I shouldn't have looked on gumtree...

[Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady]

...but I did and now I'm pissed off!

Don't worry I'm not buying (not that stupid)
Just sitting here playing on my phone, as you do and found myself on gumtree.

I mean what the hell is this?! £2500 for a mix of random breeds, so blatantly an attempt to cash in on lockdown by breeding family dogs. No care will have been taken over health testing etc

Its not just this advert either.

FRUGS! I mean, never mind that it's a stupid f-ing name, but it's pug crossed with a French bulldog. Wonderful idea! Let's take 2 breeds who can't breath and make shit loads of money from them.

SHUGS! I'm guessing here as the advert wasn't specific but I'm assuming a shitzu crossed with a pug?

DACHOUND - If you're going to sell it you should be able to spell it!

More cockerpoos thank you can shake a stick at.

Puppies around 4 months old being sold for £2000 (obviously a lockdown purchase and they're trying to get their money back/make a bit more)

Even normal breeds which would have been fairly cheap pre lockdown (labrador, border collie etc) going for thousands of pounds.

What is wrong with people?! And when will this end?

Jesus. I found the ads for my cross breed from when he was a pup just a couple of years back. £500 (which I thought was steep given he's essentially a mongrel with a fancy name).

Now people are selling pups like him for £2k!! Wow. That is ridiculous.

FYI puppies being sold who are 4-5 months may also have been imported, potentially illegally. Especially if it's more than one puppy - often see it with Frenchies on Gumtree :(

I know 6 years ago we paid £350 for our collie , now they are upwards of £1500 , crazy

Paying more for a puppy because now is a better time to get one doesn't make them.krss liny to be well looked after. It means people can welcome a dog now and want it so much they are prepared to pay for it.

As for socialisation, of course you can socialise a dog in lockdown. Dogs still go out. The parcs have been full of them. You just to go by the threads with have by people wishing dogs were forbidden from parcs!

The whole industry disgusts me. Gumtree is appalling for providing a platform to the hordes of idiots and profiteers breeding for extortionate prices. Half of them can't even spell the name of the supposed breed properly. And the predilection for crossing everything with a poodle to get a real live teddy bear..... vile.

@Ermintrude74 I really don’t understand why people want cockapoo, cavapoo etc. Surely just get a poodle and let it’s coat grow out a bit and maintain a teddybear cut. If someone knows why people are wanting poodle hybrid and not just a poodle, can they please explain to me why? I don’t get it.

Before I ask this - just to note that I've never bought a dog and when we do get a dog will have a rescue dog...

But...

Are these cross-breeds really such a bad thing?

I'm a cat person and in the cat world 'moggies' are much healthier and resilient than pedigree cats.

Isn't it, in fact, breeders who have caused the issues you're mentioning by breeding for specific attributes (e.g. short faces in pugs, stooped hind legs in GSDs,etc)?

We've moved more and more towards dogs being certain breeds over the past couple of decades and away from the family 'Heinz 57' and that has made things worse in terms of health issues, not better.

So...donning my hard hat and countering that a bit more cross breeding could actually be a good thing?

(Ignoring puppy farming and stupid prices which isn't the main gist of the thread)

@umpteennamechanges I assume the negative is that all you need is a poodle stud and you can impregnate numerous other breeds of bitches that will make designer breeds, which will make puppy farming go into overdrive, especially with the price tag they are going for now. Plus a lot of people are misguided and assume these dogs are hypoallergenic because they are mixed with poodle, which isn’t true, and many people then go on to resell their mixed poodle breed.

I’ve seen a good few posts of people reselling their labradoodles, cockapoos etc because their kids are allergic to the dog. They just assumed it would have the poodle coat.

“I'm a cat person and in the cat world 'moggies' are much healthier and resilient than pedigree cats.”

It’s not the equivalent of DSH’s... it’s like getting Maine coons, Burmese and Persian cats, breeding them all randomly without health testing and selling those kittens for about twice what each individual breed would go for.

@umpteennamechanges My understanding is that health-testing is much less likely in crossbreeds. Pedigree breeders know what conditions are common in the breed so will get them tested to see if they have or carry the condition. If the parents are clear the offspring will be clear. I think they're also more likely to be breeding the dogs to work or show so need them to be better specimens. Whereas crossbreeds are often just bred for profit. Not always of course, there will be poorly bred pure-breeds and then there will be crosses that have had parental health tests. But just widening the gene pool isn't going to help if you have two totally different breeds but both carry the gene for a horrible disease.

@dontdisturbmenow I think of socialisation as much more than walking in the park. It's about having them around as many types of environments as possible and as many people, in different situations. Not to mention they will have no experience of different people coming in to their home.

I have no doubt people paying crazy prices really want their dog but given the other issues at what ultimate cost.

