Taking An Idea WAY Too Far

[ladysprite]

In my job as a veterinarian, I am privileged to come across many wonderful animals, including fascinating different breeds of dogs and cats. And while I'll always be a fan of mutts at heart, I'll admit to having a soft spot for some particular dog breeds. Gordon Setters, for example. And pugs. And, much as I hate to admit it, Boston terriers. And, much as it galls me, I've been doing my best to bite my tongue and not gripe too much about the latest trends in designer mixed-breed dogs.

Golden-doodles. Labradoodles. Puggles. Buggles. Cockapoos, peka-poos, chi-poos, schnoodles, uri-peis, and just about any other genetic mishmosh that the pet stores can hang a cutesy name and a four-figure price tag on. They come marching through my door, usually carried by fresh-faced novice pet owners just shining through with pride of ownership for their designer purebred. And I'm not going to help anything by raining on their parade and explaining that they just spent a small fortune on a glorified mutt. But now it's becoming ridiculous.

A client brought their husky in recently, I can't remember why, and while we were making small talk I mentioned that when I was growing up I had a dog that was half husky, half golden retriever. The client looked at me with sudden awe, and exclaimed that he had seen those dogs on the internet, and weren't they really expensive, and new, and how I must have been on the cutting edge back then!

I had to break it to him gently that, no, Rocky was not a designer dog, but instead the product of a Romeo and Juliet-style star-crossed romance between the show dogs of two neighbors, one who bred Huskies, one who bred Goldens, and who were foolish enough to separate them by only a chain-link fence. Mama dog was sent to the canine equivalent of a convent for two months, the puppies were hushed up and given away through anonymous ads, and neither family ever spoke of that event again.

But then I stopped, and figured that the client had to be teasing me. There's a limit to how far this designer craze will go, right?

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the Goberian.

Stop the madness. Adopt a mutt, call it a mutt, love it, and revel in the fact that you can still afford medical care for it instead of spending a thousand dollars on something with a goofy made-up name and a questionable history....

*Edited to add: Of course, no offense intended to anyone who owns a designer mixed-breed, especially purpose-bred ones like my personal favorite patient, Brodie - I will be the first to admit that labradoodles make marvelous service dogs. But as pets-only.... they're awfully pricey status symbols.

Comments

[odanu.livejournal.com]

Apparently I own a Goberian. And I always thought she was just a plain ol' mutt (albeit a beautiful one)

[sjo.livejournal.com]

And to think, I always thought Vera was some random Lab mix! Now I know she must be... dude, I can't even come up with a clever name for what I believe to be a Lab/Irish Setter mix. Oh well.

I have dogs. They are good dogs. I have some vague idea of their ancestry. Heck, Melanie might be a purebred Rottie for all I know.

But I am not paying thousands of dollars for their so-called breeding! Aieee!

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

she's an I letter.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Oh, for pete's sake: "Black Irish". :-)

[evcelt.livejournal.com]

I can't even come up with a clever name for what I believe to be a Lab/Irish Setter mix. Oh well.

A Guiness retriever. ;-)

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

My family used to have a beagle-dachshund mutt. I wonder what that would be called these days: a Doggle? a Beagund?

[dreda.livejournal.com]

Das Über-Weiner?

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

My cousins had, I kid you not, a dachshund/doberman cross-breed.

I still shudder to think about the act of miscegenation and the mechanics themselves.

This dog was, well, remember the movie The Mask, in the scene where the dog put the mask on, and was all teeth? It was a dachshund on long legs, and with a doberman's giant bite. A very slight and slender dog, a real weiner dog, but at waist height and with more teeth than a shark.

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

So can we breed a Maltese with a pug and come up with a Muggle?

Okay, I'll stop now.

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think that's a maltese-beagle cross. :) Oh, geez, and what an odd dog that would be.....

[wren13.livejournal.com]

I'm so with you on this! Had a chug breeder in the other day (chihuahua/pug) - needless to say she got a firm lecture on all the recessives she could be reinforcing.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

A writer I know just finished a book on Labradoodles -- apparently it's an accepted, standardized breed in Australia.

I used to know someone who had a German Shepherd/St. Bernard cross, and he was a beautiful dog -- got his size and personality from the St. Bernard side, and his markings and lack of drool from the Shepherd. If I wasn't very well aware that hybrids don't breed true, I might have been tempted to look for one like him.

Another friend of mine had a beagle/Weimariner cross; that one was also a breeder's accident. The mind boggles to think that they're selling animals like this as "purebreds", when this is exactly what they're NOT!

