I did listen to several people on this thread, BUT I am also going to listen to the advice that my Vet gave me...
All this MUTT talk and my DS11 asked me tonight if he was a MUTT, and I had to laugh and say "Why yes you are"
It seems to me that several posters are really bothered there is a MUTT out there with a name...I just don't understand that, and maybe that is just how I am reading into it.
All I know is I am looking for a family pet to share all our fun times. And hopefully very soon, I will have a new furry little child....
I have nothing against doodles persay and I'm not in the habit of calling ANY dogs mutts, exept maybe my own when we call her a Mangy Mutt fooling around.
You asked for information and opinions and people gave you good information over several pages on this thread, yet you still want to criticize those posters for telling you what you asked for. It appears you have no more understanding of the issues than when you started, which is a shame, seeing as a lot of people took the time to post.
It doesn't mean don't get a doodle. It means do your research, as you would with any dog coming into your home. That's it.
My own personal feeling about these types of dogs is that I cringe when I see and hear people buying them for the wrong reasons, for astronomically inflated prices, without understanding the lineage issue, and from the wrong places. But that could be true of any dog as well.
I have seen some beautiful doodles and I can understand why people like them. (And I have seen some bad ones, too.) However, because their genes may be so random, you are not going to get the type of "standard" that you get with a purebred dog with predictable traits. Doodles will show traits from both their lineages (and maybe more if the lineage is not pure) and that could be a host of traits both physically and behavior wise. With purebreds, there are personality differences within the breed, but generally, what you will get is predictable. I don't believe you can say that with doodles (perhaps with the exception of those breeding correctly for the right reasons), which is why, from the beginning and now, nobody here can really give you the answer you want.
My own sense, too, is that one of the big reasons this became such a heated issue in general, is that those who understand dogs and dog breeding were outraged to see unscrupulous people taking advantage of the "designer dog" phenomenon by sticking two dogs together without any care of what they're doing in order to make a windfall profit. Heck, it does seem like a good idea if you want to make a quick few thousand and you think of dogs as commodities.
Do people do this with purebreds? Of course they do! Which is why we see so many problems in purebreds today. I had a guy come up to me recently with a male GSD to ask if my female was spayed, saying he was looking for one to breed his male with. Really? If I said yes, we might have been on our way!
The bottom line for buying ANY dog purposefully bred is that there are established guidelines to follow in order to maximize your chances of getting a good quality dog, and that your best chances will come from buying from someone with many years of experience with the breed, selecting only dogs with good traits and eliminating from breeding stock those with bad traits - which would include health problems
and flaws in temperament - who does it for the love and betterment of the breed.
As for our mix friends at the pounds, the reason people suggest going there if you don't care much about breeds is that you are just as likely to find a great dog there as you are buying from an unscrupulous breeder, and you might even have a healthier dog in the long run if it was truly a random mix. What I would suggest for anyone getting a dog from shelter is to go in with an open mind and find the dog that has the absolute sweetest personality you could imagine and is a great fit for your lifestyle and family. If you remember adorable dogs like Benji, they were rescued from pounds and were probably the precursors to doodles.
. I usually don't do into Animart because of their puppies, but I thought they carried a specialty litter box and I wanted to see it in person.
