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Breed standards are a dependable guideline of what you can expect from that puppy you’re bringing home.

Decades and centuries were devoted to “fixing” the characteristics and traits within the breeds.

Mutts, while a nice, feel good idea, are not as dependable when trying to assay what they will “be like” as adults.

There are infinite combinations of breeds and many of those combinations are either bad or deceptive.

Back in the 70s, Dobe/GSD crosses were common here.

You’d think that would be a wonderful dog but more often than not, it wasn’t.

A Dobe is made to go after people and protect with extreme prejudice.

A GSD is made to herd and needs to be taught to really “guard” and “attack”.

People had a lot of trouble with that mix snapping at kids, neighbors, strangers and delivery people because the gentler “herding mind” of the GSD was being altered by the harder “taking them down” mind of the Dobe.

The two breeds’ “styles” conflict badly.

A mutt can vacillate between any of the breeds in it. without warning and you will never know for sure really what breeds *are* in it, even with those ridiculously bogus “Mutt DNA” tests.

You can only -know- if you know they dog’s parents, personally.

Case in point, “Doberdoodles”.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

There are Ibizan mixes showing up in rescue now and people assume that Collie or whatever is going to modify the Ibizan’s tendency to take off at high speed, not heed your call and get hit or lost.

It is what it is, no matter what else gets “mixed in”.

Dog breeds are not paint.

You can’t mix black and white and call it gray.

There will always be the black and the white, living side by side in the dog’s mind.

It gets insanely complicated when more than two breeds are combined.

All bets are off.

I’m sure I’m going to be called a “breed snob” or some such crap but that is NOT my point.

If you want as much control over your dog and every situation you might find it in, your best bet is always a reputable breeder.

For the sake of dogs in shelters everywhere, I wish that weren’t so but to convince anyone otherwise is to live in the same happy-pink-sky world that liberals do.

And I refuse to do that.

Reality is not soft and fuzzy.

[not directing this at you, Wardaddy, it’s for general consumption]