> Interesting isn't it?
>

Certainly is :-)  Never seen a paper from an accademic quite like that before.  Where are his references?  Where is his reference?  Which university did he take his Masters at?
I am also wondering just which health issue anyone would be interested in corrected with a bichon crossed with a poodle as both of these have extraordinarily long life expectancies.  Why would they not just breed from healthy bichons or poodles to produce equally healthy bichons or poodles?

> Also, you talk about the dogs being offloaded, but from what I have seen in rescues, most dogs still seem to be bull terrier, GSD and collie types, with the odd large breed who grew too powerful for its owners. I may be completely wrong, but I haven't seen a massive influx of cockapoos, springadors and golden doodles.
>

Maybe because there are so many they have their own rescue...

http://www.labradoodle-rescue.com/

There are lots of small fluffy/pug/oodles in rescue but they don't tend to use the designer names and just call them crosses..

http://www.manytears.co.uk/

There's lots of ex puppy farm dogs there and the types you mention but plenty of pug/westie/poodle crosses too.Also I'd think the various breed rescues would also take on crosses of their breed.

Ktee wrote

>Ok I'll be honest :-) If i had an accidental litter,which by the way, has never,and will never happen,and i had a >chance to sell the pups for mega bucks,then ofcourse i would! Why would i sell them for £50 when i could get £500 >for them confused
>I wouldn't sell them to jo blo and would do extensive home checks,give the babes proper health care etc etc When >it comes to money i aint no martyr ;-)
>Now people breeding deliberate crosses and preying on the naive general public are a completely different ball >game...

Well that just about explains what I've been saying - knowing the PRICE of everything and the WORTH of nothing :(

The reason you would sell them for £50 rather than the £500 you could get would be that the higher price tag IMPLIES that the pups are something they are not - you don't have to actually say it :( :(  the lower price is an honest evaluation of the costs of rearing, advertising and rehoming an unplanned litter of unpredictable temperament and type.  

The higher price tag for basically a mongrel tells me that pound signs are more important than ensuring an unplanned litter does not get born in the first place ;)

>Liz R, do you charge crossbreed prices for your crossbreeds, or inflated, 'designer dog' prices?

I sell them for the same as my kc reg bichons even though I pay a more expensive stud fee, as the stud fee for the maltese stud I use is dearer than the bichon stud. They cost the same to rear as the bichon pups, the only thing that is different is that I do not have the cost of registering them.

I am very particular who I sell any puppy to. I do not sell to the best of my knowledge to anyone who works full time or has a small baby. I keep in touch as far as possible with puppy buyers. My dogs are treated with as much love and respect as anyone else on this forum and my pups reared, loved and cared for as knowledgeably as I am capable of.

The majority of their owners keep in touch and charging a low price for them would not attract the type of person I want to own my pups. Why would I sell them cheaper than anyone else who is selling them?

I am not a money grabbing puppy farmer, if I was i would have bred from my pug regardless of her defects.

What about all these people selling Frenchies for £1500! I'm not on that bandwagon.

My sister knows a couple who have bought 3 bitches and a stud dog, keep the dog in the garage which they have had"done out". All three are in whelp, 2 due beginning of November and booked in for c-sections, the other a week later. Wait for this, they have never whelped a bitch before!
They have  apparently had to have metal security gates put in their house and garage as people keep hanging around trying to break in. They have even got a web site.

Now, that in my opinion that is wrong.

Yes it is wrong. However I do not believe that just because Joe Bloggs down the road isnt reputable and shouldn't even own a dog or breed but does, it gives anyone else carte blanche to do what ever they wish because they are more knowledgable. In fact I would say it is because of such breeders I myself should go above and beyond acceptable practices to protect my breed

http://www.labradoodle-rescue.com/

Wow! What an informative website.

The reason you would sell them for £50 rather than the £500 you could get would be that the higher price tag IMPLIES that the pups are something they are not - you don't have to actually say it :-( :-(  the lower price is an honest evaluation of the costs of rearing, advertising and rehoming an unplanned litter of unpredictable temperament and type. 

Fully agree, and as somebody who DID have an accidental litter and indeed the VERY FIRST cross ever of those two breeds known in the UK, I charged £50 a pup! Because they were MUTTS! It was my fault, and I had to pay for making the mistake -not profit from it. It cost me a fortune to rear 9 pups and advertise them, but it was my choice to go through with the pregnancy rather than abort it. (Because I didn't want to risk the bitch, she was wanted for proper breeding later on -and indeed went on to have 2 purebred, carefully planned litters with an RCC winner in each litter after this.)

> I sell them for the same as my kc reg bichons even though I pay a more expensive stud fee, as the stud fee for the maltese stud I use is dearer than the bichon stud. They cost the same to rear as the bichon pups, the only thing that is different is that I do not have the cost of registering them.
>

I doubt any serious,responsible Maltese breeder would let their dog be used on another breed? Do they show and health test?I don't supose the conformation of the stud matters though if all the pups will be different.You also don't have the expense of showing your dogs.

> My sister knows a couple who have bought 3 bitches and a stud dog, keep the dog in the garage which they have had"done out". All three are in whelp, 2 due beginning of November and booked in for c-sections, the other a week later. Wait for this, they have never whelped a bitch before!
> They have  apparently had to have metal security gates put in their house and garage as people keep hanging around trying to break in. They have even got a web site.
>

There are puppy farmers and byb's all over the country with unethical practices and flashy websites,how does that make what you do right?

> [url=http://www.labradoodle-rescue.com/" rel=nofollow]http://www.labradoodle-rescue.com/[/url]
>
> Wow! What an informative website.

