Crossbreeding Done Right

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast. For some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things.

Yeah.

Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I'd go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

Welcome to the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, it's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence. Max O'Neill, Down Under Dog Trainer. Max, we want to talk about crossbreeding, but the ethical kind.

Yeah, it's something you see a lot and it's not one of the things where I'm not this pedigree purist that doesn't believe in mixed breeding or whatever. Like it's not remotely like that, but I do think it needs to be done ethically because I do see a whole lot of pretty unethical shit happening day to day in the pet world. I really want to get into that today. So you guys have got a better understanding and maybe know some things to look out for so that if you're thinking of breeding your own dogs, maybe you might second guess and decide it's not the best idea. And likewise, if you're looking around for a dog at the moment, you might look and go, oh, I know that thing seems really cute on paper, but that's a pretty bad idea. And maybe I shouldn't touch and support that.

Because that's the thing. I think people just simply go, you know what'd look really cool? Like if we could make a miniature German Shepherd that never grew.

Yeah, exactly.

So let's get a pug and a German Shepherd and see what sort of monstrosity we can create.

Let's see what we can do. Exactly. And it's just, it becomes a bit like Frankenstein's monster and everyone's just kind of playing around with it at this point. But like, you know, we've got to think of the fallout and that's what we want to talk about today. So when we're talking about ethical mixed breeding, we're talking about it like, you know, from a health perspective with their internals. We'll talk about it from a physical perspective and also from a mental perspective, because I've kind of seen all 3 being done pretty poorly of late. And we'll elaborate on each of those and go right into it. So probably from a physical perspective, I think is a big one because all these crossbreeds are, and you know, really exotic crossbreeds are becoming pretty popular at the moment. But I do think that a lot of people are doing some pretty scat stuff, which is leading to some pretty, like dogs are pretty poor conformation. And again, that's not a bad thing because they're, you know, about to step in the show ring and this dog doesn't have a nice gait. It's a, hey, this dog's body is going to give out in it the moment it's fully grown. And what you're doing is kind of scat. So, when we're doing mixed breeding, I'm a big believer in you should have 2 dogs that are pretty of similar size and build. For example, Jack saw the other day a, was it Dachshund cross Cattle Dog?

Yes.

So, let's look, think of a Dachshund.

How does it even— the first thing goes to my head, how did they even get those 2 dogs to mate?

Yeah. I mean, how did you—

anyway.

Did the Dachshund climb on? Did the Cattle Dog squat down?

Yeah, I just—

Is there a milk crate?

Like, they managed it because there was one then, and I even wrote, because it was on Facebook and I'm like, really? Did we? Are we doing that? I mean, that just doesn't seem right.

It could be like the artificial insemination, but—

Oh, I didn't even— I never even thought about artificial. Yeah. Okay.

Fair enough. Yeah. So, let's think of that for a sec, right? You would think that you'd always get this 50/50 mix of the dog, and largely that's going to be the case. But with first-generation mixed breeds, as in, you know, this isn't like this, you know, multiple generation of cattle dog cross dachshunds. This is a first-generation mixed breed, meaning one parent is this breed, the other parent is that breed. And this is a first generation of cattle sausages or whatever you want to call them. Right. So in theory, you could get a dog with a cattle dog size body, which can be pretty chunky and thick. You know, they could have like a 15 to 20 kilo torso alone, and you could get that on dachshund legs. Now, as much in our head we go, that doesn't make any sense. In the womb, when genes are being placed at a million miles a second and all this is happening very quickly.

It's not saying what makes the most sense.

Yeah.

They don't go, what would look good?

It just happens.

Whatever happens, happens.

And because we've taken away the concept of the survival of the fittest and we get these very sick, unhealthy dogs that we keep alive and even breed from them, it means things like this will happen. So you could get a dog with a 20-kilo torso of a cattle dog on 3-inch little legs like that with the dachshund. And imagine that thing trying to walk around. It just wouldn't. It'd look like a beached whale. And so when we talk about—

Have you seen some of the dachshunds that get around?

