Sport Mixes

I agree with you. I would never, ever, ever support a sport mix breeder - unless they were legitimately trying to start a new, consistently producing breed who truly fills a niche!

I just don't feel that sport mixes are necessary, when there are HUNDREDS of breeds to choose from. Why not just import a rare breed and work to improve that breed? On my Flyball team, two of the members imported their own Danish Farmdogs, and started a long line of amazing Flyball dogs from their dogs. There were only a handful of Danish Farmdogs in the states before, and they've helped popularize the breed while also bettering it.

To me, a mixed breeding (especially F1, which most of these are) is simply not going to produce consistent puppies with consistent temperaments or type. That is why we have purebreds. I don't know about other states or cities, but you can find ANY kind of mix in shelters in California. Bostonjacks, Borderstaffs, Borderjacks, Jacks, and an assortment of other small/medium hyper dogs who nobody wants. NOBODY! Fostering for BC Rescue, I met countless small, high drive BC mixes who were nearly impossible to adopt out because they were super active & awkward looking & mostly black. I would imagine that it'd be cheaper to adopt a dog from across the country and ship/drive it home than it would be to buy from a sportmix breeder.

Having grown up, basically, doing Flyball... I know too many sportmix breeders who just put their Jack together with their friend's Border Collie and voila!!! To me, that's the reality and the norm. It's great that people do temperament/health testing on their mutts but in the end, mutts do not produce consistently! Plus the fact that I really understand Border Collies, and intentionally mixing them with completely different breeds with different personalities and instincts I feel is not fair to the dogs. Generally, unless mixed with another herding breed, BC mixes are confused, awkward dogs. When this country has a shortage of homeless dogs & breeding dogs for fun is okay and doesn't have reprecussions, I'll be fine with sportmix breeding. I'm not going to hate on anyone for buying a sportmix but I don't support it. I feel that all that time & energy would be so much better spent rescuing or bettering a purebred breed of dog.

IMO, I'd rather people create their own lines specialized for sports rather than modify the temperament and drives of existing breeds to such extremes.

There's a far greater danger of some unsuspecting schmoe getting a sport bred dog by accident, or sport breeding "tainting" (lol) the rest of the breed's population, if purebreds are modified. Say someone picks up a whippet, expecting a nice whippety dog with a normal whippet temperament (most make excellent companions) and instead got a sport dog with all the extra drive/energy/etc.? I know I'd be pretty irritated if it happened to me and that was not what I wanted.

For those who do throw random unproven JRT y in with random unproven BC x to make puppies, yeah that's a crapshoot. But when you have Worlds winner JRT x Worlds winner BC (or whatever the rankings are in flyball) both parents, regardless of the difference in breed, are individuals who have a consistent temperament and drive which is very likely to be passed on to their offspring.

It's the same way for people who breed hunting mixes. Say someone has an awesome greyhound that's hot on coyotes, a proven killer that has taken down coyotes singled handed. But maybe the terrain its hunting on is ripping up its pads or whatever, and you want to produce more durable puppies in the next generation. You might outcross to a saluki, or running walker, or staghound, or some individual of another breed with complementary lines who is also proven on coyotes. I bet you'd get at least some awesome coyote hounds out of it. If you just randomly crossed it with some hound that happened to be handy, then yeah a crapshoot. It's the same as purebreds, in that unless the parents are proven it's a crapshoot whether the puppies will work.

Also, some of the sport mixes are intentionally made because people LIKE working with the mixed temperaments. You prefer pure BCs, which is awesome. Some people love staffies, but want something a little more biddable or handler focused which BC can bring.

The vast majority of dog breeding in the country is done for fun. Really. If you look at the total number of kennels breeding specifically for SAR, K9, and service work it's pretty tiny compared to the total number of breeders.

Well that's what a good sport mix breeder is going for - trying to fill a niche. Some of the best height dogs are sport mixes.