[tikva.livejournal.com]

Labradoodles were originally bred to be guide dogs for allergic people. The lady who had the first one as a guide is (now) a graduate of the guide dog school where I got Brodie, and lives in Hawaii. (At the time, Hawaii still had quarantine laws, so she went to Australia, which also has quarantine laws, to get a guide dog). Now they've got all kinds of wacky stuff bred in. I guess a lot of breeds start out that way, but Australia is closer to making it a breed than the US is.

I hate to even think of a time without Brodie, but since one of my partners is allergic, my next guide dog will also be a labradoodle. (Brodie is not hypoallergenic by any means, and she does shed, but she's a hell of a lot easier for my SO to deal with than, say, a golden retriever). Interestingly, my school refuses to call them that, and just calls them "lab-poodle crosses", or "LPs" for short. If someone asks if she's a doodle, I say yes, because hey, I call my tissues Kleenex, even though they're PUffs. It's just easier. :)

[kindred-999.livejournal.com]

Growing up, we briefly had a rhodesian ridgeback/black lab mutt (black rhodesian? labraridge?)... it was one of the NASTIEST dogs I have ever met, and (unfortunately) after it started attacking us kids, we had to take it to the vet...
At which point we got the most beautiful, most friendly and best behaved dog: a golden retriever/collie mutt (golden collie?).

Now that our daughter is old enough to help with the care, we're looking for a dog, and it will likely be a mutt, just because. :)

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

Clearly, your wonderdog was a Gollie.

/ducks and runs.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

The same thing is going on in the horse world. And of course there are "registration bodies" turning up for all these bizarre crossbreds. (Mustang x Friesian? Saddlebred x Standardbred? Mustang x Missouri Fox Trotter? Unregistered cross x unregistered cross?)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

We have a Chowador. We love her. :D

Zoe . . . well, she's a mutt. She has no identifiable breeds.

Both are rescues.

(We never called DJ a chowador until after we met our first puggle. And when we do, it's with a laugh and a wink.)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

(Also, I was going to say, "But I have a friend who . . ." and then I noticed -- yay Brodie! Brodie was at my wedding. :D )

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

And then there are those who purposely breed Bulldogs with ShiTzus just for the name.

[lightning-rose.livejournal.com]

Yay (http://www.lightning-rose.com/ozzi/index.htm) mutts! (http://www.lightning-rose.com/ziggy/index.htm)

[thatwasjen]

I hear what you're saying -- I have a rescue mutt myself -- but aren't there many AKC dog breeds that started out the same way? At what point does it cease to be thoughtful selective breeding to develop a new standard, and start to become ridiculous?

(My mutt's a golden retriever + who-knows-what, basic Rottweiler or GSD coloring. I call him a blackened retriever.)

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Many AKC breeds may have stemmed from crosses, but as far as I know they were at least purpose-bred, with thought put into the development of what the eventual dog would be - the breeders were working towards a goal, and were interested in creating an independent type of animal, rather than just taking two random dogs, mating them, and then mushing the breed names together to get something cutesy to call it.

That's why I tend to categorize labradoodles slightly differently from other designer hybrids - they were originally purpose-bred, have been around for several generations, and have at least some level of predictability and stability as a breed.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

So, if I understand this right, the difference between a desirable hybrid and an undesirable mutt is that the former knows who its parents are?

People are weird.

[pagawne.livejournal.com]

A dear friend of mine has a snoodle that was an "oops", but Sam is dearly loved and and almost classes as a service dog. My friend is deaf as a post and Sam knows to let her know when the phone rings or there is someone at the door, or most important, when the smoke alarm goes off (meaning, usually, it needs new batteries).

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Goberian? Why, because Siberian Retriever or Golden Husky would be too confusing?

I don't object to the cross-breeding as much as the language abuse!

[etherial.livejournal.com]

portmanteauphobia?

[evcelt.livejournal.com]

Word, sister.

Plus, most of those names sound plain stupid...

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

my personal favorite patient, Brodie

Hey! Kes and I ran into Brodie on the T today, on our way back from the dentist. His human mentioned that they were on their way to see you. Small world :-)

[lunza.livejournal.com]

I've heard the term "cockapoo" for eons to refer to a cocker spaniel/poodle cross, but it was just a joke. The people who owned them wouldn't have dreamed of paying $500 or whatever they charge for these things.

[curiouslinda.livejournal.com]

I so agree with that vet.

[smooch]