[PinkMartini]

Originally Posted by royalpuppies

For those who do not aprove that Mixes should not be bred purposely I ask your opinion or answer to this question. This is honest and I am not being sarcastic please do not take this the whrong way.
Why buy a pure bred Chihuahua with high risks of health issues when you can buy a puppy (mixed) that looks like the Chihuahua, has more variety in temperaments and also has less chances of having the common health issues?

Why do you breed? Answer that question for me... It's obvious you don't breed for the 'love' of the breed(s). If you did you wouldn't be mixing dog breeds. You'd be working to 'improve' the breed by breeding out health problems, ect. And why have so many different breeds? How can you possibly give each & every dog the attention and love it deserves? Right now I see 27 puppies on your website. 27! And putting "Info pages" on your mixed breeds makes me laugh! There's no way in hell that you can tell what a mutt will look like full grown. There's no standard to what a "Chorkie" will look like.

And about the question above, sorry to say but mixed breed dogs don't have 'less health probelms than purebreds.' Since cotton-pickin' when?? My aunt has a Yorkie/Chihuahua cross who had the very same knee joint problem Yorkies are prone to!

Genetic health problems are caused by bad breeders and can occur in bad cross-breeding just as easily. Don't fall for that myth.

Variety in temperment? Temperment is one of the reasons most people PICK a breed of dog. I know I chose the yorkie breed because of the yorkie temperment.

Breeds are no longer mixes. Yes they started out that way but they're that way no longer.

But no, they did not start out as 'designer breeds'. The dogs we see today were created to fulfill a need, a function. This shepherd wanted a dog that would drive cattle but not be as tall as a regular dogs to be had so it wouldn't get kicked, so now we have the corgis.

This person wanted a dog to work birds but not be as fast so it wouldn't outrun the hunters. The results? The Gordon Setter andt he Clumber Spaniel.

This person needed a dog to retrieve game from freezing waters and have the stamina to do it all day. The Lab, the Chessie and the Water Spaniel came into being to fit these needs.

None of those dogs came about because some one sat down and thought 'Oh-wouldn't-it-be-just-ducky-to-cross-these-two-dogs-for-
the-cutsesy-pups-and-give-them-this-silly
-cutesy-name-and-everyone-will-be-jealous
-of-me-and-want-one!'

The Alaskan Klee Kai, filled the need of the creators because they loved Siberian Huskies but couldn't have such a large dog in thier home. So they set about making a small version of thier beloved breed.

(And they didn't give it a silly name either! Klee Kai is an Eskimo word for 'small dog'. Very appropriate, I think.)

There's a very good article about 'Designer Breeds' in last month's issue of Dog Fancy magazine explaining this. I quote from page 36...

'You hope your pup will represent the best of both breeds but it's possible he'll represent the worst.'

Another quote: 'Some pairings -such as Labs and poodles- bring together breeds susceptible to similar inherited medical problems, in this case hip dysplaysia, epilepsy, and progressive retinal atrophy. Scrupulous breeders of purebred dogs are dutybound to improve the line, which means they must never mate a dog with such inherited characteristics and must never pair, say, a Poodle, with another breed, says Anne Rogers Clark, an AKC all-breed judge and immdeiate past president of the Poodle Club of America.'

'Designer Dogs' are not perfect dogs, no matter what the breeders claim. Labradoodles do require a great deal of grooming because of that coat and they also need a lot of exercise and training, for instance. And of course they're not, as so often portrayed, an allergic-free dog. No breed is.

And of course, the purebreds are more predictable in thier temperment.

Yes, there's clubs that support these cross-breedings (Labradoodle Clubs in 8 states and several Cockapoo Clubs.) But make no mistake, they're still not breeds and when the fad passes, there'll be tons of unwanted dogs about.

(Hmmm, one of these 'clubs' has the name of American Canine Hybrid Club! Now wait just a bone-pickin' minutes. A Hybrid is when you breed two different species such as a wolf/dog, or a donkey/horse or tiger/lion. Designer breeds aren't hybrid! They're still dog/dog pairings! They need to read the dictionary for the proper meaning of that word )