Aibu that dogs are now a class identifier??

[MammabearX1]

Just that.... Since my dc have returned to school (London prep) the school gates are crowded with little fluffy pups.... All expensive cockapoo or cavachon types... Thorough breds seems to be gone out of fashion & there's not a mongrel in sight... I'm thinking these are a class identifier as those fluffy dogs are so expensive... My husband thinks it's down to the dogs size making them perfect for London living with smaller garden space etc... Is it just our school? When I was young the posh kids had cocker spaniels or some type of working dogs but then I grew up in the country...

@QuiteContraryMarie

Doesn’t matter where I walk in London - and I walk a lot - from Richmond to Primrose Hill, every second person has a cockapoo or cavapoo. I’ve been wanting one for a while but they’re everywhere so it’s actually put me off. . And you’re not getting much change from £3k either. You’re husband is right though, they are great family dogs, ideally for small London gardens and don’t need much walking. The do however require a lot of company so it’ll be interesting to see what happens when people start going back to work full time/full days.

They take them to the office.

Before lockdown I worked in various offices including in central London there was frequently an office dog.

The requirements of an office dog is that is friendly, doesn't scare people who don't like dogs, doesn't howl and quietly goes around the office when it gets up.

I love it when posters come on threads like this and start telling people they should only get a rescue dog. In my experience it’s quite difficult to get a dog from a rescue centre! We tried years ago but most dogs we looked at had to be only pets, not to be homed with young children, not good with other dogs etc etc. We ended up getting our Labrador from a breeder.

My friend tried more recently but found the whole process very frustrating. She had to have a telephone interview followed up by a home visit where a whole new fence was demanded before she could even be considered for the waiting list which had over 50 people on it! After months of trying she did end up with a rescue but from overseas, not this country.

@LaurieFairyCake

I have a flat faced dog (Pug) and yes I have had someone insinuate I don't care about his health in the park

He's a rescue (and adorable and breathes fine)

He was just left in the town center

This is probably not appropriate, but your dog is gorgeous. I love black dogs.

@EdersonsSmileyTattoo

We have a Jack Russell/Patterdale cross, a Patterjack apparently.

But she’s just a mongrel really. But the most gorgeous mongrel you’ll ever meet!

Oh my goodness how gorgeous! We have a JRT and a Patterdale - I can't begin to imagine how much energy your dog must have being both of them in one

Mostly labs, spaniels, Patterdales, Bedlingtons, shitzus, Lhasa Apsos around here. And JRTs which is what I've got

all these poo crosses but I have yet to see the actual poodle they are crossed with, cant remember the last time I saw a poodle. Perhaps they are all shut away in puppy farms

Also quite a lot of husky types, and cockerpoo etc

I'm not a big fan of poo dogs. My parents live in Cambridge and apparently everyone and their mum there has a poo dog, and they're super expensive.

Sort of tangent, but why are bulldog puppies at risk of kidnapping? I know dog fighting is part of it, but are bulldogs a fad dog now like pugs were a couple of years ago? I've got a friend with an adorable bulldog puppy, he's one of those grey ones, and she's worried he'll be kidnapped.

I love poodles.

A cockapoo is a mongrel

I live in a very mixed area - and stop to talk to most of the dogs.
The pedigree ones are as likely to come from the council estates as privately owned property.
The real class identifier is that the council estate dogs are way more likely to be blinged to the nines in expensive clothing. I even saw a husky on a mild day earlier this week, kitted up in some kind of posh puffa jacket/fleece combo.

I put yabu because the dogs you mentioned are mongrels. Give it a stupid name and it's still a mongrel. More fool the people buying them.

We live in a quiet rural hamlet and there are so many different breeds of dogs we met daily. Everything from JRT, labs, spaniels, bulldogs, frenchies, pugs, staffies and quite a few greyhounds, daschunds, mini schnauzers, husky, irish wolfhound, border terriers. And we often meet the owner of a bearded collie puffing along with red cheeks, lead in hand and shouting "have you seen X"........ we rarely see the dog!