But see, people have tried to do this with some breeds (this is a huge hot topic in border collies) and many of the people who work the breed for their original intended purpose are very against modifying the breed. Even with Spy, who is a sport bred border collie, I have gotten a lot of comments from people and have heard a lot of complaining about 'sporter collies'. Is it not better to make a new breed than to warp existing ones? One of the main arguments against sporter collies is that they cannot do the original purpose of a BC and are therefore not really BCs anymore.

Hyper and BC mix does not mean successful sport dog, just like a hyper athletic lab does not mean he will be a successful field dog. Plus where I live we just do not get these dogs in shelters. I can't help but also think of Elegy's dog Luce, who cannot compete in some things (I can't remember all the details) because her knees can't do it. Structural soundness is important if you want to seriously compete and a lot of shelter dogs are coming from less than stellar breedings of parents with questionable health and structure.

Well realistically virtually all dog breeding is done for fun. Very little breeding is done to serve a vital purpose that cannot be done without the dog. Also, the breeders you are describing are bad breeders and they also exist in purebreds. Those people shouldn't be breeding, period. Not all sport breeders are like that though and it is a pretty wide generalization to say they are.

Poor Luce can't even do the jumping required for AKC Obedience, nevermind something like agility. By the time I did enough behavior modification that she could have started agility, she was four and had blown out her first knee. Just by being a dog. We did a ton of rally because that's what she could do, and I absolutely had a blast doing it, but I have so many regrets and dreams of what could have been.

So when I went looking for my next sport dog, because I really really wanted to do agility, I went to a breeder. Steve's a sporter collie, and I've gotten so much crap about it from "real" Border Collie people that it's pathetic. But he's a fantastic dog and I really couldn't have built much better of an athlete.

I really genuinely am looking for a height dog for the future. I've kicked around this breed and that. Cardigans. Vallhunds. Poodles. Staffies. But at the end of the day, the dogs best built for the job structurally and temperamentally are the sport mixes. There are a lot of Borderstaffs around, and they are smaller in stature than a BC, but not so heavy-boned as the Staffs. Tons of drive from both sides of the equation. Not as soft as Border Collies. I find them aesthetically appealing, too, which doesn't hurt. Nobody's been able to give me a better purebred option.

This is totally random and somewhat on topic, but has anybody ever seen a klee kai doing sports? The ones I've met were totally small, spunky, and high drive and seemed like they'd be fun. I just never go to performance sport events so have no idea. Anybody?

Nope but I saw a lot of unstable ones in the UKC show ring in Oregon about 12 years ago.

I have met a few, one has been a client. I agree with the above, nervy little dogs. None of them would make even halfway decent sport prospects. Which was sad as they were cute and seemed nicely put together.

I guess I don't see why this is better. At all. To me it's pretty much the same thing. I'm also just kinda curious how they bettered the breed?

It would have been a lot cheaper for me to go find a Border Collie breeder in Southern IL than import a Koolie from Australia. But a Border Collie didn't fit me. In fact, no breed other than Koolies really fit me. I mean, I ended up going across the world to get a breed of dog that was what I was looking for in a dog. And I'm not someone who had a serious direct goal to be super competitive in a chosen sport.

There is a certain kind of dog that suits people's sport needs and home needs and the crazy active spazzy dogs rescues like to say would make great sport dogs aren't always it. And even if they are a great fit for the sport their body really might not be. That's why a lot of people go to breeders, for the stacked odds. And if you can't find a purebred dog that fits what you are looking for and can't find or don't want to take the risk of a rescue dog then sport mixes are a very valid option.

I guess I don't feel the need to decide what a valid reason for breeding a line of dogs is as long as you are doing so responsibly with care for the dogs. I mean, you could be breeding a line of dogs that's purpose is picking up trash in a park and I wouldn't be against it if gone about right.

Okay what about the disgust that is shown to the show breeders breeding to extremes? How the dogs can't do this or that because of the way they where breed. Why not the same disgust when sportmixs are breed for extreme tempermnets that leave them unsuitable for pet home if there not good enough for the sport?