If you have purchased a lockdown puppy yourself I genuinely hope it has its home for life and you have no issues. We are discussing what could happen

It's about having them around as many types of environments as possible and as many people, in different situations. Not to mention they will have no experience of different people coming in to their home
All possible during lockdown. We took our boy on walks, in a pouch from the time we took him home at 8 weeks. He got used to wind, noise of the road, kids screaming, building work noise and other dogs. By the time he was 12 weeks, he'd been around dogs, cats, sheep, horses, cows.

We socialised in gardens as soon as we could and had work people in the house three times. We went in a week holiday, 5h drive journey, stayed in a cottage, around other people and he was amazing the entire time. Taught commands from the time he was 9 weeks and took him off the lead a week after his first walk at 13 weeks. His recall is excellent.

If you have purchased a lockdown puppy yourself I genuinely hope it has its home for life and you have no issues. We are discussing what could happen
See, that's the issue. Why are you even questioning that he might not be home for life? Do you question every new dog owner or us it just those who got labeled as idiots because they happened to get a dog during lockdown, which happened to be a very good time to get a dog if meaning working from home?

What could happen is part of life. They will always be bad pet owners just like sadly they will always be poor parents. Thankfully, they are a minority.

I’ve seen a good few posts of people reselling their labradoodles, cockapoos etc because their kids are allergic to the dog
A good few posts? How many? A small minority of all those who got dogs? Who might not even gave know their kid had an allergy to dogs in the first place?

@dontdisturbmenow you are not getting my point, some people think because their dog is crossed with a poodle it instantly makes them an hypoallergenic dog and good with people with asthma and allergies which is not the case!

@grinchyvalentine

The thing I keep thinking about is how are these lockdown pups being socialised? Are parks going to be filled with poor pups that don't know how to behave and completely clueless owners.

Agree when life goes back to 'normal' there will be a lot of dogs looking for homes. There has been quite successful not just for Christmas campaigns it would be good to see not just for lockdown

I have a reactive dog. It's already far more common IME to encounter people who just let their young dogs come barreling towards her, even when they can clearly see me putting her on a short lead and giving them a wide berth. Sometimes they even head towards me deliberately.

I had to bite my tongue with one woman in particular. Her dog (again a puppy) took a liking to mine and she decided to follow us. We tried changing direction, and stopping to let her pass, and she just bloody stuck within a few feet of us. Not only was ddog getting stressed, I was trying to have a private conversation with DS about a family member who had died of COVID. Eventually we turned round and walked back the way we'd come, at which point she finally got the message and fucked off.

@umpteennamechanges I’m not an expert but the whole breeding thing should be natural. Some ‘breeders’ cross the wrong types for money. And from what I’ve read about French Bulldogs, I don’t think they can breed naturally because of so many defects. They are artificially inseminated and then pups are born by CS because their heads are too big. This is a breed that should die out in the natural world but they are kept going because someone saw a birth defect and thought it was cute. They suffer dreadful health problems and such an industry needs to be hit with the same indignation and shame as breeding animals for fur coats because the same principles apply!

A friend of mine works for a dog rescue, and he recently adopted one of them. When he went to the post office for the licence he gave the breed....the woman said "don't bother - we just put them down as mongrels". That won't go down to well with all these fancy new breed owners.

My girl is an ex breeding dog, and was treated terribly, so I have no sympathy for anyone buying from these people.

@magicstar1

A friend of mine works for a dog rescue, and he recently adopted one of them. When he went to the post office for the licence he gave the breed....the woman said "don't bother - we just put them down as mongrels". That won't go down to well with all these fancy new breed owners. My girl is an ex breeding dog, and was treated terribly, so I have no sympathy for anyone buying from these people.

??? You haven't needed a dog licence in the UK since I was a teenager - a bloody long time ago!

i’ve recently fallen out with my cousin over this. her ‘beloved’ dog has just had puppies for the second time in two years and my cousin was telling me how last time she sold the pups for £400 each but this time she should get at least £1,400 for them. it honestly boiled my blood and i ended up having a go at her and we’ve now fallen out. the dogs are staffies, and will no doubt be sold on to drug dealers and wannabe roadmen like the last lot were.

Pretty sure you still get dog licences in Northern Ireland

you are not getting my point, some people think because their dog is crossed with a poodle it instantly makes them an hypoallergenic dog and good with people with asthma and allergies which is not the case
So a very few number of people get it wrong and haven't done their research properly. Don't label everyone in the same category. This has nothing to do with getting a dog during lockdown.

@BrideofBideford I've just had to look at some pointy nose dog pictures

I have seen several ads on gumtree and pets4home advertising dogs less than 6 months. Many are private posters and not breeders who claim their circumstances changed and therefore need to sell on.

Surely that is illegal now with Lucy's law? Shouldn't they be returning to the breeder if less than 6 months old. Or have I completely understood it incorrectly?

Just had a look at my local gumtree. Pretty much the same. Its the same with kittens being sold for ££££