A friend has got a cockapoo aged 3 and the dog is wild. She needs hours of exercise, constant grooming and clipping, and has got terrible digestive issues (something like bloat that has required a lot of medical attention). She's more or less destroyed their house and can't be left alone at all. I always see young families with one and hope they've done their research.

I'm in West London. All the world's a cockapoo's/cavapoo's playground. Where we live, it used to be well, fewer dogs, mostly Labs and rescues... gun dog mongrels. It's turned into Doggy Toy Town since the first lockdown. So many fluffy, fluffy, fluffy mud-free, neurotic dogs with owners who don't do 'dog walking clothes'. It's all very civilised and ironically, undoggy.

@PferdeMerde

A cockapoo is a mongrel

They’re actually cross breeds, not mongrels.

Just a sign that the dogs homes will soon be overcrowded. Keeping a dog in London is barking!

This thread surely isn't serious. Dogs as an indicator of class? 😁

Mine's a Springer spaniel by the way.

It’s only the older people here who have small dogs. The families at the school gates almost exclusively have medium or large breeds.

I don’t think many rescue centres will home to families with young children which means many will opt for breeders instead.

[quote EpiphanySoul1]@MsSavouryPancake I wasn’t allowed a rescue dog. Apparently as my DH and I work and live near a busy road and have young children visiting we weren’t suitable! Rescue would’ve been my first choice but wasn’t willing to quit my job, move and ban my family from my house so designer dog it was! I also don’t like the term designer dog - if any dog is designer surely that’s the pure bred / KC with the labels dogs who are bred to continue lines - not the ones that aren’t even recognised as a proper breed.[/quote]
This^
It's almost impossible to qualify for a rescue dog unless you work from home or are retired and have no children We tried repeatedly over 12 month period and ended up having to buy from a breeder which is not what we wanted.

I've never seen so many dogs, the world and his wife now have dogs. I have a pugnacious crossbreed from Dogs Trust. Saw a Pharaoh Hound the other day. Still unusual, but a few Ridgebacks, Shiba Inus, Vizlas, Spinoni and Spaniels and Labs abound. Not so many cockerpoodle oohs.

@Kindperson

I work in an airport in live cargo. If you could see the dogs coming from the farms in Eastern Europe you would cry. 3 weeks old, send 10 pups with faked papers budgeting on a 50% survival rate. Photos on their website showing happy family homes. Ditto parrots. A crate of Macaws, half of them dead with captive breeding papers but still having adhesive in their claws. CITES don't care, I have seen baby orangutan in pet shops wearing tutus in some gulf states. How could they not intervene? In the same way why are backyard breeders not a T least done for tax evasion in the UK? If you have a litter of 8 and are selling them for 3 grand, how is that OK? Taking away the moraility, it's a crime.

This is absolutely heartbreaking and disgraceful.

If you dont mind me asking, are they being imported as 'rescue' puppies? I've heard stories of people thinking they rescuing eastern European street dogs but actually are coming from puppy farms using rescue as a front.

@stellaris22 big basset fan here too! Lost my big old lump 3 years ago and always have to say hello to any I see, just to get my fix.
They are adorable and maddening in equal measure but they'll always have my heart ❤️

There's all sorts in my street, whippets(mine), GSDs, Huskies, cross breeds, terriers. I love them all. I'm not sure there's a class identifier where we are (it's fairly posh), I've only seen one or two Frenchies and that was at the vet.

I bred one of my bitches during lockdown, as I wanted one of her pups, and no better time to do it. It's hard work doing it properly- like HARD work and we were all dead on feet for the first couple of weeks. I took four reservations whilst she was pregnant as I didn't want to over subscribe and have three birches left, whose owners will be vetted thoroughly. I've turned more than a few away - questions such as "what do the pups eat?" at one week old didn't fill me with confidence or "will she get carsick?" And "how will she get on with my cat?"😂

I don’t think poo crosses denote the class to which you belong. I see every type of person with them. I had to see if I could find a ‘stolen’ ad yesterday and trawled 50 pages of a pet selling site, everything was a poo/malti /bichon/shihtzu cross, all for £2K plus. Depressing.