Should Crossbreeds Be Included?

[vernonk]

Watching ITVs programme on Britain’s Favourite Top 100 dogs, and loads are crossbreeds. Do you think they should be included and therefore encouraged?

[MallyJ]

Yes....much healthier than many of the purebreed dogs....some of which are now so interbred for specific features, that daft people demand, that the dogs lives are short and they suffer from poor health. Dogs are healthier if they are mongrel dogs.

[woofgang]

Some crossbreeds are healthier. If you breed two poor specimens together, then you will get poor specimens whether or not the parents are both the same breed or not. There is no magic that makes mongrel/crossbreed dogs healthier than there is any magic that makes people healthier. I believe that the “hybrid vigour in dogs myth” comes from a time whem mongrel dogs were more or less left to get on with mating and birth and only the strong and healthy survived. If you mate two dogs with inheritable faults no matter what they are then the pups will inherit those faults. I have no idea what the reason for such shows as this are.....I don’t think they do the dogs much good

[hereIam]

Totally agree with you Mally.

[anthro-nerd]

Absolutely yes. Just because they aren't pedigree doesn't make them any less of a dog :-)

[anthro-nerd]

ps, I loved this program! Cairns were number 43! Woo!

[Islay]

Yes - whilst I have purebreads now I have had mutts and loved them just the same.

[roopower]

I thought a crossbreed was called a mongrel?