I've been looking through old posts on the forum and I pick up an anti-mongrel vibe... What is it exactly that you object to? I agree totally with the dislike for the made up "designer" breeds and unscrupulous breeders trying to make a quick buck... but I noticed a dislike for lurchers and so on. Do they tend to be ill or aggressive if they are cross breeds? Please don't get annoyed, I'm just curious to see what the consensus is. I don't own a dog (yet) and while I hope to get a pedigree I was very much put off getting a mongrel by some of the posts of this site.. and now I feel a little guilty ,like I'm discriminating! So, Heinz 57... what's the lowdown?

You must have been selective with the posts you have been reading because I have been on this forum a few months and I have found there to be no anti-mongrel vibe.  There is definitely an anti 'lets breed crossbreeds deliberately' vibe but the reason for that I would think is self explanatory.  No breeder who loves their chosen breed is going to deliberately cross it with another breed with uncertain outcomes.  I think you will find that many breeders on this forum own crossbreeds and rescues so as I said I think the posts you have read must have been only a few or you have interpreted them wrong.

but I noticed a dislike for lurchers and so on. Do they tend to be ill or aggressive if they are cross bree

Anti lurcher posts where ?

One of my puppies best mates is a lurcher(failed hunting dog dumped on a motorway rescue BTW0

I've owned rescue mongrels in the past however no one health tests mongrel produced by the local "top"street stud & many like my last one are riddled with health problems despite living a long life-HD, deafness, acute nervousness, eye defects etc etc etc & yes that was one dog(well bitch actually)

i dont think people have something against mongrels- but i think they are suggesting that you dont know what illnesses they may pick/prone to as you dont know for certain what breeds they're produced from.
ie- you can buy a gsd pup and be aware of the risk of Hip Dysplasia etc blah blah

where as if you pick up a total mongrel - you may not know what x breeds its parents are, and dont know therefore what illnesses its prone to.

i have a cross breed- luckily we have a 'good idea' what her parents were.

you get the good and bad sides of the breeds included in the mongrel.

I'm not sure where you've seen a dislike for lurchers and mongrels - most of us have owned and loved them, either now or in the past. The dislike for deliberate breeding of unsuitable crosses to con the public is certainly there, and also a dislike of careless crossing by not taking proper care of an in-season bitch ...

As for illnesses, etc - not many mongrels (or their sire (if known) and dam) are hip-scored, eye-tested, etc, and mongrels get these inherited conditions as well (despite what some people would have you believe). Mongrels can be great - they're also a complete gamble! :)

Ive got one pedigree and one mongrel and Ive never sensed any negativity towards my mongrel or any other mongrel on this forum, I have had equal help with both dogs.

I think you will find that its the deliberate cross breeding that happens by unscrupulous people for money, without any thought to the health of the dog/bitches involved and certainley not to any pups produced. Obviously from time to time accidents do happen.
When you cross 2 different breeds then the resulting pups become an unknown entity as it were, you dont know how big they'll grow what there temperaments will be like and whether the pups will be healthy. When you get a pure bred pup atleast you have a better idea of the answers as stud and bitch have been matched to complement each other.

Thats just my feelings on the subject. I have owned a rescued cross breed, and despite his bad start to life, i was lucky in that he never had any health or temperament issues.

Despite having dogs for most of my life I'd never owned a pure bred dog until 6 years ago! All my muttley dogs were lovely and I can't imagine having any sort of prejudice against crossbreeds and I can't say I've noticed it on here. What I do detest (as do others), are silly "designer" breeds which are created to feed a market of people silly enough to pay a fortune for the latest "must-have" and who don't realise they are actually just buying a crossbreed. And worse, often a dog that is a mixture of two quite incompatible breeds.

No-one on this site has anything against "mongrels" just the people who deliberately breed "mongrels" and give them a stupid name and then charge OTT prices, more than pedigree prices sometimes too.

I dunno how you have managed to get that impression!

Ive been here YEARS and i have four crossbreds two of which are lurchers. If i thoughtthis place was anti non ped. dogs i dont think  id have hung around as long as i have!

Em

Hi Salukipuppup,

Ahhh, I can understand how you may get that impression from some things that you read. But it's actually nothing against mongrels. But people making huge amounts of money from cross-breeds. Speaking for myself, mongrels, I love em! No probs whatsoever with them, I think most of us oldies were brought up with them, and they were the most common dog, they lived long healthy lives and were and are extremely lovable dogs.

