and 2) so her mother has company. bless.
 
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But if thats the case should a rescue centre not then be the first port of call?


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Absolutely completely 100% agree!! Who pays £600 for a 'cockerpoo' (seen in my local paper this week) when the rescues are full to the brim
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It makes my blood boil, when people look on breeders who keep dogs as only interested in the money.

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I think OP was aiming her comments at people who solely DO breed just for the money and unfortunatly they really do exist, and I'm sure we're not only concerned with indiscriminate dog breeding but as this is All About Dogs............
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I know it's a bit irrelevant but just wanted to point out that A* mum plus B* dad is called a crossbreed.
cross breed mum + a* dad is a mongrel Crossbreed mum plus crossbreed dad is a mongrel.

You can get pedigree rescues ten a penny. I, personally, think it's because some are so so well bred that they have specific needs. Wether that be because they are a working strain (or a working breed) and people expect them to be lapdogs, which they're never going to be. So once the dog gets bored, it causes mayhem, then the owner doesnt want it.

If people want a lapdog they should get something bred for that purpose or a small mongrel which more often than not will have a nice calm temperament and be suited to family life. One end of my street is private 'middle class' houses, the other chav central (I live bang in the middle). One end we have labs in abundance. The other it;s staffies and akitas.
 
Why is it 'indiscriminate' to cross-breed as such? This seems to assume that breeding within a breed is always fine and clearly that is not so. Many breeds have serious inherited problems, caused by the very process of in-breeding.

Surely responsible breeding has nothing to do with breeds or cross-breeds, it has to do with producing a healthy, happy animal that has a purpose to serve and therefore can find a home for life.
 
Tweedette, the OP is not refering to the breeders of pedigree dogs such as yourself, but breeders who intentionally breed cross breeds. I assume that it costs money to register with the KC and x breed pups are inelegable for registration, so therefore breeding them must be much cheaper than breeding purebreds. A breeder of cross breeds would not be breeding to produce a show winner, maintain old blood lines or to improve a breed so therefore they must be doing it purely for profit.
 
thats what my post was saying
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that sometimes it's better to have a cross breed or a mongrel, as they're more likely to suit first time owners or those who just want a faithful family friend.
 
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thats what my post was saying
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that sometimes it's better to have a cross breed or a mongrel, as they're more likely to suit first time owners or those who just want a faithful family friend.

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Sorry _Charlie_ I meant QR!!!
 
I'm probably wrong, but i thought the origin of these designer cross breeds was to produce hypoallergenic poodle crosses , for folks who couldn't face being a poodle owner
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Note- I have an australian shepherd, given to me by breeder after his showing career, and a GSDx, affectionately known as the *ikey shepherd and is one of the many dogs sent over from Ireland for rehoming.
 
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Why is it 'indiscriminate' to cross-breed as such? This seems to assume that breeding within a breed is always fine and clearly that is not so. Many breeds have serious inherited problems, caused by the very process of in-breeding.

Surely responsible breeding has nothing to do with breeds or cross-breeds, it has to do with producing a healthy, happy animal that has a purpose to serve and therefore can find a home for life.

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I believe you're more likely to succeed in breeding with a purpose etc. by breeding purebreds, e.g. because with cross breeds or mongrels it is more unpredictable which genes and traits that will show up in the offspring.

For example, let us say you want to breed faster police dogs, that can run up and catch the villains even faster than today's police dogs. So you mate a good working GSD with a good racing Greyhound!
You might get what you intended but you might just as well get a whole bunch of GSD crosses that sprints past the villain to catch rabbits instead or maybe you'll get Greyhound crosses that spends hours on trying to outsmart the rabbits...

If you instead mates two reasonably fast and good working GSDs, you're much more likely to actually get a bunch of GSDs that can run up and catch the villains faster than their parents.




Another example, if you mate your small cross breed or mongrel bitch, happy with her walks and likes getting some cuddles, with a small cross breed or mongrel dog in the neighbourhood, with a similar disposition as your bitch, maybe you'll get what you intended and maybe it will turn out that one or even both of them had an ancestor that needed lots of exercise/was the number one hunter in the county etc. and the trait just happened to skip a generation or two.

If you instead mate a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, you will most likely get small dogs that are happy with their walks and likes getting some cuddles.




SKK promotes what in direct translation would be called out breeding, they encourage Swedish breeders to breed dogs with as low inbreeding percentage as possible (null or a low percentage = out breeding) and have a page at their homepage, where a program calculates the inbreeding percentage between different possible dogs and bitches for you. E.g. you can easily compare the inbreeding percentage between using dog A, B, C, D or E together with bitch F, before making your decision.



Add to that, the majority of breeders that breeds cross breeds or mongrels that I've heard/read about doesn't think they need to do any health tests on their dogs and bitches because cross breeds and mongrels are supposed to be innate healthy. And possibly even worse, their puppies can be bought by people who believes that owning a cross breed or mongrel somehow is a guarantee for that there will be no large vet bills.
(How does innate healthiness protect against e.g. being hit by a car or bites from another dog?)

E.g. I saw a case on TV, were a family had bought a large cross breed/mongrel puppy, because they could not afford vet bills (one of them said straight out that it was the reason why they did not buy a purebred puppy). When he was only between 1 and 2 years old, the vets told them that he had such a severe HD fault, that it was either operation or euthanasia.
They definitely didn't have the money to pay for the operation but was so lucky that the vet clinic had some sort of a trust fund (?), donated by a previous client, that could help with paying for the treatment of animals owned by people who didn't have enough money themselves. So the dog got the operation that he needed.



If one of my purebred dogs would need a HD operation (touch wood), then since their parents have been x-rayed and recommendations about which results that is allowed to breed on, has been followed, my insurance company would help me pay for such an operation.





