Mixed breed VS purebred health

Dizzy

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#21
When you say a mixed breed, what do you mean?

A cross B? Or multi generational mix of all kinds?

To me they are very different.
 

Laurelin

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#22
Even if we're talking about f1 crosses (1st gen) the issue is that a lot o the breeds you see crossed do share similar issues. Especially in the realm of small designer dog types. I think you could probably definitively say that mixes as a whole would have less incidence of x problem. But it would be hard to say they are overall healthier. I have a hunch that responsible bred mixes could be he healthiest type of dog overall. But then again I changed my major from genetics to mathematics for a reason. There is not much real data out there
 

Kilter

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#23
I think the odds are higher that a mixed breed dog is going to have some issues, vs. a well bred dog from a responsible breeder.

As a rule, the responsible breeder is not only going to health test the parents, but they are going to select mates for their girls based on a lot of factors - often conformation is one of those. While that might not work for some extreme breeds like GSD's, in most cases that means the offspring are going to have pretty good conformation, no straight fronts or lack of angles, extreme cowhocks or east/west fronts and so on. So the dog is built better and will be more stable. They are also going to educate their puppy buyers on risks - things like not taking their 12 week old pup behind the car to tire them out, or allowing the pup to leap off the top of the deck and fly, and put down carpets if they have a lot of slippery floors. Feed better food, not corn based cheap stuff. Minimal vaccines, not whatever the vet says. On a 'bad' note they're more likely to place pups in homes that can afford to rush to the vet for things and so find more issues, and may require owners to get xrays done of their dog to check for problems.

The byb mix breeder isn't going to say 'sheesh, this female didn't pass her health testing' or 'her front is too horrible to want pups like that' and breed regardless - to whatever has the man parts and is interested. Even if that dog doesn't have HIS clearances or has a worse front, or no rear - if he's got dingleberries he's in. So more likely to have a conformation nightmare that will break down in the long term. They sell to whoever and don't educate, so you see that pup being dragged behind their owner going jogging at a young age. Dog is vaccinated by a vet without questions asked, so often is given a lot more vaccines. Food is what they see at walmart on sale. But they aren't going to spend much on the dog because it wasn't an expensive puppy, so while it limps here and there and gets snarky, it's not taken for a workup, it's ignored, dumped in the yard or taken to the shelter and handed over and that's that.

In general. Yes, there's lots of 'but's' but I see that a lot of times where the mixed breed buyers do things quite differently than someone who invests in a purebred. The puggle down the road was taken with the bike on laps around town from the time he was quite young, the purebred GSD across the park, he just started doing a bit of jogging with his owner at 2 - she doesn't take him on marathon runs up the highway though (she goes 22 KM sometimes).
 

Beanie

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#24
Even with an unusual condition which is limited to one breed, it only takes one crossbred to spread it into the mixed breed population.

Take L-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria (L2-HGA), which is a very unpleasant neurological disorder in Staffords. It's an autosomal recessive, so it's method of inheritance is simple, you just need to have 2 carriers match up. We have a test for it, so we can identify the carriers.

On a Stafford forum, one poster told us that a dog of his breeding which tested as a carrier had been used in a cross-breeding. I don't know why, but what that means is that the pups of that breeding will not have L2-HGA, but there's a 50/50 chance that they carry it. If they carry it, there's a 50/50 chance their progeny would also carry it. And so on, until one of those carriers breeds with another carrier. Could be that they're related several generations back, or it could be a separate incidence of the condition entering the mixed breed genepool. Either way, it's entirely possible that a mixed breed dog could have that condition.
Exactly this, yes.
Mixed breed doesn't mean "no genes remaining from the "purebred" genetic history, and especially not the bad ones!" If the basset hound carrier in your example is bred to a mixed breed who at any point had a carrier basset introduced to his genealogy and he is still a carrier, that dog is just as likely to result in a dog with Thrombopathia as if you bred two "pure" bassets who were carriers.
Unknown health history means unknown healthy history... no matter the breed. You might ask what the odds of that are - that's going to depend on a LOT of factors and will be different for any given situation. But ultimately, in a broad sense just talking generic "mixed breed" versus generic "purebred," your gamble is the same.
 

milos_mommy

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#25
Von Willebrands is not common on GSD. Just want to clear that up.
I'm really curious as to how accurate this is. I've always heard it listed as something common in GSDs (and a number of other breeds). The AKC Canine Health Foundation says they are a breed where Von Willebrands is prevalent. Looking into it further, it appears many of the organizations who suggest testing for it are involved with the companies that perform and distribute the test...in general, the breed clubs don't seem to recommend it. There are tons and tons of studies done on Von Willebrands in GSDs, but they seem to focus more on specific gene pools.

