New "Breed"??

I was referred to this new site called yardsellr.com. It's a cool site and they have a lot of neat stuff. There's also a pet section, which is usually the first place I visit to look for new gadgets for my babies. I'd like to get them a doggy car seat some day! Well, while I was looking, I saw a post where someone was selling what they referred to as a "new rare, rare breed". It was a litter of mutts! The father was a labrador and the mom was a cattle dog. I told that person that that is not a rare breed. That's a mutt that anyone can produce. And has produced! I see labrador and heeler crosses advertised all the time here in Montana. Both breeds are very common here. I hate people who mislead the public and say that their randomly crossed mongrel puppies are some "rare breed"! They're not even a breed. They're mutts. Call them what they are! It takes more than 30 some odd years to create a true breed. Much less those only created in a matter of 10 years. And mongrels are not real breeds. But because of this damned hybrid vigor, people continue to breed mixed breeds and call them "new rare breeds".

Creating a breed is not something that can be done by random individuals who do not know what they are doing. And it cannot be done in a matter of a few years by people only looking to make money. All the true breeds you see today were created over YEARS of proper breeding from people who had a general purpose for that breed (NOT to make money) and knew what they were doing. And to get those desired traits, one has to cull (in today's terms, spay/neuter and adopt out) the pups that do not carry the desired characteristics. That does not include selling the pups for $1000 each at 6 weeks old. Pups are just beginning to develop their own personalities then. In order to know which pups will have the characteristic the creator wants in their new breed, you have to carefully observe each puppy for at least the first 6 months of life. Creating a new breed is a very LONG and tedious process. It should only be attempted by people with a lot of patience and no desire to make money off their new breed. Unfortunately that is what a lot of mongrel breeders are doing it for today, which is why none of these so-called "designer mutts" will ever be anything more than just a mongrel. One that a person should NOT pay more than $300 for (and that's really stretching it!) Instead, such an animal should only be adopted from a pound. Today's people have no idea what makes a breed a true breed.

So what does make a breed a breed? This is what I found in my research on the internet:

"By definition, a breed can be described as a unique group of animals whose phenotype and genotype distinguish it from all others. Both are central to a breed’s identity."

This is what makes a breed unique. It's almost the same concept of what separates one species from another. You cannot get a wolf out of mating 2 bobcats. Thus you cannot get a poodle out of the mating of 2 labradors. You can only get labradors out of 2 labradors. The pups that come out will be just like the parents. They will have the same appearance, and characteristics as the parents have. Labradors are known for being playful and intelligent, they are also known for shedding a lot and were bred to retrieve ducks from the water. This is what makes them a true breed. Parents reproduce themselves, and it goes on from one generation to another. With mongrels, it's a crap-shoot. Especially if you are using F1 mixes. Even F2 mixes don't guarantee results. This is a process that will take many generations. The characteristics you want may not set in until you have the F60 mixes produced.

So why create a breed? First of all, you have to have a good reason to create the breed. Smaller dogs make fine companions, but what need can a person fill to create this smaller dog? There is a reason that there are fewer small dogs than bigger or medium-sized dogs. Smaller dogs are better suited for apartment living. Smaller dogs are made for carrying around, and some for guarding, mostly for royalty. Back in those days, many breeds were created for the sake of royal favors. But with those high ranks now all but gone, being replaced by modern government styles, the need to develop new breeds is depleating. But some are still being developed, simply for the fun of it. One of the newest true breeds in the canine world is the Alaskan Klee-kai, it's simply a miniature version of the Siberian Husky. But this breed was created by a single family from the 1960s to today. They didn't even reveal to the World that they were creating this new breed until the mid 1980s, when the owner of the kennel, and the breed's creator, was finally talked in to selling a female to a family friend. This family friend agreed to breed only to dogs bred by this one kennel. It was a mutual task they started, and today the Klee-kai is breeding true and is even registerable through the UKC, which is a reputable registry.

Another thing, don't be fooled by the Continental Kennel Club's recognition of such mixed breeds as labradoos and Goldoos and other such popular mutts. First of all, Continental Kennel Club is NOT a reputable registry! Just because they use the same initials as the Canadian Kennel Club does not mean that they are reputable! Neither is American Pet Registry, Inc. (APRI). Neither one has a stud book in place, and they don't have breeders that keep proper records (most of the breeders who use such phony registries are nothing more than AKC's rejects), they don't have any standards for their breeds, they recognize cat breeds as well as dog breeds, and I've seen pics of a show that APRI has put on, and I can tell you the dogs that were shown there were a joke! There was a yorkshire terrier at that show that was dirty, hair was out of place, ungroomed, if that had been an AKC show, the dog would have been laughed right off the stage! Unfortunately now AKC is recognizing some of these popular mixed breeds and I think that is a BAD idea! But they aren't recognizing them for confirmation, only for such things as agility, and they don't condone breeding them.

I remember a long time ago, this one woman and I got into a little spat because she was breeding mixed breeds and I said I don't agree with breeding mixed breeds. So she got pissed off at me. I told her one of the main problems I have with breeding mutts is the dumb names people are giving them. They take the names of 2 legitimate breeds and combine them to make the new mutt sound like a true breed. Well, she mentioned that she was helping to create something called a "carlin pinscher". She claimed it was a legitimate breed in the making by crossing a pug and a miniature pinscher. At first I thought it could be the roots to a true breed. And then, I looked it up later on and found out the name is still a combination of 2 real breeds. "Carlin" is simply another word for Pug. So it's still a mutt name. As long as it is, I will forever think of it as nothing but a mutt. Not a true breed, never will be. This woman does not sound like she knows what she's doing at all (she calls herself "wildcat"). Anyone with a nickname like that has got to be stupid, underhanded and lazy! Just like a wild cat. I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her!

For more information about true breeds, check out this link: http://www.caninechronicle.com/Features/Battaglia_07/battaglia_207.html