Kinda Looks Like a Cockapoo to Me

Granted probably an outrageously expensive one - and even the "poos" are overpriced mutts.


Sorry. They are cute. Yes. They are not a breed.


Mixing two breeds together and making up some name doesn't constitute a breed. Even if you add the word "designer."


What is a breed? It's a homogenous (same) group of animals with certain distinguishing characteristics that are genetically linked and can be reliably propagated. You take two x's and every time you get the same thing. You don't mate two Cocker Spaniels and some of the pups turn out to be Labradors! 


Yes, there is variation in a breed. Example: I say Golden Retreiver. Hopefully you can picture one. But, you may picture a fluffy pale yellow and your friend may picture a more smooth coated red dog but I am sure you have the general head, body type and sizes on target.  You don't picture a Standard Poodle do you? No, I say that, and you see a whole different set of dogs. But genetically they are distinct.


You mix them and you get an expensive mu...I mean..Goldendoodle. Where's the ketchup?


No really, they are all cute. They are. So are the thousands of shelter dogs that die every day or sit and sit and sit because someone had to breed cute sweet Fluffernutter.


Breeding is great - let's make a better, more beautiful, more SOUND (physically fit and healthy), and workable Golden. 


Ok, so what got me on this topic. This article about a new breed that some want to bring over from Europe. That's fine. 


This from the article:


...looks like any number of designer "doodle" dogs—a mix of a poodle and something else. The latter is a slam that gets Barbet owners like Doris Newkirk, a professor and retired psychologist in Greenbank, Wash., absolutely growling.




Um..well, then get into a breed that doesn't honey. Period.