The hate towards doddle owners.

[RedDeer]

The hate against doodles,
I keep reading about Doodle owners, in a negative way on here, I'm wondering why they is so much negativity around them.

For context I have a poodle cross, who gets treated like a dog, we have used trainers, she goes hiking with us, is groomed regular. Doesn't sleep in our bed, can be left alone for a few hours no problem, and not a fussy eater, just eats dry food.
I didn't pay 1000s for her, paid the same as a cross breed. She has no health issues etc.

Yes she does have traits of both breeds, she can be hyper, and prone to barking at times. But we are aware of her breeds, both working dogs.

So am I unusual in that my doddle is treated like a dog. Or is there an unfair reputation towards doodles and owners?

People aren’t bothered.

this is a commercial kennel licensed for 300 dogs.

it’s clearly a puppy farm. Yet people are buying puppies despite all the red flags.

"Older pups (price reduced)"

😭😭😭😭😡😡😡😡
That literally breaks my heart and makes me so furious. I want to punch the breeders in the face and then scoop up all those "price reduced", rejected pups and show them they are perfect even if they aren't cute little puppies anymore. A sale bin for intelligent, loving animals? Absolutely hideous.

scoop up all those "price reduced", rejected pups and show them they are perfect even if they aren't cute little puppies anymore

And that's what they bank on. People can't bear to leave the dogs there so they 'rescue' pay the breeders thousands of pounds the dogs.

You are right, although I suspect most people who are willing to use such a blatant puppy farm aren't looking to "rescue" a sad dog, otherwise they would be on rescue sites rather than puppy farm sites. They are looking for a cheap option but to pretend they have bought one from a reputable breeder.

I also wouldn't be paying for them, I'd be taking them after punching the breeder's lights out. Well, I wouldn't obviously, I'm very law-abiding so I just stay away, but it's wishful thinking and a gut reaction when I see such horrid things.

Besides, I foster rejected and abandoned cats for a local charity so don't really have room for a pile of puppies too, no matter what I'd really like to do!

That’s an understandable response, but the breeding animals are still there and being abused and treated in humanely.

This is why I’ll judge doodle owners (not rescue) because they’re fuelling this industry.

Whispers...
I'd probably actually take every animal there. I've fostered a couple of abandoned girls that have been chucked out when their breeding days were done and I swear if the people who did that to them were put in front of me I'm not sure the red mist wouldn't come down.

We live in a relatively nice part of the UK and one of our good friends bought a puppy from the back of a white van, the local travellers around here have taken to breeding doodles now to cash in.

He was fully 100% aware he was buying for them it was £500 quid and god knows how it’s poor mum was treated. When he got the puppy I’d say it was 6 weeks old maximum, he was laughing saying the kids had been nagging for ages and it was a bargain.

luckily for them it’s a very lovely kind dog but that’s I’m afraid what’s happened to this mix.

I have no issue at all with people breeding crosses, so long as they do it with proper regard to the health and wellbeing of the parent dogs and the puppies - which is the standard to which I hold any breeder, including the breeders of pedigree dogs.

This means caring properly for the adult dogs (plenty of human contact, exercise, appropriate outlets etc), not over-breeding the bitch, not using a stud dog who has sired 100s of puppies (esp with pedigrees, where popular sires are a major factor in the narrowing of the gene pool), testing for any major defects likely to affect the puppies (HD, PRA, whatever), only breeding conformationally sound, mentally stable and healthy animals (which rules out all the brachy breeds, and breeds with other extreme conformation like ridiculously long backs or loads of sagging skin - unless you're outcrossing to try and moderate breed type), bringing up the puppies in a suitable environment with lots of human contact, ideally starting their training and socialisation, screening potential owners properly, selling with a proper contract (involving return to breeder if necessary) and being prepared to keep in contact for at least 4 or 5 years to see how the dog pans out.

if someone is breeding whatever-poos to those standards, I don't see a problem.

I say this as the owner of two pedigree dogs who is very likely to have other pedigrees - and possibly other crosses/mongrels like we've had in the past.

But despite all efforts to get the word out there, unfortunately you have people like my SIL, an educated woman (who thinks she knows everything) agreeing to meet a man at a motorway services and buying a puppy out of the back of his van. Luckily for her the dog has turned out okay, but she has no idea of the circumstances in which she was born and reared, how her parents were kept, what their health and temperaments were like - nothing. At least if you get a dog from a rescue centre, it's usually an adult and you can see how its turned out...

The problem is those breeding crosses don’t do this. There’s no registration so no one ensuring overbreeding isn’t happening, no registration of the health tests, no inbreeding coefficient calculated. Those who have good examples of their breed with good health tests are absolutely not breeding that dog to another breed so the crosses are being bred from poor examples of the breed often with no or very limited health tests.

