which ishealthier, mongrels, crossbreds or purebreds?

[imported_Matty]

I have read a few posts from other members who seem to have some good agruments against purebreds. So, what do you think is healthier Mongrels, crossbreds or purebreds.

[DogPaddle]

A purebread dog from two dogs with weak genetics is going to be unhealthy.
A mongral or mutt dog from two dogs with weak genetics is going to be unhealthy.
A crossbread dog from two dogs with weak genetics is going to be unhealthy. For instance a sheperdoodle from a shepherd with HD and a poodle with Addison's is not going to have anything of so called "hybrid vigour."
Healthy dogs are most reliably produced from a well researched, carefully executed breeding program that does all appropriate health tests. Or possibly from a pariah dog situation where survival of the fittest still has a play in the dogs life -almost all mutts, mongrals, crossbreads would NOT benefit from this.. And not all purebreads are properly bread.

[CincoandDahlilasgirl]

I've heard mixes would be healthier assuming the mom and dad have strong genetics. Because a mix would elimante some possibilties of a illness that a pure would get.

[imported_Cassie]

If you want to get technical, the only purebred dog would be a mongrel. Purebreds technically are mixed breeds that have been inbred and line bred to set a standard size, shape and behavior. So, considering this it's quite silly to think that a Purebred could be healthier than a Mongrel.

People tend to forget that our purebreds are artificial and even Purebreds like spitz breeds may look more like the original mongrels they descended from...but, in order for a purebred to be recognized they have to meet a certain standard...in order to create a certain standard you need a small population of dogs as your breeding stock and you need to inbreed to set the standard.
So, even though some of our purebreds seem as though they have a huge population...you have to think that the gene pool is very small as they do not have many dogs in their original breeding stock.

To explain myself a little more, think about some of those documentaries of third world countries...you see hundreds of Mongrels roaming the streets living amougst the humans...but, these dogs do not belong to the humans...they are just stray mongrels. Some people may think, those poor stray dogs...some person must have abdondoned those dogs. In actual fact these dogs have been living this co existence for thousands of years. They have been around a lot longer than our purebred dogs. What happened was these dogs lived in villages and settlements scavenging off humans. Humans at one time thought of dogs much like we regard rats and other dirty scavengers. Dogs carried disease and they were to be avoided...but our dogs persevered and survived. Then humans started finding the dogs to be an asset. They barked when a stranger approached the human's yard it lived in...yes, they lived in people

[DogPaddle]

While I do believe genetic diversity plays a role in animal health I think that there are way to many dogs out there with HD ect. Maybe its just around here but shelter dogs just aren't trouble free more often than purebreds IF you eliminate the millers and bad bybers from the purebred side - now those are some of the most unhealthy dogs I've come across. My mum got a dog from a nice enough lady, but she was a byber and the people who bought those pups now know each other because their vets put them in touch with each other. :o UT infections, kidney problems, behaviour problems, bad teeth. :x

[Guest Anonymous]

At one point in life I would have argued for mixed breeds.

That is until my Chow/Shep mix Ariel started showing signs of various problems such as HD (Mom was a Chow Dad a GSD).

It HONESTLY depends on Genetics both dominiate and recessive genes. I'd rather get a rescue dog with no known history but that is because of the pet over population problem. Lack of the problem I'd spend forever and a day researching a breeder and their lines.

[imported_Matty]

OK, so I think I get it. Mongrels are natural and probably not too many orginal mongrels left in the world except maybe 3rd world countries. So, a Mongrel would be the most healthy. So, a mixed breed is a mix of a few artificial purebreds so the possibiliy of a mixed breed getting a genetic disease is higher because it has purebred in its genetic make up. Because a purebred had to be inbred to set a standard they have a higher likelyhood of having a manmade genetic disease like HD. So, if you have HD in a purebred and it mates with a mixed breed then they can carry the gene on to the mixed breeds. Same with a purebred mongrel, if they mixed with a purebred man made dog the chance they would become genetically unhealthy is much greater. Crossbreeding can make for a bigger gene pool but you would have to have good healthy dogs to start from.
Even reputable purebred breeders can't keep genetic disease out of their lines cause they are breeding from inbred stock. All purebreds have been inbred and the gene pools are really small.

I think I get it now :D

So basically there really arnt many purebred mongrels left in the world and some times if you see lots of stray dogs in a country like Mexico or Asia or Africa they could be purebred mongrels that have been for thousands of years and never ever belonged to humans. They just evolved to be scavengers like rats..and you see all kinds of rats running around that humans never bred :o :lol:

That reminds me, rats that are purebred are known to have a lot of genetic defects too. I thought that was kinda odd. I also was reading a website where they are now crossbreeding cattle to avoid genetic disease. Pretty interesting stuff :wink: