Cross Breeds

Why and how do people think mixed breeds are healthier than purebreds?

When people invest so much time, energy and money into their purebreds? How do people get this idea that purebreds could be healthier? Or where do they get this idea from? Sorry, that was a typo,..... why do they think mixes are healthier, I meant the second time I asked.

Public Comments

1. Because by mixing breeds..magic happens and all the bad traits disappear and only the good traits are left behind in a perfect, cute widdle doggy Yes, that was sarcasm People have been dredging up the fact that purebred dogs have limited gene pools, and by mixing these dogs with other breeds.."opens" up the pool...again,..where do all these bad traits go? I wish people would use old fashion logic when answering
2. i think mixing breeds could go either way, they could end up with all the bad of the breeds used or none and then you would end up with a very healthy dog it is fact though that most mixed breeds live longer than purebreds
3. They have more heath problems then mixed breeds.... Its more of an incest thing. Sheppards are pron to hip problems.....you breed 2 sheppards and they will probably have hip problems..... you mix a sheppard with a standard poodle (that dont have hip problems) and your mixed pup is less likely to be stricken by bad hips.... By mixing breeds your are opening the gene pool, where pure breeds share all the same traits and their ability to adapt genetically is miles behind breeds that have been mixed.
4. It' the whole in-breeding conception that people have. Purebred dogs get a lot of negative press, and (as evidenced plenty on this site) people seem to think that breeding full brother and sisters is a common occurrence. They call pure breds "mutants" (I've heard that one many times), and assume that they are unhealthy for those reasons. That said, there is also the problem of bybs... not ALL of them are breeding mixes... plenty of them are simply breeding pure bred dogs poorly. ADD: to Always Asking... OR they could suffer from hip dysplasia AND epilepsy....
5. Purebreds have specific health problems related to each breed. If you breed 2 labrador retrievers together, there is more a chance of hip dysplasia than if you have bred one with another dog not prone to it. Now granted, if you go through a reputable breeder that screens for it there is a very small chance of it getting it either way. Breeding the same breed together can be looked at as breeding 2 inferior qualities together (hip dysplasia prone X hip dysplasia prone for instance). There is also some strange quality that mutts seem to never really get sick. Im talking about the little respiratory infections, ect. I can attest to this, as I have owned pure bred dogs and mutts. This obviously isnt always true. I would pit a champion bred dog with sure bloodlines against a mutt most days. But compared against the average pure bred, unpapered dog? Mutt wins out.
6. i do not necessarily believe mixed breeds are healthier even though i had a mixed breed for 17 years with his only health issue being allergic to flea bites ... i have a pure breed jack russell terrier (with papers) who has been in and out of the vet her entire life ... allergies, injuries, and now cancer at the age of 11 ... so you just never know
7. Wishful thinking? Delusions?
8. They've been sucked into the aftermath of THAT documentary about bad practice in the dog breeding world that was shown in British TV some time ago now. Unfortunately there are some grounds for this thinking because in truth not everything is rosy in the world of purebred breeding - the almighty buck has entered into it, for starters, and over recent years, there a lot of new people coming into breeding, all breeds, who are more interested in show wins, than breeding generations of healthy stock, hopefully improving with each successive generation too! But you are right. Most of us are still concerned that we breed happy healthy puppies, 'fit for purpose' and all that. No right-minded breeder wants to send a crippled mutant out to a family, to cause heartbreak, to say nothing of costing a fortune at the vets. Unfortunately there are loads of the unscrupulous who have jumped on the bandwagon and are suggesting that mixing two perfectly good breeds together automatically means they are going to be healthier, live longer etc.etc. This of course, is rubbish! Mix breeding isn't regulated in the same way purebred breeding is, none of these breeding dogs are being tested (well rarely!) for the relevant problems within their breeds. I had one man telling me that his Shar Pei x Basset crossing was being done 'to put right all the wrongs in both breeds'. When I asked how, I got all the usual cant about how outcrossing was 'bound to strengthen the bloodlines of each breed'. The man was not for listening - and I'm not the only one who has tried to make him see reason. It still remains that some purebred breeds do need tidying up. I've just bought in one of my own breed, my own line having ended some years ago now, and he's coming up with problems I never had in my line!!! Sadly.
9. My dog was a mix...one that has become popular with the bybs and promoted as being "healthier" because of the mix. Check my profile, She was a walking genetic mess
10. Science says that if you have a population with large genetic variance and you RANDOMLY mix genes, the offspring will be healthier. This is a statistic discussing a large overall population - statistics mean NOTHING when applied to idividuals. The only thing that matters is the genetic makeup of that INDIVIDUAL. Trouble is that dogs don't have nearly the variance people think - a hip displasia gene is a hip displasia gene whether it be a GSD or cocker AND most mixed breeds are NOT random crossings. Most mixed breeds are bred on purpose these days but no health checking is done. So the "hardiness" random combination is supposed to produce is a misunderstanding of a commonly heard statement.
11. This is a very good question that opens up a discussion on many different facets. One of the driving forces behind this myth is the animal rights agenda. It started out with "puppy mills are bad", then all breeders are puppy mills, then all purebreds are unhealthy and all pets should be spayed or neutered and no one should ever get one exept from a shelter with the eventual extinction of pets altogether as the ultimate goal. In the meantime they are pushing the notion that all dogs have to live on someone's couch, that it's mean to let them do the jobs they were bred for ,{that's slavery, don't you know}, it's mean to "force" them to breed, they are furbabies and we are all "pet parents". Now, many states in the US are trying to pass mandatory spay and neuter laws and BSL is filling up shelters and inflating the numbers, giving the AR terrorists more ammo to use against us!. Sorry, I get a bit up in arms when I think of what we breeders, pet lovers, and professionals in the pet industry are up against.
12. ignorance