If they're not good enough for the sport- what exactly does that mean? Generally if a dog isn't going to cut it at the upper levels, there's always lots of people who dabble in sports that would likely love them.

What about Alaskan Huskies? They're 'mixed breeds' bred for the sport of sled dog racing. Also high drive, not the best pet prospects. They've been bred for a long time. Or eurohounds?

What makes breeding border jacks any different than breeding malinois (just as an example)? Mals are also not going to cut it as a pet dog for average people either.

Should people just not breed any high drive dogs?

Say the structure is off and there unable to do the sport. What then? From what i understand the kids have a higher drive than mals. I am talking the insane drives being bred for. I really have never even seen a sport mix . Just a question I thought of reading the thread. It is intresting to see all sides and is making me rethink my views. Good discussion.

Hm, I started this thread to hear if anyone had a sport mix - what they were like and what they were doing with it. I was just curious. I know loads of them, know several breeders, like the vast majority of the mixes I've met and spoken to numerous owners. My intention was not to start a debate about how ethical or not the breeders are, I was hoping to connect with others that *had* them or worked with them.

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Great posts both.

Wow really? I've met a fair amount of BC mixes that aren't confused or awkward, including my dog (a BC/Golden Retriever mix). While I'm really uncertain about the idea of sport mixes, this statement sort of stuck out to me as odd.

Alaskan Huskies are more of a type. Not a mix, not a breed, but somewhere in between. It's an established idea of what a dog in the sport SHOULD be with all the high standards but none of the limitations of staying within a designated "breed". And that is what most purpose-bred mixes are to me, "types". Not genetically linear purebred, but not scatterbred mixes, either. And on that note, purebreds can be scatterbred, too. Type to type breeding is generally a must in any "good" breeding program, but it doesn't mean it has to be within purebreds only.

I'd also rather see Types established rather than current breeds butchered in temperament and conformation any more than they already are. Mixes are the lowest of the low to me. Just no thought to the breeding at all. That's BYBing. But types are specifically bred for a reason. And it can go good or bad, just like purebred breeding.

Typically that is because the dog has been bred to be not athletic enough and not to have the drive. Why would there be disgust with a nice balanced athletic dog? I mean I get teh disgust when the dog is so bow legged walking is a chore, or so short of face breathing in the summer is difficult.. but I don't see how breeding a healthy athletic drivey dog should be met with the same disgust as something that is going to have difficulties trotting around the block..

Struck me as odd too. If mixing breeds that were originally bred for different purposes creates awkward, confused dogs wouldn't that make mixed breeds undesirable dogs in general?

It seems that following the logic of "there's no need for breeding sport mixes or breeding for sport when there's so many easily available dogs that could do sports well enough", there's no reason to be importing obscure, rare breeds not currently or easily found in the US for the purpose of sport either.

Totally agree with all of this. I have known some great rescue sport dogs. I've also known some rescue dogs that ended up having unsuitable structure or temperament for sports. Stuff happens with well bred dogs too without a doubt. I think I've probably known fewer well bred, carefully selected dogs to wash out of sports than I have poorly bred purebreds or mixes. I have also known many people who got into sports and swore they'd never, ever buy a dog from a breeder and would only ever promote rescues as sport dogs that are now buying well bred, carefully selected puppies. That isn't to say rescue dogs can't be great sport dogs though - they definitely can be. Ziggy is a poorly bred rescue and he's awesome! But it's a lot more complicated than many people tend to think. There's more to it than just finding a "hyper", "high drive" (often just a normal, untrained adolescent) in a shelter. There's the screening process, the structure considerations, the altering considerations, etc.

Aww, that's disappointing. My neighbor in Seattle had several and they seemed like really stable and awesome little guys. Sad that there aren't more like them out there.

There is a breeder here who does a ton of sport with hers. They all seem to have SA issues and are kenneled together at trials because of it. One of hers seems to have quite a list of titles and seemed super upbeat and awesome in the ring, but some of her others were super timid.