Also SKK have rules that does so that if you act irresponsible towards puppy buyers or your own dogs etc, as I recall, they can either ban you from registering any puppies during 6 months or 1 year or if that doesn't help/the offence is considered severe enough from the beginning, they can ban you as a member completely and you will never be able to sell purebred dogs with SKK certificates again.

If it is found out (and this does also happen, by the way rulings in SKK's disciplinary board are printed in SKK's magazine for everyone to read) that a banned member have continued breeding but made a second member stand as the breeder, the second member can eventually also be completely banned from SKK.

This might not help me as an individual puppy buyer if I've bought a "bad" puppy but it does weed out irresponsible breeders and there is no similar, comparable system for weeding out irresponsible breeders of cross breeds or mongrels over here.

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Fair enough, that is very interesting to read, but two thoughts spring to mind:

- in breeding has caused quite bad health problems, either coincidentally, e.g. hip problems, or on purpose, e.g. flat faced dogs/cats that have respiratory problems

- the allocation of some breeds is entirely random, e.g. the Kennel Club in the UK recognizes two kinds of Spitz, Mittel and Klein, but the US also recognize the slightly larger Great Spitz - can't really see any great breeding plan behind these decisions.

I would also suspect that breeding within breeds might be a lot more hit and miss in terms of producing desired characteristics than you suggest, but I may be entirely wrong.

Completely agree on the health question. I do not think mongrels are more healthy as such and I do think breeders should do all they can to breed healthy dogs.
 
That is why I said more likely, I agree that there is a lot of hit and miss in breeding but it can still be more or less likely.


I tried to make as good examples as I could of that the breeding result isn't likely to be 50% from each parent and that you don't know which trait respective puppy will inherit from each parent or other ancestor. But if you breed two purebred dogs that have been bred for generations to function as working dogs or pet dogs, it is more likely that you will get puppies suitable as working dogs or pet dogs.


Throw 6 dices 300 times and the result shows how likely it is that dogs will have this or that HD result. Though that you overall get what looks like a unitary result, when you've only thrown the dices say 10 times, the result will probably look everything but unitary.
If you take all GSD litters that are born one year they will most likely have a more unitary result, than if you only look at a handful of GSD litters.





Regardless of what you breed, be it dogs, cats or horses etc, it matters how sensible breeders and buyers are.

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Sorry, I am still totally confused, but interested, hence more questions (not trying to be stroppy!!).

Am I right in assumin gthat almost nothing in terms of heredity is a 50% chance? There will be recessive genes, combinations, mutations, etc? My impression of racehorse breeding where millions are spent on producing a narrow set of characteristics is that they are not really getting very far, is dog breeding quite different?

Doesn't it also depend on the characteristic one focuses on? Breeding for 'working dogs' doesn't make much sense in terms of genetics. The concept doesn't make much sense even outside genetics; what is a working dog? What work is it supposed to do? What counts as doing that work well?

Finally, I was under the impression that show breeders at least breed for what I would term quite irrelevant characteristics like a specific size, head size, shape, etc. and produce a huge number of puppies to get the one that meets these criteria.
 
Booboos, working GSDs are bred along quite specific lines, working lines and show lines have quite distinct personalities, drives etc. Even the colouring, there are very few black and gold working GSDs compared to dark sables, bi-colours and blacks.

For example, at the Sieger show in Germany, all the VA dogs have to pass a a work test (short attack, long flight, obedience, tracking). So they all have the highest level of working qualifications, are sound, fit etc, and can also gait for long periods and show well.

Working bred shepherds are bred to work (protection, tracking, obedience, French ring), trial (where those disciplines are a sport and points are awarded) and nothing else and have different drive, personality, type - they are 'harder' in every sense of the word.
There are very distinct and well-recognised working GSD lines/dogs etc as there are with show bred dogs.

A lot of the police forces breed their own animals as the dogs being bred now are not 'strong' enough.
In a hell of a lot of cases, working drive is inherited and I have seen it with my own eyes.

There are strong moves to marry the two types and there are a lot of working types that would do well in the show ring and vice versa, but not a universal type. Yet.
 
I have actually enjoyed reading this thread!!
It makes a refreshing change for people to post their opinions in such an enlightened and informative way without it descending into a slanging match!!
I have learnt quite a bit, thank you!!
 
Yay
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I haven't bored the pants off anyone. Yet.

Also, forgot to add, at the Sieger show, the top dogs also have to present a progeny group. The aim of the Sieger is to showcase the best GSDs in the world and by that, THE males to use in a breeding programme.
And of course all dogs must have acceptable health test results.
 
CC-I'm am seriously finding this eye opening!! I love the GSD hip scoring in particular as I often saw pups advertised as Hip Scored but never really understood what they were going on about!!
Breeding really is a proper science! I think thats why I get a bit annoyed at Back Yard Breeders who are out for a quick buck sometimes at the expense of the poor animals.
 
Yeah, it is a real kick in the teeth, the breed fraternity have been trying to introduce the German-style scheme for some time IE nothing is bred or wins top awards without working qualifications and/or at the very least acceptable health scores, is sound to do more than a few laps of a ring and is strong in character - and the KC have fought us all the way.
All they are bothered about is that we don't blow whistles to attract animals outside the ring (but that is a whole other debate
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More and more people are sending their animals to Germany now because it is a better system.
The KC is even against off-lead gaiting, which is the best way for a judge to see how well an animal moves and is a great obedience test.

Then to see people breeding a dog and a bitch just because they can without doing ANY of those things, well, just takes us back to where we started
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Sorry, GSD ramble overload
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