Do mutts exist any more?

[LucysSkyDiamonds]

We had mutts when I was growing up. Two of them came from my great aunt's farm, where her dog, mostly Jack Russell was never spayed so had the occasionally litter of unknown paternity. Our local resuces never seem to have mutts, only known breeds or recognised cross breeds. Our last dog had the look of Jack Russell, Westie, and collie in him but God only knows what else was lurking in the gene pool.

If you get a rescue one from abroad they do. Since people found out they can make big money from random crosses it's much harder to find a heinz in the UK

I was wondering this the other day! Mongrels apparently no longer exist - they are all Labradoodles or Cockapoos.

You struggled to find homes for them when we were kids.

We have one but as above he’s an overseas rescue

We’ve got a mutt, and got her from a UK rescue (Many Tears). She’s a collie/springer/ something else. We thought lurcher when we first got her, but as she’s got older and wider we think there may be some staffy in her.

We have one, but she feels like a bit of a novelty amidst all the curly-poo things !! We love her. She was a rescue.

Yep I've got a fantastic mongrel, he is from Romania though.

I don't know if you'd call a lurcher a mutt, but they can be whippet X collie X Saluki X mastiff X greyhound X etc etc.

Lots of rescues are mutts (especially ones brought in from abroad)

But things like cavapoochons are also mongrels, as are other crosses - it's always a bit of a toss up which characteristics you'll get. So you could make the case that mutts are all around us, but they have designer names

I have one 🙋🏻‍♀️ had her dna tested and she's a mixture of 4 different breeds. All dogs my way seem to have stupid fancy names for mongrel.
Tried once on here to come up with a daft name for her breeds and got told to behave 😂

You definitely don't see as many as you did back in the 70s and 80. It's a shame. I always think of mongrels as being healthier than overbred dogs. Most breeds seem to be prone to some health problem or another. Mongrels also look a lot more like real dogs than the silly little handbag things that are so popular now.

The only time I see a nice healthy mutt these days is when I'm abroad on holiday.

They are called mixed breeds now. Some owners get dna tests done and whatever the is the largest breed type, they call them eg collie x. When I was a child we had a terrier x, well that’s what the vet thought.

Heinz! Yes, I remember mum wanted to call one of our dogs 57

Interesting that they are coming from overseas rescues.

No I think generally people are much more responsible owners now in terms of having their pets spayed or neutered and not allowing them to roam free. But then we’ve seen a rise in irresponsible breeding of ‘trendy’ breeds and cross breeds which are just the same as the mongrels of days gone past but with £1,000+ price tags!

I have lurchers, but all that actually means is that there is some sighthound in there and a random assortment of other things. One of mine is a very mixed breed - I refer to him as a doberman x whippet for ease, but his mum isn't a pure whippet (he was born in rescue so I have seen her) and has a healthy dash of some sort of bull breed and might have manchester terrier. And though it seems like dad must have been dobermanish we of course don't know more.
One of my sets of foster pups had a mum who was a very normal black and white lurcher, but the pups were huge and fluffy and from dna tests it seems like dad was some sort of turkish shepherd type dog. So very mutt!

We have a lurcher which really are just a massive mix. We think his dad is greyhound whippet and we think his mum is Bedlington whippet but they may have other things in them. Half the litter look like greyhounds and the other half are all sorts of sizes and wirey. I suspect his DNA would show other working breeds too

That's interesting about lurchers. Any I've seen on rescue sites are very greyhound/whippet dominant so I didn't realise they can have such wide heritage.

OP do you mean the terminology, the word itself isn't used much?
Or there don't seem to be many mutts/mongrels about anymore?

I got my dogs from a rescue home years ago and they were both labeled 'Cross breed', one GSD X although he looks like a GSD/Husky/Lab mix, and the other one is Staffie X, I think another type of terrier as she's mental with high prey drive, but a vet recently suggested Staff/Lab cross.

I think Rescues are full of mongrels/X breeds.

I have one from RSPCA. Part staffie, part Labrador and part something else! Short, barrel chested little thing, with a lab face. She's gorgeous.

Mine are both cross breeds/mutts/mongrels. Got them in rescue centers. Im in Ireland not the Uk though.

Another mutt here. Street dog from abroad.

Just a medium sized, whippy tailed, sandy brown mutt. Great dogs.

Mine is but is a rescue so unidentified breeds

Any I've seen on rescue sites are very greyhound/whippet dominant so I didn't realise they can have such wide heritage.
I once admired a lurcher, a large, chilled, wirey and very elegant dog. The owner gave me her entire family tree, all 8 GGPs : 'So her mum was half deerhound cross collie and half Bedlington whippet...'
'Work her?'
"Yeah, rabbits.'

The ones bred for fox work tend to have bull breed in them. There's one near here from a hare coursing bust who looks part saluki.

@CMOTDibbler, out of interest, do you get a lot of dogs from coursing busts? Oh, and I have puppy envy

My Lurcher is Saluki/Deerhound x Greyhound Bearded Collie, so 4 breeds, which would make him a mutt. Lurcher is a type, not a breed.

My other boy was most likely a Lurcher to Lurcher cross (no-one ever saw his mum, as he was dumped at birth) possibly even several generations of Lurcher to Lurcher crosses. Going by his fur and build, there was some Saluki, Greyhound, Bedlington, possibly some collie and some sort of wire haired terrier in his mix at the very least.

Way back, my second rescue was a mixed breed. We were told Sheltie x Whippet, but I suspect some degree of Saluki in her mix somewhere as well. We’ve also had a Border Collie x Belgian Shepherd and we had a Boxer x German Shepherd before her.

I’m pretty sure we’ll have more mixed/crossbreeds in the future too. Our next dog is not going to be a rescue, but we will no doubt take on more rescues at some point. (I’d love to take in elderly dogs that no-one wants to rehome and spoil them in their final years.)

Some of the crosses in rescues aren’t actually what they say they are... I don’t mean they’re conning people or anything, lol, but they do guess a lot because people always ask what they are.

2 dogs ago was a 6 month old collie cross... as he grew, he was definitely not one... god knows what he was, but definitely no great amount of collie.

Any pics of these lovelies?