My poodles parents were PRA, OC and VWD DNA tested plus they had hip and patella scores and yearly eye exams. I absolutely guarantee that not a single doodle owner can say the parents of their puppy had ALL those tests done. Maybe 1 or 2 if lucky but not all.

This is the thing though. It’s almost impossible to ethically breed crosses.

if you have a quality bitch or stud you are interested in the breed, and’s aren’t going to put them with a poodle or something else to create a pet cross for the ££££. Plus you’re restricted to that one cross, so if all doodle crosses were ethically bred we’d only be seeing a limited amount of crosses- maybe cavapoo and labradoodle. The sheer quantity and variety of cross breeds means it’s liferally not possible for them to be ethically bred. As for the ridiculous ones like pomski’s where it is effectively physically impossible to cross those breeds due to size….

The problem is those breeding crosses don’t do this. There’s no registration so no one ensuring overbreeding isn’t happening, no registration of the health tests, no inbreeding coefficient calculated

Honestly, there is also overbreeding, above average inbreeding coefficients and breeding from animals with average to poor health test results in pedigree dogs.

Doodles are created on the basis of myth and false beliefs but nevertheless many pedigree dog breeders are just as bad if not worse. After all, they have actually used the tools at their disposal but still go ahead with cretin matings. Often because a dog is showing great potential in the show ring or where ever.

Yep and I agree again it’s on the purchaser to do their due diligence and find a breeder who breeds ethically.

the difference with pedigrees is the COI is easily available on the KC website. When your dealing with a specific breed you know what genetic tests you’re looking for.

when I approached my breeder I knew the history of her dogs. I knew the originating kennels and who had owned the stud dogs she uses. I knew the health issues- one is subluxing patella and she was able to tell me how she avoids it, and if she has any puppy with it the bitch is immediately neutered. She was a show breeder and pointed out she absolutely could not risk it as having a lame dog in the show ring was not an option.

an interesting observation I see brought up often is people seem to thing being able to see “mum and dad” is a green flag. I think the exact opposite, if the breeder owns both bitch and stud the chances of inbreeding rocket. I see it as a red flag and look for breeders that use external stud dogs with no or very distant relation to the breeders line.

pedigrees are now online going back generations. I think I got back to the early 1900’s.

doodles it’s almost impossible to do these checks. You could look at each individual parent, but let’s face it, people breeding doodles aren’t keeping breeding records.

To add, many doodle owners will use the argument that crosses are automatically “healthier” than pedigrees. Which is untrue and again shows they’ve just bought a puppy with no research.

Of course there is but at least the KC publish this so you can check and know if you’re puppy is inbred or not and make decisions based on that. With crossbreeds you are making decisions based on what the breeder is telling you and no evidence that it’s true.

I also see the breeder owning mum and dad as a red flag. What’s the chance the breeder just happened to own the perfect compliment to her bitch? That tells me they used the male that was convenient not the best.

But a 'quality' bitch or stud for the show ring isn't necessarily what someone wants. So long as the dog is healthy, conformationally sound, of good temperament and has had any relevant health tests - that's what you are looking for. You don't need a bitch who has won at Crufts or a stud with a JW.

Plus breeding for the show ring has brought us all sorts of disasters in the way of flat faces, cherry eye, over-long backs, ridiculous amounts of coat... never mind high COIs.

As for pedigrees, yes, you can check how many registered litters a bitch has had, you can check COI to a point (but good luck if you have a recent import in the immediate line, as the information won't often go back all that far). But the issue with pedigrees is that you are already breeding within a closed gene pool, so genetic COI could be a lot higher than paper COI. Closing gene pools completely is not a good idea, as we're seeing with Cavaliers (hearts, brain cases) and Does (hearts), but judicious outcrossing is VERY unpopular with almost all breed clubs.

Personally I would be very much in favour of the KC introducing a crossbred register, where you could see at a glance what health were needed, which had been done, what the COI of the litter is and so on - and that would give them scope to allow the dogs resulting from an outcross to be registered as full members of their predominant breed after perhaps 4 generations (so they would be 6.25% of whatever the outcross breed was, and the rest their predominant breed).

The sheer quantity and variety of cross breeds means it’s liferally not possible for them to be ethically bred.
I'm not convinced by that argument, if I am understanding it correctly.

Doodles are a so called designer breed that can cost shit loads of money. They are the reason why a lot of spaniels, poodles, Labradors, golden retrievers, etc, etc are mistreated and used as breeding machines. Research puppy farms. See how these animals are made to suffer and then bleat on about the negativity doodle owners get.

The Kennel Club doesn't have a specific rule limiting the number of litters for crossbreeds and a lot of dogs are suffering a life of misery as a result. But who cares right, so long as a doodle owner gets their cute fluffy puppy.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3013492758692937&set=a.220866687955572

https://www.k9magazine.com/how-close-are-we-to-ending-puppy-farming-in-the-uk/

Crossbreeds cannot be registered with The Kennel Club so they are nothing to do with them. The KC allow each KC registered female to have a maximum of four registered litters.