I mean, there are a lot of beached whale dachshunds getting around. They're not far off that anyway. Yeah, exactly. Stomachs on the floor sort of stuff. So With ethical mixed breeding, from a physical standpoint, we want to set a dog up for success that doesn't have this exaggerated build or conflicting build. So exaggerated builds is, you know, I love the bully breed, you know, not— this isn't a blanket statement. I think there's some great dogs, but I think there's definitely people doing something very, very, very exaggerated sort of looks. And a bully is an amalgamation breed. It's got all sorts of bull breeds in there. And you're seeing some now where rather than their legs being underneath their torso, they're so flayed out That the dog's chest is just giving out. You see these dogs at 3 or 4 years old, they've had that much stress on their joints that they'll just be walking, they start to crash in the ground like that. We've all seen those photos of like some bully breeds where their, you know, arms are out to the side. I just think you need, if you're going to mix breed, you need something that makes sense. Like Jack said, you know, Pug-German Shepherd or Sausage Dog-Cattle Dog is just ridiculous because you can absolutely set that dog up for failure.

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Yeah. So, I mean, like things like, say, a German Shepherd and a Malinois would be a good mix of dogs because they're both similar sort of breed concepts.

Yeah.

Same size, same everything. They would be, as you said to us off air, Groodle.

Yeah.

Groodle. Yep. Similar size, everything. And that leads us into our next topic from a physical but also mental standpoint is like, you know, a German Shepherd male works well because they're, you know—

I mean, it would be insane.

Bred for similar things. And same with the Groodle. They're both retrieving breeds, similar size and all that sort of thing. And we, why we say that is if you're going to mix a breed, you want to also be aware of what's going on in their head is because, again, I see some dogs who don't know what way is up. I've seen Kelpie Maremmas, and I'm like, you mustn't know whether to herd a sheep or whether to protect it. I see, like, you know, I've seen Staffie Pomeranians, and again, I'm like, you don't know whether to sit on a couch all day or chase everything that moves. Like, very conflicting things, which can just be really tough, I think, for the dog to handle. I see a lot of dogs and you just see these impulses going off and just pulling them in different directions, which is, I think, really tough. And then, you know, equally, another example I've seen is Golden Retriever, German Shepherds is one that's popped up over the last few years because there's this really famous photo of the cutest dog in the world. Admittedly, that's a Golden Retriever slash German Shepherd.

I've never seen it.

If you Google it, it'll literally be the first image of it sitting on a vet's table.

You keep talking. I'm going to Google.

It's fucking cute. But again, you've got a very social breed over a naturally suspicious breed. And the dogs that I've seen with this, the Golden Retriever in them runs up to every stranger and then the German Shepherd in them gets And then the other part is sometimes you get 2 breeds that are so similar that when you put all that drive into them and all those instincts, it just almost becomes too much for them to handle. They get this from mum, this from dad, and they just get overloaded. I've seen some dogs who just— whose wheels just completely fucking spin and they don't know what to do with themselves. Oh my God. Have you found it? Go images.

Cutest thing I've ever seen.

There's this one, there's this one photo that that's done the rounds on the vets table. Yeah, that one, that one. Yeah, yeah, it's this thing here. Yeah, it's a cute dog, man.

Stop it, look at the ears.

That's what I mean, is like, he's— the dog's cute physically, it makes sense, similar size, similar builds. But again, like, it's a bit of a tough one. You can get this dog who's a bit of a social flirt, put themselves in some situations that could then trigger—

I mean, that— I mean, that is— I mean, imagine doing PSA with that thing.

Imagine if it got the shepherd breed and start competing.

Well, that's the thing, that exactly. And that's the thing, you were like, would you get this shepherd drive and Yeah.

And again, let's say you got a dog and you went, hey, for the most part, this is a German Shepherd. We're going to go do some hardcore bite work scenarios. Then all of a sudden the German— the Golden Retriever brain took over and it's petrified. Like, yeah, I just think if you're going to do mixed breeds, you need to do things that make sense. I know it's cool to do all these exotic this and that and this cross with that and it's all cool. Hey, we're the first people to have bred this and this, but If it doesn't make sense, sometimes it's just not a good idea.

Yeah. I mean, Golden Shepherd is a good name too. I mean, we're not advocating for it, you know, of all the really bad ideas, it's, you know, it's a bit—

It looks good.

Yeah. Okay. Well, rate my crossbreed. Not that I'm 100% sure what crossbreed she is.

We always thought that GSP cattle dog.

Well, yeah, I think so.

We are going to do a DNA test.

