LOVE the reply to the ‘Doodle breeder’ from the Golden Retriever club representative!
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What’s an SM please?
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small munsterlander [an old pointing breed from Germany- gaining popularity here as hunting dogs; classified as a foundational breed by AKC; wicked hunters and great family dogs, btw]
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Cool!
All I could think was Spanish Mastiff and I knew that couldn’t be it, lol.
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Me too. That’s excellent.
And the burn at the end… OMG
“If you are offended by our website, imagine how we feel about the proliferation of boutique dogs taking advantage of the public and misusing the careful and selectively bred Golden Retriever.”
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I am so tired of the purebred insiders highlighting certain regrettable situations – inexperienced new owners, impulse dog owners, uncaring breeders – and blowing it up that this is the whole dog world outside of their dog world. That there should be nothing but purebreds and that’s all a dog owner should seek. It’s inaccurate and it’s insulting.
The people who “sigh” over “designer breeds” and over prospective owners who aren’t seeking out purebreds will wish my dog had never been born. He’s not purebred. He’s a mix, although he identifies visually as lab. He has every kind of human irresponsibility in his early life that brought him by accident to me.
He’s a fantastic dog, pitiful background notwithstanding. He doesn’t have health problems. He’s lived an active life around horses and hiking. He was an emotional support to each of my parents through their last years with dementia - they both worshiped him, and he them. He’s made children feel important when he obeys their commands as they play. And so on.
Even though he is not a purebred from a responsible breeder.
He is in no way unusual for a miscellaneous mixed-breed. I know of dozens of sketchy-source mixed-breeds among my friends and acquaintances, well-cared for healthy dogs, living good lives. Smart active dogs with great temperaments, in spite of whatever haphazard breeding.
Where I live almost every adult/family has a dog - most have more than one. I personally don’t know of one papered purebred among them. They are mixes and supermutts of questionable life beginnings. They are wonderful dogs with loving and responsible homes. I am secretly so happy every time I see a friend’s dog that would qualify as “least adoptable” in most shelters, now living its best life in a great home.
But according to some of the posters in this thread, these dogs should not exist. These owners should beg some purebred breeder if maybe they can have a puppy that none of the breeder’s network wants. They should wait however long, as the supply of purebreds is so limited. Instead of taking in a dog from the never-ending misfit collection that needs a home right now.
A few pet-puppies from responsible breeders will not begin to fill the demand for pet dogs in this country. No one can grasp this simple math? Everyone has to line up for months/years for a purebred and let the mutts age in shelters and on the street?
It’s fine to support purebred dogs. It’s fine to breed responsibly and place puppies carefully. No problem at all.
But how about do it without pissing all over everyone else and all the other dogs. Who are by no means all greeders and uneducated impulse owners. And who are providing many wonderful homes to the vast number of mixed-breeds that will never go away. Most of whom can be as wonderful a pet dog as any purebred.
After reading the disrespect for mixed-breeds from the purebred fanciers in this thread, when it is time for my next dog, no I will definitely not be going to dog shows. No I will not be seeking out a purebred from this small closed world. I don’t have to do that to own a great dog.
The next one will end up being another mix of some kind. Probably the unsold/unwanted one. Might originally be from a greeder, because their excess has to go somewhere and I suspect that’s how my current dog ended up on the side of the road. I’ll probably pay what I paid for my current mystery dog, which is nothing at all, because no one else wanted this wonderful dog. Just like many of the mystery dogs I know that a responsible owner/family welcomed into their home. Ultimately, so many thousands of those great owners for so many thousands of those wonderful mixed-breed dogs.
And the hand-wringers can post photos of these wonderful dogs and sneer at the mix and despair over the owner who loves it. Might be better to do it on a closed forum of like-minded hand-wringers.
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I support responsible breeders – and rescue. My last three dogs have been 1-2 year old terrier mixes from the local shelter. 
Shelter dogs (not necessarily pits) are generally listed on Petfinder https://www.petfinder.com/ . Most may be adopted from outside the local area – I did many of the listings for my shelter for quite some time, and we didn’t have restrictions. My next dog will be a pup from a well-researched breeder – because I want another GSD – but I’ve adored these little reprobates just as much.
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If you like, I would be happy to try to help you find a dog show you might attend.
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I mean… it COULD, but probably unlikely. LOL.
