I wrote this in reply to a post in the Bull Boxer debate because a respected member is beginning to feel that the forum is coming to have an 'anti-crossbreed ethos', but it became such a digression that I’m putting it in a new thread.

Knowledgably produced lurchers and longdogs are usually bred for one of two reasons. The first is to try to get a true all rounder that can't challenge (say) a greyhound coursing hare on pasture under rules, but can make a decent hand at many kinds of work. Other lurchers and longdogs are bred for specific prey, over specific terrain in specific circumstances, to fill a niche that no KC reg dog is quite perfect for.

With lurchers/longdogs there is a wealth of experience, much of it going back well before many current breeds were recognised so if I ever decided to produce, say, a deerhound x grey first cross or a ¾ grey x deerhound litter, I'd know what I'd get with as much confidence as people in many breeds would have with a KC reg litter.

If I did something more unusual, say crossing a deerhound and beardie, I could make a fair informed guess at the likely results, but I would be far from sure, so much of what Sylvi said, especially about culling could well apply. Even if the cross didn't turn out to be a temperament/health disaster it might easily prove to have less serious problems, to be of little or no use for work or be totally unpredictable leaving me with litters that were an almighty headache to home appropriately. The only plus point would be that people (hopefully) would know not to try that again!

On the other hand in the right hands (not saying mine!) and using the right breeding stock in the best proportions the cross might turn out a very useful strain of working lurcher and one that would quite quickly become as predictable as a ¾ bred grey x deerhound.

That’s why lurcher and longdog people ‘experiment’. The good ones know what they are getting into, are prepared to cull hard if big problems occur and to scour the country for good homes for pups that, whilst not a temperament/health disaster, are not a success either.

Of course the bad ones (and the folks who want a top class working dog but couldn’t train/enter the best and easist of purebred coursing saplings and aren’t fit to own a geranium) are the reason for the enormous number of lurchers and longdogs in rescues :-(.

Can't speak for others Sharon, but I'm not against crossbreeds. I am against people mating two breeds together and announcing to the world within a few years that they have developed a new breed that has all the best of all worlds and are breeding true, when the number of individuals, not counting those culled, amounts to less than a few dozen.

I don't think I have ever known two lurchers who were alike even if the same cross and I don't think I have ever heard a lurcher breeder claim that they had produced either the perfect dog or that breeding cross to cross produced anything but another dog.

Ja:)kie

Jackie, if any lurcher breeder has the perfect dog/cross, I want to meet them :D.

Breeding predictably is another matter. True, lurcher to lurcher crosses, particularly if the background of the parents is not well known will usually produce more lurchers of variable height, ability, appearance and often as not temperament. Brian Plummer calls them Bitsa dogs - bits a' this, bits a' that, bits a t'other. Some of them may be good workers, some useless but nice pets, and others can inherit all the temperament & health problems in their unknown pedigree. You just don't know.

On the other hand, some lurchermen do have predictable strains. Some deride David Hancock - and I was inclined to agree until I met him and his wife and saw his dogs - but few would deny that he produces lurchers that breed fairly true and are what he says they are in terms of ancestry.

Longdogs are a different ball game again. Perhaps if you used something unusual and exotic - an afghan, one of the Mediterranean sighthounds - the outcome would be unpredictable. But crosses between the 'celtic' sighthounds have been done for so long, and more recently there have been so many saluki crosses that providing the base stock is sound, the various mixes are pretty predictable. Obviously the further down the line the less the predictability, but I think most would agree that with the common longdog producing breeds - greys, whippets, deerhounds, salukis - you have a pretty good idea of what you'll get from a first and ¾ cross at least.

On the whole I agree with you about new breeds, especially as the 'old' one have quite enough problems that need sorting but even there I have a niggle at the back of my mind. Phil & Nicky smile - and probably grind their teeth silently :-) - when I say that I don't believe the modern wolfhound is a truly ancient breed, but I don't think that it really is. I think Capt. Graham recreated something that may or may not be close to the original (if there was an original in any meaningful sense), and that the modern IW is probably quite a long way from what Capt. Graham envisioned. Yet I'd hate to live in a world without IWs as we know them now, so who am I to disagree with someone who loves labradoodles (or the idea of labradoodles) as much as I love wolfies?