Hybird Vigor Explained

What determines a breed in the loosest sense is that when bred to another of the same breed, you will end up with the same traits. When you breed a German Shepherd Dog to another German Shepherd Dog, you only get German Shepherd Dogs.

You will not get something that looks like a Labrador Retriever. If you cross a German Shepherd Dog and a Labrador Retriever, you can get offspring that look more GSD, more Lab or resemble both parents in varying ways. With purebreds you have a predictable outcome. With crosses, you do not.

It takes many generations to fix the traits in a new breed – not just four or five. For example, the Shetland Sheepdog, a breed from the Shetland Isles is NOT a miniaturized Collie. But the Shetland Sheepdog is a breed that is only about 100 years old – relatively new. Collie was crossed into the early Shetland Sheepdog to add to certain traits, but this also added the problem of oversized Shetland Sheepdogs – something breeders have struggled with for many decades to correct due to the infusion of Collie blood into a developing breed.

Crossbred dogs such as the Cock-a-poo are NOT hybrids nor are they breeds. The Cock-a-poo Club of America states in its guidelines that in order to be a cock-a-poo, that you breed Cocker (American or English) to a Toy or Miniature Poodle. This is not a breed; it is a cross – a mutt. Cock-a-poos may look very Poodle, very Cocker or somewhere in between.

Even a Cock-a-poo bred to a Cock-a-poo is not a breed. Remember, it can take decades or more to get true-breeding traits – or to repair damage done when something else is crossed in during the early history of a breed just beginning to come together.

There is research that states the domestication of what we know today as a dog may have started longer ago that assumed – maybe as much as 100,000 years ago based on mitochondrial DNA studies of wolves and dogs. (The Truth About Dogs, S. Budiansky, 1999) No one really knows for certain when wild canines began domesticating themselves or we began domesticating them.

(Continued on next page)