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[quote=“OverandOnward, post:297, topic:769326, full:true”]
I’m not a dog show person. I’m not looking for a show dog. I don’t even know how to find a dog show.[/quote]
Here’s a start—I’ve shown my Dobermans at obedience trials in all of these clubs:
American Kennel Club - Event Search (akc.org)
Show Ops Events Calendar | United Kennel Club (UKC) (ukcdogs.com)
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That’s really not what any of us are saying.
There are two issues here - in my opinion. “Designer breeds” and “rescues”. They aren’t the same thing although a lot of the rescues are fed by bad “Greeders,” as you point out yourself.
Designer breeds are especially disgusting to those of us who own/breed purebreds because they are absolutely nothing but the product of a “Greeder” who is producing a mash-up of existing breeds as a marketing strategy. With exceedingly few exceptions, there is nothing inherently desirable about the Frankenstein creation except a cutesy name. And oddly, people are willing to pay a lot of money for these creations, apparently because they are very caught up in being able to say that they own a “Broodle” or whatever. The Greeders make a lot of money selling these puppies, but typically put almost no money into health testing to make sure they aren’t producing puppies with preventable issues. (Which is a travesty. Why wouldn’t a breeder WANT to try to prevent serious health issues?)
Rescue is an entirely different thing. It sounds to me that you are talking about rescues, not designer dogs.
For what it’s worth, most of us have said all along that we don’t blame the dogs. Most of them are decent enough as far as pets go, and some of them are outstanding. It still doesn’t excuse the breeder for careless breeding practices.
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To put it another way - if a breeder is intentionally producing puppies for the pet market (which, if done right, I would support) - why not produce Beagles and Pugs, rather than Puggles? Why breed Skipper-Poos instead of Schipperkes and/or Poodles?
What is the motivation other than greed/money?
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We’re not “pissing all over everyone else”, certainly not all over people who go get a rescue or even a backyard oops puppy and continue on their merry life, happy with their dogs.
We ARE pissing on the people who deliberately produce mutts with cutesy names and then charge more than what you’d pay for most purebred dogs, all without the health testing and background checks that go into responsible breeding. We call them greeders because they are in it for the money, plain & simple, and they could care less (or remain deliberately ignorant) about the health problems in their lines.
And yes, I’m going to mock the impulse, gotta have a puppy now crowd too. If you can’t spend five minutes googling what health issues are likely to show up in the parent breeds, then I’m not going to have any sympathy for the OWNER when their bernadoodle’s hips go at 4. The pup, well, that’s a tragedy.
Mix breeds and backyard purebreds and oops litters are always going to happen and yes, they supply a vast majority of the general public who just wants a family pet. That is so very different than someone pumping out litter after litter of everything they can get their hand on crossed with a poodle and slapping a $4000 price tag on it.
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I cannot love this post enough. 
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Hear, hear.
It takes time to properly socialize a litter of puppies and prepare them for a life as a pet. I’m not saying there are zero large mixed-breed kennels that do it well, but I AM saying that the number is probably statistically insignificant. The argument that these breeders are beneficial because they’re breeding for the pet market would hold more water if more of those puppies actually saw the inside of a house prior to purchase.
The reason I get bent out of shape about this is not because I look down on mixed breeds. It’s because I’m disgusted by the deception and the predatory tactics of these breeders.
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Or if those breeders were selecting their breeding dogs on their exemplary temperaments that would make them ideal pets.
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Agreed. I have friends who purchased a lab pup from a breeder that I would never use. They produce a lot of litters, their pups don’t come close to the breed standard. However, they produce pups with phenomenal temperaments. Great family dogs. Quite a few have gone on to therapy and guide dog work.
I’m sure there are some other large scale breeders doing the same. I’m sure there are some designer breeders doing the same. But I would say they’re in the minority.
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When my kids were in 4-H they participated in some dog activities and there was a family that bred BYB Cavaliers. Their kids brought two of their dogs to one of the classes - the 2 year old bitch was mean and attempted to attack all the other dogs. The 6 month old dog was terrified and pretty much remained flattened to the floor for the whole class.
The parents said that “as soon as the boy could do it” they would breed them.
Now, it is possible/likely they were simply unsocialized and overwhelmed, but their default temperaments under adversity were pretty much the opposite of the standard temperament -
Temperament: Gay, friendly, non-aggressive with no tendency towards nervousness or
shyness. Bad temper, shyness, and meanness are not to be tolerated and are to be severely
penalized as to effectively remove the specimen from competition.
Should be a great match. 
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You have used an awful lot of words to misrepresent just about everything that has been discussed on this thread. You could have just shortened it up and said “I’d like to misrepresent what you said!”
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