I think it's ridiculous to intentionally breed a mutt to get a better dock diving dog.
There are enough unwanted mutts in shelters.
Not to mention....it drives me nuts that someone would breed a dog specifically for performance with no thought to temperment.
Some of these mixes must produce insanely high energy dogs...not exactly a good pet.
No one is claiming they are good pets. They aren't bred, sold or raised for people looking for a dog who's just a good pet. And breeding for the purpose of sport pretty much means there is mostly thought given to temperament - the dogs are being selected for certain temperament traits which make them able to excel at sports.
So, you're trying to tell me that these "breeders" will only place these dogs with an owner that does sports? What a load of crap...there are poor, unsuspecting families out there that these "breeders" are selling pups to that end up with a crazy, high energy, driven dog that they can't handle.
The dog then ends up in a shelter.
How many sport mixes end up in shelters because breeders who are active in sport and bred them for sport sold them to unsuspecting families looking for easy pets? How do these unsuspecting families looking for easy pets end up deciding to buy a sport mix to begin with? How do they know how to find breeders of them?
So what about all the pups in the litter that dont have speed, or drive, or energy. The ones where the mix did not produce a good sport dog? Then you have a bunch of mutts taking up more homes (or getting dumped into shelters).
It doesn't tend to work that way though. Flyball is a sport that teams compete at in divisions against like teams (in terms of speed). So maybe a dog doesn't have what it takes to be on the most competitive teams in the most competitive division. That doesn't mean there aren't people competing in other divisions who would be happy to have the dog for their team. I actually have yet to come across a pet owner with a sport bred mix. Not saying they aren't out there, I'm sure the occasional one may go to a pet home. However, the sport mixes I have seen have always been with people who bought them for what they were and were active in dog sports at some level. They aren't really bred for pets, aren't promoted as pets and aren't dogs most pet owners even know exist. Actually, I suspect a lot of dog people don't know about them either.
And I LOVE mutts, but no, not ok to breed them purposely in my book. I know sports are fun, but we are not talking livelihood here. There are PLENTY of dogs that are already great at sports and there is no reason the breeds already highly involved couldnt be streamlined more towards that aspect. These mixes are all over the place, meaning its not as if some people are working towards a common goal and standard/purpose.
Why is it acceptable to breed purebreds specifically for sport (which would be breeding for traits beyond what is typical or historically correct for that breed in terms of size, temperament and drive) but breeding for the same thing in mixes is unacceptable?
Livelihood in terms of needing a certain type of dog to survive or allow earn your income is rarely a factor in breeding dogs in modern times. Very few breeds and even fewer individual dogs are bred these days because their owner's livelihood depends on the next generation being born. If that became the criteria for who could and could not breed their dog, I'm afraid that most breeds would quickly become extinct.
There is a void, sport dogs are filling it. I don't really see what the problem with that is. Lurchers, Alaskan Huskies, many many ranch dogs and all number of hunting dogs have been bred like that forever.
This is it in nutshell. You can talk all day about how
in theory, people who want mixes for sports should just get shelter dogs. Or how
in theory, we have plenty of breeds to fulfill any purpose. But in truth, there have always been purpose bred mixes to fill the niches that purebreds (or at least purebreds that are reasonably obtainable for the people wanting them) can not or do not. In truth, purebreds and random bred mixes are not the dogs making and breaking flyball records.
I am not really assuming anything about the breeders...I just dont like the idea of breeding mixes for sport. J
That's fine, you don't need to like it. It'd be pretty boring if everyone had the same likes and dislikes when it comes to dogs. We certainly wouldn't have so many unique breeds or types of dogs if that were the case
However, that doesn't mean that it's wrong, causing problems (filling shelters with dogs, burdening unsuspecting owners with high drive dogs, taking homes away from shelter dogs, etc, etc) or that it really has much to do with anyone except the people breeding or buying the dogs.