on the website of a local free ad paper in the PEDIGREE  pet section
cava-jacks, labradoodles £800, and Jackapoos £350 a bargain!

I was photographing at a charity fun dog show a few weeks ago and saw the UGLIEST dog ever.....all bulgy eyed and strange shaped body....well it was also a local qualifier for Scruffts, and the woman owner had her mother tagging along, and mother said she should put it in the scruffts qualifing class and the daughter turned around all indignant and said she wasnt eligible because she was a pure bred "dachi"...not a mongrel!!! (it was a dax cross chihuahua....and then I heard her telling everyone how they had bought a male chi puppy to sire a litter with her because it would be so much healthier than a pure chi litter. Grr...you cant educate these plebs!)

There was a companion show attached to the agility show I did this weekend - I saw a couple of extra long chihuahuas, thats what they must have been !!

Eeeeeewwww - I have a mental image now.

I have had a couple of conversations recently with people who insist that crossbreeds/mongrels are definitly healthier and longer lived than pure bred dogs. Why does this idea insist on continuing surely it is pot luck with regard to how healthy a mongel is I cant imagine anyone health testing mongrel parents. At least one of these people had also been telling me their dog was a pedigree but not registered that they bought from a friend whose dog had puppies.

I am having all sorts of ideas as to what a long bodied chi would look like 

>Why does this idea insist on continuing surely it is pot luck with regard to how healthy a mongrel is I cant >imagine anyone health testing mongrel parents

Well a certain RSPCA Vet can't have helped with that particular myth - citing hybrid vigour etc ;) and ignoring the fact that two dogs of different breeds aren't different species ;)

As for health testing mongrel parents, I very much doubt that there are any figures kept for mongrel health ;)

My own mongrel cross breed (Parson Russel Type bitch and Afghan Father - total accident ) was the most expensive 'free to a good home' dog I have ever known - he cost far more in vets bills than all the pedigree dogs my whole family has ever owned put together :(

Even our rescue pedigrees have been strangers to the vets (apart from vaccs)