It is and very realisitic about the claims of the breeders that tout the "allergy dogs" line..

http://www.labradoodle-rescue.com/allergyinfo.html

>The reason you would sell them for £50 rather than the £500 you could get would be that the higher price tag IMPLIES that the pups are something they are not - you don't have to actually say it :-( :-(  the lower price is an honest evaluation of the costs of rearing, advertising and rehoming an unplanned litter of unpredictable temperament and type.

But wouldn't an "accidental" litter cost the same to rear as a pedigree one? Not withstanding health tests etc which are a one off.
How would i be "implying" the pups would be something they're not?? If i advertise them as ?X?,tell the owners there was an accidental mating etc etc. If they were willing to pay the price,what exactly would it be that i am doing wrong?

>It was my fault, and I had to pay for making the mistake -not profit from it. It cost me a fortune to rear 9 pups and advertise them,

That's very big of you :) Like i said,not all of us can afford to be a martyr.If i was silly enough to let the accident happen then i would try and be clever enough to not be left in the red because of it.

>Because they were MUTTS!

One persons MUTT is anothers treasure.My mum has a crossbreed which she wouldn't part with for any amount of money,you just cant put a price on these things. Some people are just willing to pay any price for the dog they want,be it cross or pure.

*****This whole thing is such a mute point anyway,as i will never be in this situation to begin with.I'm just surmising is all..******

> But wouldn't an "accidental" litter cost the same to rear as a pedigree one? Not withstanding health tests etc which are a one off.
> How would i be "implying" the pups would be something they're not?? If i advertise them as ?X?,tell the owners there was an accidental mating etc etc. If they were willing to pay the price,what exactly would it be that i am doing wrong?
>

It's what goes in to the responsibly bred pedigree litter before it's on the ground that costs so much,health testing,depending on what it's for is very often alot more than a one off.Showing the dog costs money(and lots of it from what I can tell) plus stud fees,affix maintenance etc etc .If your two untested,not shown dogs mate there are no costs at all up to that point.By selling them for the same price as the former litter you are taking advantage of gullable buyers who don't know any better(if they did they wouldn't be paying that for a cross.)

> One persons MUTT is anothers treasure.My mum has a crossbreed which she wouldn't part with for any amount of money,you just cant put a price on these things. Some people are just willing to pay any price for the dog they want,be it cross or pure.
>
>

No one has said that a Mutt is any less of a good pet,I own one myself and couldn't love him more whatever his parentage.He came from a good rescue though that charge the going rate for crossbreeds.He's a JRT x Basset but they didn't call him a JackBasset and charge me £500.

That's very big of you :-) Like i said,not all of us can afford to be a martyr.If i was silly enough to let the accident happen then i would try and be clever enough to not be left in the red because of it.

Well if you can't afford an accidental litter without charging pedigree prices for mongrels, then you presumably can't afford unexpected vets bills either, so should not have dogs to start with.................it's all the same, UNEXPECTED expenses. The difference is, I learnt from my mistake and am big enough to admit I MADE a mistake, you can't ever be certain there are no unexpected vet bills.

It's what goes in to the responsibly bred pedigree litter before it's on the ground that costs so much,health testing,depending on what it's for is

Indeed. Just this week I paid £120 to the KC for registrations for a start -I didn't have to do that with my accidental crosses. That's quite apart from the stud fee, hip scoring, eye testing, shows (I'd never breed from a bitch who hadn't been proved to be a good example of her breed at shows) etc etc.

> Now my concern would be that people who buy designer mongrels are being mislead by the breeders going on about "hybrid vigour" and think they are getting a healthier dog than they actually are. But that is a different question.

Now that to me is the whole point, and the same with the majority of purebred dogs which are mostly in popular breeds poorly bred, people are not getting anything like what is says on the tin.

Like some of the cheap imports of various things, no quality control, and some can even be harmful.

> Also, you talk about the dogs being offloaded, but from what I have seen in rescues, most dogs still seem to be bull terrier, GSD and collie types, with the odd large breed who grew too powerful for its owners. I may be completely wrong, but I haven't seen a massive influx of cockapoos, springadors and golden doodles.
>

The Dogs Trust disagree..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/newsbeat/newsid_7462000/7462812.stm

I'm sorry but there's nothing about that article I find that scientifically interesting - no more so than the kind of surmising I do with my friends about the state of the universe. To me, that's more of a scenario on how selective breeding for traits were orginally used to create dogs that served a purpose. As MM mentioned, where is the long-term scientific study that compared purebreds with first crosses and mongrels. As Isabel mentioned, where are the references to other studies. I've asked you before if you know how many deleterious genes your breeds share. Are they dominant or recessive? how do they operate together? If you don't know the answers how can you claim improved health by crossing them. To me that shows a lack of understanding on the way genes work. A mongrel or a cross can be healthy, they can suffer from the same diseases as purebreds. It depends on their parentage.

I do know how to get really healthy dogs. Turn them all out and let natural selection work on the genome. The strongest and fittest will survive to breed. The weak and diseased will die. This is how wild populations maintain genetic health. Now then, that just isn't going to happen is it. So for me, a breeder that performs relevant health tests, knows their lines (and that includes history and how traits carry through) and mates individuals that are genetically compatible has more chance of producing healthy litters than someone who just combines two breeds, without knowledge of their genetic makeup, and assumes it will all come out OK because the dog is a crossbreed.

ETA - I've just searched PubMed and can't find a single paper with him even as a contributor - maybe not much of a geneticist?

> you just cant put a price on these things

then why would you?

> The Dogs Trust disagree..
>

Fair enough. I take back what I said about rescues, though I still maintain that many of the people buying designer mongrels are good owners and not all are airheads wanting a fashion accessory. I do accept though that many of these owners would probably have been just as happy with a pure breed.