author L Pitts
Dog lovers have discovered something that cattlemen, sheepherders and hog farmers have known about for decades: crossbreeding. In an effort to create the perfect pet, dog owners are mixing and matching breeds and ending up with Labradoodles, Yorkipoos, Malipoos and Peekapoos.
You may have guessed by the names that the poodle is one-half of many popular hybrids. Dog fanciers love the fact that poodles don't shed, live a long time, have good eyesight, are agile, energetic and highly intelligent. They are also hypoallergenic, which means that people won't be allergic to their own dog. This is always a good idea.
These crossbred dogs are selling for far more than their purebred cousins, and it's quite common to see ankle biters like Peekapoos, Yorkipoos, Schnoodles and Apsooodles fetch a couple of grand or more.
It used to be that letting your dog run with a bad crowd, like the neighborhood pack, would make your neighbors mad when their puppies turned out to be mutts and mongrels. Considering the prices crossbred dogs are bringing these days, you'd be well advised not to squirt the neighbor's poodle with a garden house next time it comes calling.
I can just imagine some of the crosses a person might end up with. If your Chow Chow got bred by a poodle it would be a Cow Chow Poo Poo, which pretty much describes what it would do all day. I don't know what traits a Cocker Doodle Do might have, but you gotta love the name. And if your Dandie Dinmont got in the family way due to a random encounter with a poodle, you'd have yourself some Dandie Doodles.
If people would stop right there I could see no ill effects of this crossbreeding fad, but because some people don't have the IQ of a rawhide chew bone, we have some inbred idiots crossbreeding their dogs with — get this — wolves. I'm sorry, I hate to be dogmatic about this, but anyone who would purposely breed a nice doggy to a savage and ruthless killing machine has Alpo for brains.
Such a person should be locked in a cage, thrown an occasional bone and have to fight over it with their wolf hybrid. The idea of purposely breeding your dog to a wolf is akin to letting your daughter date a deadbeat paroled sex offender and then hoping for numerous grandchildren from the mating.
With the government turning lose wolves by the droves and with our wolf immigration problems with Canada, it's likely that you could have wolves at your door and your dog could accidentally get bred by a marauding wolf. This I can forgive, but anyone who would plan such a mating in advance is dumber than their dog to begin with.
Any stockmen knows the problem: not only do the good genes get passed along in crossbreeding, but so do the bad ones. In the case of the wolf, I am not aware of any good traits that might get passed along, other than the fact that you won't have to feed your wolf hybrid because it kills its own dinner. Let's just hope dinner is not the neighbor girl out playing in her backyard, an innocent jogger or the mailman.
Wolf hybrids are the result of indiscriminate breeding, and we have all seen bad examples of where that can lead, often in our own families. If you let your Lab dance with wolves you could end up with a retriever that eats the game animals it was supposed to fetch. The result of a cross between a wolf and a Border Collie would herd up its dinner and a pit bull/wolf cross could chew your cow's cud, lick your chops and put you in the doghouse, courthouse and poorhouse.
I suppose a really fashionable cross these days would be a poodle/wolf cross. A Wolfie-Poo won't shed on your couch, so you won't have to vacuum what's left of it. The beast will be hypoallergenic, which would be a good indication that the scars and scabs all over your body are NOT due to an allergic reaction. And your hybrid will live a long time. Which is more than I can say for you.
Dog lovers have discovered something that cattlemen, sheepherders and hog farmers have known about for decades: crossbreeding. In an effort to create the perfect pet, dog owners are mixing and matching breeds and ending up with Labradoodles, Yorkipoos, Malipoos and Peekapoos.
You may have guessed by the names that the poodle is one-half of many popular hybrids. Dog fanciers love the fact that poodles don't shed, live a long time, have good eyesight, are agile, energetic and highly intelligent. They are also hypoallergenic, which means that people won't be allergic to their own dog. This is always a good idea.
These crossbred dogs are selling for far more than their purebred cousins, and it's quite common to see ankle biters like Peekapoos, Yorkipoos, Schnoodles and Apsooodles fetch a couple of grand or more.
It used to be that letting your dog run with a bad crowd, like the neighborhood pack, would make your neighbors mad when their puppies turned out to be mutts and mongrels. Considering the prices crossbred dogs are bringing these days, you'd be well advised not to squirt the neighbor's poodle with a garden house next time it comes calling.
I can just imagine some of the crosses a person might end up with. If your Chow Chow got bred by a poodle it would be a Cow Chow Poo Poo, which pretty much describes what it would do all day. I don't know what traits a Cocker Doodle Do might have, but you gotta love the name. And if your Dandie Dinmont got in the family way due to a random encounter with a poodle, you'd have yourself some Dandie Doodles.
If people would stop right there I could see no ill effects of this crossbreeding fad, but because some people don't have the IQ of a rawhide chew bone, we have some inbred idiots crossbreeding their dogs with — get this — wolves. I'm sorry, I hate to be dogmatic about this, but anyone who would purposely breed a nice doggy to a savage and ruthless killing machine has Alpo for brains.
Such a person should be locked in a cage, thrown an occasional bone and have to fight over it with their wolf hybrid. The idea of purposely breeding your dog to a wolf is akin to letting your daughter date a deadbeat paroled sex offender and then hoping for numerous grandchildren from the mating.
With the government turning lose wolves by the droves and with our wolf immigration problems with Canada, it's likely that you could have wolves at your door and your dog could accidentally get bred by a marauding wolf. This I can forgive, but anyone who would plan such a mating in advance is dumber than their dog to begin with.
Any stockmen knows the problem: not only do the good genes get passed along in crossbreeding, but so do the bad ones. In the case of the wolf, I am not aware of any good traits that might get passed along, other than the fact that you won't have to feed your wolf hybrid because it kills its own dinner. Let's just hope dinner is not the neighbor girl out playing in her backyard, an innocent jogger or the mailman.
Wolf hybrids are the result of indiscriminate breeding, and we have all seen bad examples of where that can lead, often in our own families. If you let your Lab dance with wolves you could end up with a retriever that eats the game animals it was supposed to fetch. The result of a cross between a wolf and a Border Collie would herd up its dinner and a pit bull/wolf cross could chew your cow's cud, lick your chops and put you in the doghouse, courthouse and poorhouse.
I suppose a really fashionable cross these days would be a poodle/wolf cross. A Wolfie-Poo won't shed on your couch, so you won't have to vacuum what's left of it. The beast will be hypoallergenic, which would be a good indication that the scars and scabs all over your body are NOT due to an allergic reaction. And your hybrid will live a long time. Which is more than I can say for you.