I am not ashamed to say that the problem with me is maybe a touch of the green eyed monster. I spent years breeding my lot, travelled hundereds of miles to get the right dogs with tip top health and temprements, spent years getting the best of my breed checking into the best stud dogs and the pups I raised were the best I could possibly breed.  This is what all good breeders do, we spend time and money to give the best of the best in our pups. Everything is done above board, KC reg'd and it is hard work and costs a lot of money to produce the best litters. If you bought a dog from any of the legite breeders on this site, you know you are buing quality and years of experience.

Then............. some novice comes along pops two completely different breeds together spends no time or money checking into the health risks, or whether the two breeds together will give a well banlanced dog and a long life. Has absolutely no knowledge of what they are doing, and bingo has the cheek to sell them for £500 up!!! That is what upsets me, it is not just the messing about with different breeds but charging the public more than I would with all my years of knowledge and experience. And the fact that people will pay it............. I give up!! (Are the human race that stupid!)

I'm not a dog snob at all, all dogs are equal in all ways as dogs, but I do believe in paying for knowledge, experience and hard work. :-)

Thanks for the replies... I have to admit I expected more of a roasting than that. Reading back I can see how you might misinterpret my post as criticism... it was just an observation. I generally just open my mouth to change feet. As for anti-lurcher posts I can't think of any specifically but when cross breeds are mentioned they're invariably the ones that come up.

Lurchers have been bred or centuries as hunting dogs & aren't really"designer"dogs Breeders of "proper"lurchers often add in a pure breed to widen their gene pool & add to the ability of their dogs Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I know a game keeper who adds smooth BC blood every couple of generations to keep the"brains"as he calls it in his dogs. Seems to work as his dogs as very very effective rabbiters !

I don't think your post has been taken as criticism so much as simply erroneous :)  We don't feel criticised because so many of us have or have had well loved mongrels. 
I hope you have now realised that what you seem to have picked up as antipathy for mongrels is very definately the irresponsible or exploitative breeding of them.  I don't recall any anti-lurcher posts infact my recall would be the that they are often cited as one of the acceptable exceptions to crossbreeding rather than the exploitative profit motivated kind.

Could I just add that the strongly held opinions against irresponsible breeding come not from any prejudice against crossbreeds but from a devotion to doing right by all dogs!

Only rescues are stuffed to the gills with dogs who are the result of casual, irresponsible and downright greeding breeding and who have, all too often, developed the sort of health and behavioural problems that result. Sadly, the sort of people who buy into the "must have one of those" culture are usually the first to dump the dog that isn't the style accessory they assumed the poor thing would be.

Well said!

Nobody is anti mongrel but a lot of people are anti crossbreed...deliberate crossbreeds.

You will find that forum members are pro responsible breeding to maintain breeds  (see here http://www.dogplay.com/GettingDog/breedercomparison.htm'>http://www.dogplay.com/GettingDog/breedercomparison.htm) but are anti irresponsible breeding.  The vast majority of crossbreeds are the result of someones irresponsibility. 

Their breeders will not have health tested the parents for suitablility to reproduce as regard breed type temperament etc.  Very few take any responsibility for the pups once they have been sold/given away.

As for Lurchers, there are knowledgeable responsible people who breed them for a purpose and these tend to go to working homes.  Others sadly are just thrown together to produce pups that they can go lamping or coursing with, often ilegally, and if they aren't good at it they are abandoned. 

Very many of these end up in rescue.  I would say Bath dogs home used to have more of them than anything else, until recently where the national problem of abandoned Staffie types (often litters of pups in Bristol Dogs home) and their crosses is so common.

>I generally just open my mouth to change feet.

I know exactly how you feel! :-D

I agree, it's just irresponsible breeding to create mongrels with silly names that most people object to, not the blameless dogs themselves. I always thought I'd get a mongrel from rescue, still don't know how I ended up with 3 pedigree mutts bought from breeders! :-)

I don't agree with breeding crossbreeds however accidents DO happen (Humans...who'd have them!)