I'm not saying you're wrong, because I don't know that much about it, but what do you have to back up the fact that it's NOT common in GSDs?
 

Red Chrome

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#26
I will respond better on my computer. As a Breed, it is not common. Maybe in specific lines but not as a collective breed group. That's from talking to.breeders, looking at OFA etc.

IMHO GSDs have just as many health issues as other breeds. They ate not like you seem to think they are, these unhealthy horrible health riddled dogs.
 

Southpaw

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#27
Well and you don't hear about consistent health problems in mixed breed dogs. 100 mixed breed dogs are probably (in my experience anyway) going to have a different distribution of health problems than 100 golden retrievers, or 100 westies, or 100 bichons, or 100 whatevers.
I can't really formulate words at the moment lol so I'm just going with this.

Many breeds have specific health issues that are associated with them. Going with what I know, boxers - most of the time it's "oh, better watch out for cancer/heart problems". Mixed breeds don't have that association so maybe it just gives the perception that they're "healthier". I think a poorly bred mix is no different from a poorly bred purebred, just as much of a crapshoot and just as likely to be plagued with health issues. Or not! You just don't know.
 

stafinois

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#28
On a Stafford forum, one poster told us that a dog of his breeding which tested as a carrier had been used in a cross-breeding. I don't know why, but what that means is that the pups of that breeding will not have L2-HGA, but there's a 50/50 chance that they carry it. If they carry it, there's a 50/50 chance their progeny would also carry it. And so on, until one of those carriers breeds with another carrier. Could be that they're related several generations back, or it could be a separate incidence of the condition entering the mixed breed genepool. Either way, it's entirely possible that a mixed breed dog could have that condition.

Out of curiosity, has that happened in the UK? Staffords there are like Pit Bulls here, so I imagine there are tons of Stafford mixes.
 

Flyinsbt

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#29
Out of curiosity, has that happened in the UK? Staffords there are like Pit Bulls here, so I imagine there are tons of Stafford mixes.
I don't know if any mixed breeds have wound up with L2-HGA yet, but it's really only a matter of time if they haven't. I didn't mention it in my example, but that took place in the UK. There are a lot of Stafford crosses in the UK, and the L2-HGA was pretty widespread in the breed (the big concentration was in dogs descended from one popular stud, who proved to be a carrier, but tests show it in lines that aren't related for many generations back), so sooner or later....

Thing is, with a mixed breed, I don't know if anyone would think to test for the L2-HGA. So even if it's occurred, it might not be found.
 
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#30
More heterozygousity is associated with a more robust animal. Mixed breed dogs are. more likely to be more heterozygous than purebred dogs.

Pet insurance companies charge a higher premium for purebred dogs than mixed breed dogs because purebred dogs are statistically more likely to make use of insurance.

I have heard Ted Kerasote's new book comes down on the side of mixed breeds living longer, but I haven't read it yet. But the subtitle is "the search for longer lived dogs" so I think it might be relevant.
 

Romy

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#31
I think the odds are higher that a mixed breed dog is going to have some issues, vs. a well bred dog from a responsible breeder.
Ding Ding Ding! That's about it. Purpose bred mixes that are health tested have a pretty good chance of being healthy as well. In the rare instance that a responsibly bred health tested purebred has a whoops with another responsibly bred health tested purebred, those mixed puppies are pretty likely to be healthy too. Most times they're from BYBers or descended from puppymill stock though.

If hybrid vigor is what you're trying to get at, it doesn't work like that. That's hybrid vigor when species are crossed. All breeds of dog are the same species. It's not like breeding a horse and a donkey and getting a mule that can outperform both its parents.
This too.

Also, purebred =/= tightly linebred or inbred. It's a strategy utilized by some breeders, but isn't universal. You can also find inbred ill bred mixes due to irresponsible owners not keeping mixed intact siblings and parents separated or bothering to get them neutered.

When breeding purebred dogs, you can preserve genetic diversity while still breeding for type by doing assortative matings. Basically phenotypic outcrosses. Kaia's breeder keeps each litter's inbreeding coefficient under 10%. Kaia's litter had a COI of 0.6%, yet was amazingly consistent and high quality.

This is a really good article for anybody that breeds or wants to learn more.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950109/

Wikipedia does a pretty decent job explaining assortative mating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assortative_mating

Now you must suffer through the consistency of nine, nine week old puppies with a 0.6% COI. Muahahaha.









 

milos_mommy

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#32
IMHO GSDs have just as many health issues as other breeds. They ate not like you seem to think they are, these unhealthy horrible health riddled dogs.
Again, I don't know why you think I think GSDs are "unhealthy horrible health ridden dogs"?? I'm using them as an example because they were the breed discussed that sparked this thread - and any other popular purebred could have sparked the same discussion. I did say there is a myriad of health problems found in the breed, but the same is true of the majority of common dog breeds. I don't have any conception that GSDs, either found in rescue from unknown health backgrounds, or from a responsible, health-testing breeder, are going to have more health problems than any Golden, Boxer, Shih Tzu, Cocker Spaniel, etc. from a comparable breeding.