Yeah, we're going to try it. We're going to try a few different DNA tests and see what they work. That'll be coming up in another episode at some other point.

So, I don't think that's a bad idea because there's kind of a few different variations of cattle dogs.

I can tell you it's a bad idea.

You can get the really stumpy short ones or you can get the quite long leggy skinny ones, which was Shears.

Yeah.

Which is a very similar build to the GSP. I mean, both dogs love to chase and run. They love to bite stuff when they get there. They just each have maybe a bit of a slightly different relationship with that. But I mean, it works. You don't— She's not a scat dog. She's just a very busy, very active dog.

Yeah, she is. Certainly got the hectic side of both breeds.

Yeah. And then lastly, from a, from a health perspective, again, like let's just say if you go into Google, I'm just going to use an example, but there'll definitely be one out there. There'll be a dog out there where someone's done artificial insemination and done something like a Chihuahua and a Great Dane. Actually, no, the one we'll use, sorry, because this was actually the other day on the Animal Welfare League, was Rottweiler Pomeranian.

No.

Swear to God. Swear to God.

He's back on the Google.

Okay, so we don't have a Jamie, we've got a Jack. Let's talk about that for a second. Obviously, if it's AI, the breeding side of it's ethical. Sure. If those dogs had to somehow, like, fornicate naturally.

There's no way.

How the hell is that happening?

It's not happening.

And 2, imagine if it was a male Rottweiler like Nelson that went over female Pomeranian. Imagine a female Pomeranian trying to push out Nelson heads. They would literally just explode inside of them.

I mean, there's a, there's a Pomeranian with Rottweiler colouring.

Yeah, the black and tan Poms are pretty cute.

But I can't find a natural...

Also, again, when we talk about them getting different parts of each other, they don't always get a split 50/50. So let's just say if you get a dog that ends up, you know, around 30, 40 kilos, but it's got the heart and internal organs and lungs of a small 5-kilo dog, that dog is going to be redlining for the rest of its life. Its heart's going to be beating at 200 beats a minute every second of its life. It's got these tiny little pathetic lungs inside its massive body. Like, that's why we say this. If you're going to mix breeds, you've got to do it ethically because the breeding process can be shit. The dog's health can be shit. Its physical conformation can be shit and mentally it can just be absolutely fried. So just, yeah, something I wanted to raise. I don't see enough people being considerate of this and some of the mixed breeds I see today are just appalling, if I'm really honest.

And the best way that if you're— because you obviously might be listening to this going, well, I'm not planning on breeding a dog. What you can do is just not buy them.

Yeah, that's it.

If you're not buying them, people won't make them.

You might think exactly, you might think the best thing you can do is give this dog a home. Cool. Someone will. But again, Supply and demand, guys. If the supply diminishes, so too will demand. The only reason people breed these monstrosities is because there's demand for it. Just stop buying them.

Designer dogs. People want something that no one else has got. Then all of a sudden everyone's got one. Exactly.

Everyone wants this fluffy French bulldog with 2 different colored eyes and a merle coat and a tail and just all that stuff. I'm just telling you, it's a genetic health nightmare.

Well, it's like, I mean, you know, I mean, no offense to French bulldogs, people and who, you know, but those dogs are not healthy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. By today's breed standard, what the general public want? No. If you see like traditional French Bulldog breeders with a snout, people don't buy them because they go, ugh, what's that?

Yeah. And this is the problem. So apologies to anyone who's got one. My brother-in-law's got 2 and they just, they snore, struggle to breathe. And I'm just like, that poor dog.

Yeah, exactly. Just again, set up for failure from the get-go. And that's, and that's the pedigree.

And you buy those things also, you're possibly looking at some extensive vet bills when you've got to get their nose cavities and stuff. You know, widened or whatnot so they can breathe better.

And a lot of insurances won't cover it anymore because it's like a 90% chance you'll need to do it.

All right.

Well, there you go. Any questions, as always, jump on the Facebook group, The Dog People Podcast, or on Instagram. We'll see you on the next one. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production Hey, it's me, Teddy Swims. You hear that?

That's life. So go grab it. Grab your old friends, grab new friends, grab a White Claw. Grab flavor for everyone in your crew. Grab music, laughter, and moments you'll never forget. You'll never regret it.

Oh, hey man!

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