Designer puppies

LOL! Well....designer dogs are very popular because often they are VERY cute looking (look at puggles!!) The dog your friend got, Lab/Poodle is called a Labradoodle. They can be very hyper, because of the lab gene..but they are also very sweet dogs. I think poodles are so popular because generally they are really easy to train and good dogs, so people hope to get those characteristics in a mix. As to the Shepherd/Rotty mix...You could not be more wrong ;P Respectivly, I've worked with plenty of the "tough dog" mixes and they are very good, very cute dogs :) In fact, my family has owned a total of two dogs that had been mixed with shepherd/rotty and pitbull! Both were rescued from shelters and both were/are VERY sweet. One passed a few years ago, but we still own one now. But ultimatly, people breed dogs to try and mix and match desirable traits; trying to mix a pretty dog with a well behaved dog and hoping to get a beautiful, good dog. But I never really buy from breeders; we always get our animals from shelters--so we often get mutts, but not exactly "designer breeds" (Good discussion!)

In my book, a cross bred dog like this is called a mongrel! I can't see how you could outlaw the practice of cross breeding as dogs, left to their own devices, will mate with any available female rather than wait for one with the correct pedigree to come along, but I certainly don't think it's a practice to be encouraged. As with most things though, these breeders will be being driven by market forces. If there's someone out there willing to pay daft money for a 'gerrottie' (I prefer 'grotty'!) then there will be a breeder who is willing to provide one. Perhaps it's the dog breeding public who need their head's seeing to. £450?!

it has been done since time began, the dogs are called mutts, they breed naturally this is just an improvement to get the actual mixes you want I guess.

All I can say Sweets is Different strokes for different folks! The AKC has recognized new breeds since the 60's when my family bred, trained, and did field trials with german short hairs. Most new breeds take generations to bred true atributes of a breed. Most of these breeders you speak of are just after the money they are not committed to a breed or making a new breed of better qualities. Sad..wonder how many end up in pounds. xoxoxoxoxo

This is a very interesting discussion to have. It gets complicated. First of all, breeders will breed animals that will make them money. If they can get over 400 pounds for a German Shepherd, Rottweiler mix then they are definitely going to make them. Having been one to study breeding (not just of dogs, but some with dogs) there are several things to consider. -Lots of people think designer dogs are cute. While they aren't registrable, most people who have their dogs as pets don't care. Labs tend to produce fairly cute puppies with a lot of different breeds and they have characteristics regular folk like, and are willing to pay for. -Troublesome breed concepts are often a misconception. It is true that both German Shepherds and Rottweilers tend to be thought of as difficult to manage and aggressive animals, this isn't always the case. In fact, more often then not a good owner who treats their animal right and has some knowledge of the breed will have an excellent well behaved and loyal animal. Mixes between breeds would be similar. -You mentioned health problems farther down the line. I don't mean to be disagreeable, but this is rarely an issue. It is more likely for a pure bred dog to have specific health problems then for a mutt of any sort. After all, the more mixed the mutt is the more genetic lines you are drawing from. Breeds have interbreeding and a narrowing of the genes in order to produce a look, behavior, and line of animals. This often takes decades or longer to perfect. This also makes it happen that ailments end up in the genetic line. One example is that labs are prone to hip problems. Mixing other breeds makes it less likely for these issues to pop up because a wider range of genes is mixed into the dog. It actually works this way with people too! If an area doesn't have contact with the outside then their genes will begin to become limited (even without close inbreeding) and over time disabilities and deformities can crop into that population on a higher percentage then in other areas. Illness, disease, and other problems can happen even in mixed dogs, but is less likely. -I would never buy a mutt. If I was going to pay money for a mutt, I would definitely adopt it from a shelter. If I was going to spend the big bucks, like hundreds, I would want a pure bred. But that doesn't mean that others don't want to pick out the breeds that go into their mutt and aren't willing to pay big bucks for it. In that case, why not? It doesn't really cause harm to anyone. While I think there are some problems with breeders breeding too many animals, that is really a separate issue.

They breed poodles with alot of different breeds. I like some of them and then I don't. I don't think that they should do this because we are breeding out the purity of a animals. Take a lab/poodle mix and then you mix it with a lab. You then have 1/4 of a poodle. Or say you mix it with a yorkie. You now have all kinds of breeds. I don't think that it would be healthy either dogs are just built differently.

Designer puppies . When every thing is going on branded and designed then why leave these puppies behind . In this age of branding and all that stuff not even animals are spared to live their life of there choice over there also man has tinkered a lot. and some people knowing of this trend among people came out with just stupid ideas of making some weird hybrid of dogs and then selling these hybrids to so called animal lovers at a very high price . which these customers are more happily willing to pay also. do not know when all this will stop.