On Feb 20, 1:26*pm, Bobs yer uncle wrote:
On Feb 20, 12:51*pm, BillyZoom wrote:





On Feb 20, 12:33*pm, Bobs yer uncle wrote:

On Feb 18, 2:13*pm, Tom Enright wrote:

On Feb 18, 12:51*pm, Jaybyrd wrote:

Mutts rule

Dogs from breeders are bread to look a certain way. *Violently
unstable? *Untrainable? *So what? *It LOOKS good.

Mutts Pure breads.

-Tom Enright

Ridiculous.

A dog's temperment and trainablility is judged every bit as "looks".
I've mentioned before that there are certain breeds I would never own,
but easily 70%+ of all purebreds are "good" dogs.

I love purebreds AND mutts. But, personally I've had fewer problems
with mutts in terms of temperament and physical problems. All the
mutts I've had have been great dogs, but kind of uniform. Purebreds
have those personality quirks that are endearing (or maddening). Of
course that's just my experience (30+ dogs in total including
rescues). Right now I have a Basset, a Cocker and two chihuahuas. The
cocker is a rescue and he's a handful but a good boy. The others are
from breeders. I recently had a Golden from a very high-end breeder.
His father was a champion show dog. He had the pedigree to be a great
dog and he was. Unfortunately, hip problems hit him relatively young.
And then he mysteriously just began to languish and eventually was not
able to stand. It wasn't just his hips. Only 10 years old. Not enough
time.

Nowadays, breeders can almost guarantee an animal doesn't have the
genetic marker for dysplasia, but that wasn't the case a couple
decades ago. *Goldens are such awesome dogs, and its heartbreaking to
lose any dog, but they are particularly hard because they are so
loving. *My only issue with them is the 2-3 year puppyhood, and a big
dog like that can do a lot of damage, intentional or not.

I'm like you, though, I like all dogs, mixed and purebred, but with
four small children we had to guarantee that the dogs we own are good
with kids, so we've stuck with our two breeds for a while, a Norfolk
Terrier and a Samoyed. *No offense to Ike, but I've had my ass bit by
enough large breed terriers that I could never own one.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I understand what you're saying and our Vet said the same thing. But
we went to great lengths to rule out dysplasia. That's why we paid
$1500 for a dog. He didn't have dysplasia, but he had bum hips and I
don't understand if I wasn't careful enough or it's just a risk. It
just bums me out.

Boy, you're not kidding about the 3 year puppyhood. It's cute for a
while, but when they're full grown they can actually injure you trying
to love on you just because they are so excited.