I personally love my pedigrees however a very close friend of mine has always grown up with rescue mongerals and loves them all the same as I do my pedigrees.

i dont think there is anything wrong with breeding a XB, & even calling it a stupid name,IF you have health tested parents & a waiting list, & are willing to take the pups back. i dont even think there can be much wrong with charging what you can get for a dog,apart from the "best" homes may not be able to afford a grand for a dog.

what i dont like is , untrue claims about XB (re health abilitys etc)
people not health testing parents
people not thinking through the X & if it will "gel" well
people breeding JUST to make money (clearly a case for XBs & ped dogs)
people selling them to anybody & no breeder backup.

however i am in a sport where there ARE purpose bred Xs ,that i see all the time.so i do have a different perspective of people on the board that breed show.

& live in a area (rural)where there are purpose -bred crosses bred loaclly, gundogs & pet dogs.
someone tryed to start a X  quite some years ago now, they called it a porlock terrier, which was a sealyham x cairn(or similar) simply as a pet dog, we also see alot of spaniel crosses sproker/ sprollie. various working terrier crosses, lab/goldiex poodle, & a fav of some of the farmers around here is BC x Huntaway.

my terrier was bred as one of those working terriers- and the farmer didnt do a great job- all her litter mates died and she came out of it with awful hips! her cross is meant to be quite aggro and full on, bred for going down holes etc- she just hasnt got the temperament for it! im glad that she's with me so that she wouldnt have to do that stuff- because of her hips it would have been very painful to do that work.
its not all bad if the farmers breed 2 crosses well, but its negligence when he just cant be bothered, and dumps the only surviving pup on the nearest neighbours- alcoholics!
anyway thats my experience..

But the Obedience dogs are not sold for £1000 a time are they Michelle or are they ?

So it's ok to charge huge sums for mongrels ?

I live in the middle of quite an intensive sheep farming area & no huntaways here, just ISDS BC's by the bucket full

Plus the "sporting"estates No oodles being worked there, working bred pedigree gundogs yes

We do however have an very active oodle breeder whose products often fill the kennels of the all breed rescues despite being sold for over £750 each ! None to date have managed to get into the working gundog scene

Q: If you breed crossbreeds just health checking parents won't show up recessive genes though will it? 

A. No it won't

There are X breeds in the Obedience world that have a good history re health testing behind them

I wonder however if any of the collie X's have been DNA'd for CEA & CL ? It would be interesting to ask around the next time I'm at an obedience show. There are some gorgeous genuine obedience "accidents"one in particular I'm number one fan of & some very nice purpose bred X breeds(at least one I think is brilliant from a working point of view the others I haven't seen work close up)

However & it's a big however these are outweighed by far by the "designer"bred for money mongrels & crossbreeds & negligent "accidentral"litters

Local GSD specialist colour breeder(breeds "whites""blues"etc from unscreened parents)is now seeking a small adult GSD bitch to breed with her cocker spaniel dog she couldn't sell from her last litter & a large Cocker adult bitch to breed with her biscuit sable GSD 6 month old puppy dog! The mind boggles bearing in mind she has epilepsy in her GSD lines(has just lost an epileptic bitch 6 months after she whelped her 2nd litter !!) She intends to sell them as SpAlsatians or SpAllies !!!!!!!!!

*

I adore mongrels, two of my best girls, sadly now gone were mongrels - fabulous personalities.

I also have two GSD's, but can't say I've ever really detected an anti mongrel feeling on the board. There are however a lot of breeders here, so the focus I think leans towards breeds, and I can understand that as a breeder, the deliberate mixing of breeds is a complete anathema. If you would like a mongrel, get one. God knows there are so many in rescue centres that any new home for them is a godsend. I also  think that mongrels can make a very good first dog, or dog for an inexperienced owner.

Jilly Coopers book, In Praise of the Mongrel sums it up.

Kat

I would agreee that an out and out mongler ay make quite a good first time dog, as any traits in it's ancestry should be so mixed up that none predominates too much.  On the other hadn a crossbreed (two parents of a specific breed) can be quite the opposite, especially iof the traits of the parent breeds are incompatible or combine in an unfortuate way.

For example a guarding breed and a retrieving breed could leave you with a dog who wnats to hold everthing in it's mouth bu won't let you have it and guards it.

A herdign breed with a terrier could leave you with a very unpredictable dog prone to chase and feisty enough to like a scrap or bite.

Other combinations can cause physical problems.