Quality does not mean show ring. It means healthy dog with good test results and sound temperament. Not all dogs are bred for show.

A lot of people do define in show terms, though, and that is what I thought @Whosenameisthis was doing.

The poo-mix owners, who were so prevalent at the start of the thread (calling us snobs etc), appear to have vanished when the facts, background and decades of experience started talking.

I’d like to be proved wrong and have even one engage in a sensible and reasonable manner, as many PPs have, but sadly I just don’t see that happening.

I’d had heated back and forths with lots of people on mumsnet Doghouse, including those I get on well with, but never with a doodle owner who can admit they were wrong or that, perhaps, their dog is not as healthy nor come from the amazing background they thought they did.

I’m still here and reading. I still completely stand over my particular poodle cross. As I said I have known personally her breeder for 30 years. I have been in his house many times. I met both parents. I know he is no longer breeding from them as she has had 3 litters. I KNOW the pup was ethically bred.
I also said that I would not get another even though she is the best dog I ever had because I don’t know, in the current climate, how I would ever be as confidant again that the pup was not farmed. And I completely agree that the inbreeding is going to be a bigger and bigger problem with any popular breed, be they cross breed or pedigree.
the problem is much much bigger than doodle owners and I think the solution is education and regulation, not castigating owners of a particular type of dog.

Well said @Twodogsonthecouch .
@LandSharksAnonymous you obviously have a great deal of experience and knowledge and you've explained your reservations .
But really why come back on the thread crowing about the fact that people aren't responding to you .
It's almost as if you're saying "I won!"
I'm still here reading as well and have found the posts very informative .
Also think snobbery is at play from some posters.

@limetrees32 it wasn’t crowing. I’m sorry that you mistook it as that.

It was more making the point that the debate, once it got going, was between the usual group of poster and no one who owned a poo-mix was contributing. It’s therefore easy to make the assumption they’ve just stopped reading - which, being frank, is what happened last time this debate started.

That being said, I 100% stand by my last line - I’ve never seen a poo-mix owner admit they might have cocked up. Whereas I see plenty of pedigree owners admit they may have.

It's easy to feel, if you own a purpose-bred pedigree, that pedigrees are superior in every way. They are reasonably (if not entirely) predictable in terms of overall look, size, coat, colour, overall appearance, drives and temperament. They are more likely to have been health tested than crosses or random mongrels. It's usually very much easier to track their ancestry and find out about their forebears. If you are carefully selecting a dog that will fit the life you can provide for it, and will be free of certain health conditions, a pedigree is a slam-dunk.

But....

(and there is always a but....)

Problems come with pedigrees too. Because of the focus of some breeders on winning prizes in the show ring, the dogs can be bred to extremes of appearance which damage their health and comfort. The desire for consistency of type or trait leads to inbreeding. Closed gene pools lead to inbreeding.

The problems that result from this are not immediately obvious. A few generations of breeding for a flashy stride that judges of that breed consider gives the dog 'spark' and 'presence' (or whatever, I don't show, I just watch Crufts sometimes) probably won't do a lot of damage over 2 or 3 generations, but keep at it and the breed will have a ridiculous stride, shoulder arthritis by age 6 or some nasty recessive disease will have popped up due to lots of keen breeders going for sires from the same bloodline who provide the deeply-desired 'proud strut so typical of this wonderful breed'. This is an invented example, but you get the point.

And inbreeding and closed gene pools... a bit of inbreeding here and there, an outcross, a bit more line breeding to fix type, probably nothing major going obviously wrong for 20 or 30 years. Likewise a closed gene pool, all looks okay for a century or more.

But eventually, issues will crop up. Every mammal on earth carries random genetic cock-ups. Restrict genetic variety, and some of the recessive genetic cock-ups will collide with identical genetic cock-ups, so you end up with diseases named for breed or types (off the top of my head, wolfhound rhinitis, collie eye anomaly, shar pei fever) or breeds in which certain dodgy genes are prevalent (those causing mitral valve disease in Cavs, for example).

Every mammal on earth needs a diverse immune system. Breed within a closed pool and immune systems will become less diverse. This is probably what underlines the high rates of cancer in some breeds (though genetics also plays a part). Pet insurance companies have no skin the game as regards pedigree vs. cross vs. mongrel, so they crunch the numbers. Work in the US found that labradoodles had much lower rates of cancer than labs and poodles, and golden doodles had much lower rates than golden retrievers and poodles.

So in that sense, pedigrees are a gamble. I love my pedigree dogs. I love their traits, how they look, how they behave. But I am very aware that keeping the gene pool closed isn't good for them in the long run, which is why I'm alert to COI when I get a puppy, and would be in favour of other genetics being brought into the breed.