If you're getting ANY purebred dog (or a dog that is largely one breed) from rescue, I'm going to recommend you look into common health problems in that breed and look into a vet evaluation. I'm not sitting here targeting and picking on German Shepherds because I think they're all horribly unhealthy.
 

Beanie

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#33
Pet insurance companies charge a higher premium for purebred dogs than mixed breed dogs because purebred dogs are statistically more likely to make use of insurance.
More likely to make use of insurance does not mean less healthy, however.

Statistically women are more likely to make use of health insurance than men; would you say that means women are less healthy than men?

Same thing with BMI charts, interestingly enough. BMI charts are based on what is lowest risk for an insurance company, NOT what is actually healthiest.

Oh insurance companies and your statistics. <3
 

Torch

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#34
Unfortunately, bybers have introduced so many poor quality 'purebred' animals into the gene pool that the general public really has a skewed view of a purebred dog. Too often, the average person thinks that every lab or GSD has dyplasia, every spaniel has ear problems, or every Dalmation is deaf.

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but I do think that a mixed breed dog has a higher likelihood of being healthy than a poorly bred purebred, purely from a recessive disease standpoint.
 
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#35
This is a really fascinating topic to me but I know next to nothing about genetics.

Where do pariah type dogs fit in to this? People were asking about what specific type of mix-breeds, so what about say, a Carolina dog or Mexi dog that hasn't been purposely bred for generations and has had some natural selection at work in its lineage?

I was always of the opinion that they were healthier, but as was mentioned before it could be a misconception from lack of research and testing.
 

Romy

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#36
This is a really fascinating topic to me but I know next to nothing about genetics.

Where do pariah type dogs fit in to this? People were asking about what specific type of mix-breeds, so what about say, a Carolina dog or Mexi dog that hasn't been purposely bred for generations and has had some natural selection at work in its lineage?

I was always of the opinion that they were healthier, but as was mentioned before it could be a misconception from lack of research and testing.
Not just some natural selection. Almost all natural selection. Same thing with the africanis, azawakh, and dingos. Azawakh are EXTREMELY inbred with a very very limited genepool. The only health problem that occurs in the breed is a mild form of epilepsy. That's the only problem the desert couldn't select against.

Hundreds, sometimes thousands of years of some of the most extreme environments on earth culling everything but the strongest, most efficient, disease resistant, and smartest did a lot to refine the gene pool in those cases.

ETA: They're not really comparable to companion-bred mixes here in the US. Maybe if companion-bred mixes went feral, and lived unassisted for 40 generations or so you'd start to get something consistently healthy. An awful lot of the first few generations of dogs would die off really fast though.
 

Shakou

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#37
This is strictly speaking from my own personal experience, and people can take it for what it's worth, but:

Mutts in my experience have always been healthier and have out lived pure breds, even those pure breds who were from reputable breeders. The healthiest most sound dog I've ever known in my life was my grandmother's mixed breed whatever, who lived to the ripe age of 22 before he finally passed away one night in his sleep a few years ago. The worst health problem he had was miner arthritis due to old age. The sickest dog I've ever met was my best friend's champion GSD, who was riddled with arthritis at age 2, and was put to sleep by age 6 due to severe hip dysplasia and it's inability to even walk without being heavily drugged.

I've come across healthy pure breds and I've come across sickly mutts as well, but 9/10, the situation described above seems to be the norm for what I experience the most. And I've experienced quite a bit in my life.
 
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#38
And I have had the opposite in my life. Our mutt cost us thousands more in vet bills, in the first 3 years, then my purebred Shibas from good early healthy stock did in 15 years.

Same for my parents, our old multi-generation mutt barely made 13 years, and had several health problems. He wasn't a big dog either, he was 35lbs, so size wasn't an issue with him, he just wasn't healthy. On the flip side their Shiba came from the same lines as mine and lived to 16 years.

The biggest difference is that our purebreds came from healthy dogs. Would I get a Shiba now? Not without a bitch load of research into lines and health testing because North America has seriously effed them up!
 
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#39
Over the years I've come to feel like there is kind of a "danger zone" for some of the pure breeds around... oh, 8-10 years or so. Where some of the really catastrophic illnesses that are common in certain breeds tend to pop up. Like, lymphoma, hemangiosarcoma, or osteosarcoma in breeds where they are common. But, if they make it past that hump they often seem to live forever.

Mixed breeds, on the other hand, it just seem to be all over the board when something might happen.
 

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