Crossbreeds - why so expensive?

[GenuineLeather]

Genuine question. I'm looking for a puppy and baffled as to why some cross-breed puppies are more pricey than the pedigrees. I get that any puppy is expensive and time-consuming to breed and rear and I get that some crossbreeds are healthier or have desirable characteristics of more than one breed. However, is it me or are some people selling what sound suspiciously like accidents down the park as fancy designer breeds?

I'd be happy with a crossbreed, to be honest but I'm eager to know how one tells 'deliberately bred to maximise breed positives' and 'shouldn't have let my dog off the lead but it's a nice earner' pups. How do you tell? Also, are people randomly making up crossbreed names?

192 dogs, lots of them small and a few 'cockerpoos' at Many Tears right now MTAR

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I live up northern Scotland so it may be different where i live.

Dog breed fashions do trend in different areas at different times. In parts of the UK and Ireland Husky and Husky crosses are very fashionable at the moment and there have been a ridiculous amount through rescue centres in the past few months, including pups and youngsters.

Also it's easier to confine/ignore/neglect a little dog than it is a big one, same is true for finding small dogs new homes via 'free to a good home ads' where the poor dogs end up being passed from owner to owner for years on end. So, the fact that there aren't that many in rescue, doesn't mean they are all loved and well-cared for in nice forever homes.

It's not as easy to ignore a large double-coated, noisy, destructive, high energy Husky, as it is a pom or lhaso. They tend to get confined to back yards and gardens until the neighbours complain and then it's either pts or hand them over to a rescue centre.

I agree with the Husky/Alaskan Malamute trend, it's rife where I live and I often think how can people cope with a dog bred to pull sleds for mile every day in a 2 bed flat?

A friend has recently got a Huskador that's a new trendy cross apparently, I just think chewing ability of a lab, energy and lack of recall of a husky lab crosses are all the rag

Pugs and pug crosses are really popular as well Jug anyone?

Well I live in a two-bed mid-terrace with no garden and have a pile of fit happy huskies on my feet as I type - they are workers though and we live out in the sticks. If I couldn't work them they'd be unmanageable.

Agree with the above, an underexercised lap dog is easily ignored but an underexercised husky is a howling shedding whirling dervish of destruction. I volunteer for SHWA and we're dealing with record numbers.

My pet peeve with the designer crossbreeds is that they are automatically 'healthier' than a pedigree dog. I work in a veterinary practice and can tell you that this is simply not true - they are subject to the same hereditary diseases that cripple their parent breeds.

Thanks. I am still pursuing the rescue route but, as many of you say, there aren't so many lap-dog types in rescue. Being a house with children and allergies also complicates things, as does being in a house with no other dogs. I've also looked into buying a 'new' dog, which is where I've seen so many x-breeds with fancy names. One lot were advertised as 'poogles', which turned out to be poodles crossed with beagles, which, 'will not shed'. Right, because I've lived with a beagle and, boy, do they shed!

I'm definitely not anti-crossbreed, nor anti-silly name just curious about the current vogue for them.

So what's with the 'cross breed' name?

I thought anything other than a pedigree was called a mongrel.

Toboldlygo - I'm sure there's responsible Husky owners out there but there's a few I know where the dogs just not get walked a lot.

I think the whole crossbreed thing has gone a bit mad, but people are willing to pay for cockerpoos and jugs so breeders are going to keep breeding them.

Genuine, poodles in need have two poodle crosses that they are helping to rehome at the moment. Have a little loom on their website. They also have a wide selection of toy and min poodles looking for homes.

Thanks, Lonecat. Dealing with PIN at the moment and living in hope.

Just looked there. They are new in and cute!

A crossbreed is a dog who is made up of two different breeds. That doesn't necessarily mean half and half; for example a friend has a 3/4GSD, 1/4Lab.

If you add other breeds into the mix its a mongrel.