Crossing the rubicon - and no going back

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There's a fabulously snobby piece in this week's DogWorld in which Dachshund exhibitor Lee Connor decries a designer-dog breeder for mating a Bichon x Shih Tzu with a Miniature Poodle and dubbing the resulting mix a "Daisy" dog. He writes:

"Yes, the very first litter of 'Kennel Certificate registered Daisy puppies' have been born in the UK. You can take your pick from a range of colours; from the run-of-the-mill blacks and chocolates to the rather more fitting creams and champagnes. 

"The advert, which has certainly caused a lot of interest and comment on social media, states that the Daisy puppies are from a “carefully planned breeding… to produce the highly sort [sic] after hypoallergenic designer toy breed, ‘The Daisy’ (ideal for allergy sufferers)”. 

"The mother it goes on to say is an “F1 hybrid Bichon x Imperial Shih Tzu” (note, in the style of the famous Marks & Spencer adverts, this is not your usual Shih Tzu… this is an Imperial Shih Tzu) and the father is a “KC-registered show-quality Chocolate Miniature Poodle”.

"The advert then assures us that “only the very best bloodlines have gone into this breeding to produce the very best quality… an outstanding litter of non-moulting adorable Daisies”. 

"And, dear reader, you too can buy into this hypoallergenic dream of a dog for a mere £900." 

Now,  granted, the chances of this being a quality breeder are less than the chances of seeing a ridgeless Ridgeback in a show-ring. There's no mention of health-testing and the "Kennel Certificate registered" claim is undoubtedly a scam designed to sound like "Kennel Club registered". I also agree with Connor that their coats are going to be high-maintenance.  And, yes, there's the concern that "Imperial" might mean a tea-cup Shih Tzu as it's a term used by breeders pitching at the teeny-weeny-cute market.

(Been thinking of a coffee mug meme for this... "No tea-cups here... [pic of weeny dog] runts are for ....." What do you reckon?)

So all in all, I'd be hard pushed to make any claims for this particular litter. But wouldn't it be nice if Connor + co expressed the same righteous indignation about shitty breeders of Pugs or French Bulldogs or one of the other purebred dogs du jour?

Plus if you're gonna do a three-way cross (something that's often advocated in livestock breeding as there is evidence that it results in the most hybrid vigour), in principle you could do a lot worse than with these three breeds.

It is true that all three can suffer from hereditary cataracts (although may not be the same mutation) and slipping patellas, so you'd need to take that in to account when choosing your stock (and yes, we have no evidence that the breeder in this case has done this). But all three are long lived (13-14 on average) and have moderate conformation.  This is a pic of a Shih Tzu x Bichon - an attractive little dog. Throw Miniature Poodle into the mix and the result should be a really smart, athletic cookie. Kept clipped, pas de problème!

© Sue Thatcher

But this is ignored by Connor in favour of raising a red-herring question mark over this mix's ability to give birth naturally. 

'I would like to see the figures for caesareans among these so-called designer breeds especially among the ‘toy/miniature’ ones like the miniature labradoodle featured on the Jonathon Ross show the other week. Surely if you breed a six pound bitch out of a ten pound mother by a four pound father you are setting yourself up for far more whelping difficulties than the uniformity, that took many years to stabilise now found in our recognised pedigree toy and miniature breeds. Of course the numbers of pedigrees needing such interventions will and quite rightly so be available but is there anyone out there collating figures for dogs such as the Daisy?"

Well no. Although we can get an idea by looking at the C-section rates for the individuals concerned (source) in this three-way cross and their average weights.

Bichon Frisee - 5.6% (3-6kg)

Shih-Tzu - 21.1%  (4-7.2kg)

Minature Poodle - 5.3% (7-8kg)

I think there's a pretty good chance that this mating would result in a natural birth. And certainly a better chance than in Lee Connor's own breed, the Standard Smooth Dachshund, which has a C-section rate of 31%.

The Standard Smooth also has a whopping  risk of back disease (IVDD - invertebral disc disease).  One in four will suffer from this condition which is at best painful at at worst paralysing. (Source)

That's a higher risk for that single health problem than for all the major health problems put together for any of the breeds in the Daisy 3-way cross.

Finally, Connor also gets aerated about the fact that some designer dogs come with a pedigree! 

I mean, how could they when they're mongrels? 

He writes:

I wondered how one would possibly go about creating a ‘pedigree’ for what is essentially a mongrel litter. Surely, by their very nature, the background of most of these dogs would be at best sketchy.

Well no, not always. There have always been selectively-bred crossbreeds with extensive pedigrees (think lurchers and other working dogs). And an increasing number of "designer dogs" are now being bred with care and with their ancestry well-documented.  But of course, in Connor's Fancy-fuzzled head, there is no good to be found in any crossbreeding.  People who breed them know nothing, are nothing, produce good-for-nothings and are only ever in it for the money.

Ah, and it's all the fault of PDE, despite the designer dog trend being enormous in the US where PDE made little impact.

I am depressed by another anti-crossbreed report in Dog World this week, too, concerning the proposal to be voted on at the KC's upcoming AGM re a working party to discuss crossbreed registrations. (Read it here.) There are mixed messages coming out of the KC on this one, no doubt reflecting that on the one hand it sees sense more inclusivity as the way forward while having to cope with the purists who hate crossbreeds and mongrels - so much so that some would rather the KC wound back and the block and didn't recognise them at all, not even on the activities/companion register.

Dinosaur judge Jean Lanning believes that the KC acknowledgement of crossbreeds "is inadvertently encouraging the trend and the public perception of the endorsement this brings. Also, a breeder of these crossbreeds is able to be a member of the KC Assured Breeder Scheme.”

Shock horror! And so very revealing. If you loved dogs... if you truly loved dogs and your professed concern was that the poor crossbreeds were being so badly bred... wouldn't you want them to be produced under the auspices of an initiative that encourages better husbandry/welfare?

Apparently not. 

Also troubling Lanning (and indeed many others) is the KC's registration of imported dogs, some of unrecognised colours ‘such as blue Bulldogs and French Bulldogs’, which she says indicates that another breed had been introduced.

Yeah, because colour is sooo a bigger issue than the fact that one in four of even the "best-bred" French Bulldogs suffer from Brachycephalic Obstructed Airway Syndrome or that both breeds struggle to give birth naturally.

As you may have noticed, I  loathe the unthinking putting-down of crossbreeds when we've all seen the damage that breeding for purity can do - and the constant fretting about the ingress of foreign blood when an injection of new genes in genetically-depeleted breeds could be of real benefit.  And, boy, the fancy is just so clueless in this respect. Who do they think they are convincing now that the public is so much more aware of the health issues in pedigree dogs? Seriously, you're never going to convince the buyers by trashing the opposition when you need to put your own house in order.

There's also the small matter that it smells like racism.

So while Connor and his ilk tut-tut in their ever-decreasing circles, the public is buying crossbreeds with silly names in their thousands because they think they're fashionable and fun.

Now, some of these breeders are awful. Really, really awful.

But I have to be honest and say that until someone outlaws the crap, fast-buck breeder, I'd much rather they were putting a Shih-Tzu x Bichon to a Poodle than mating together two Pugs or two Cavaliers or two Standard Smooth Dachshunds.

There's less of a chance of producing a short-lived dog that suffers.