Non-shedding indeed!
And then more things began to dawn on me with increasing horror. Like just how short his muzzle is, which I realized when I started hearing the wheeze in his breath.
And then, when he came wagging toward me with a big doggy grin on his face, I recoiled in shock upon realizing that Zack has an underbite. How did I overlook that snagglefang before??
AND WHY DO WE STILL BELIEVE POODLE GENES WILL MAKE MUZZLES LONGER?
Zack is a cute dog, really he is. See him here with the Angry Pig, who hates all life forms except, absurdly, dogs. (Well, it was cute until he got so excited by her that he started coughing and sneezing.) It is just a bit of a let-down when I was all set to show you guys how not racist I am, and here my favourite poo is a walking MoT stereotype.
Consider this my disclaimer part three (four? What am I at now?). MoT will ruin designer dogs for you forever. Zack is a sweetheart and I love him to bits, but I think he'd have been better off as a nice, low-shedding toy poodle. All of the cute and lovely, none of the snagglefang.
Anyone at home have personal designer dog horror stories? You know I love to hear them.
3 comments:
Happy New Year, MoT!
All the best for Tip and Angry Pig, in 2009!
Oh, and to all your humans & you of course:)
Thanks GL! Very happy New Year to you and Flip and Blaze too. :)
(Sorry for any spelling mistakes--I'm on a Danish computer without english spell check.)
Here's a run down of the muttpuppies I've gotten to know around our dog park (and one I knew from way back when):
The good:
Any of the pitbull/AmStaf/American Bulldog/etc mixes, usually bred on purpose but by people who aren't terribly smart. The people who both own a dog like this and take the time to socialize them at the dog park have made pleasant, friendly, high energy pets out of them. Across the street, outside the neighborhood dive bar, not so much. It seems they are what you make of them. Reliable friendly people + Pit mix = friendly dog. Alcoholic tough guy + Pit mix = agressive dog.
It is becoming popular to mix Great Danes (which are actually a German breed, BTW) or Broholmers (an equally giant native Danish breed) with something a bit lighter and smaller. Dobermans are popular, so are short haired pointers. The result is a slightly less rediculously large, but still very large, dog that fills more or less the same niche. They seem to be slightly more playful (perhaps they have more energy or perhaps they are more physically able to keep up with their desire to play) than their purebred counterparts but are still pretty low energy.
The bad:
Any of the fluffy white things. I know you have a weakness but I find them terribly ugly. Perhaps I am biased by the equally fluffy bleached blond things on the *other* end of the leash. Most of the ones in my neck of the woods are a mix of havamese, bischon, and/or "cotton de something or other" (which is apparently *the* new purebred on the richy rich blocks). They seem to be friendly and even tempered but are usually to small and submissive to play with anything other than another small white fluffy. They are also impossible to keep white and flyffy in the Seattle-like wet and muddy winter weather over here. I really don't know what people do with them when they get home. Three baths a day?
They usually come to the park once or twice as puppies then you only ever see them again on leashed walks on the sidewalk or in a purse.
The ugly:
ANYTHING crossed with a dachshund. I used to like dachshunds, before I met more than a few of them. My mom grew up with dachshunds and tells stories of how clever and loyal they were. I had only met a few when I lived in the US and figured they were exceptions to the rule and mostly balmed their owners. Now, given that it's one of the most popular city dogs over here I have had an ample sampling size to determine that they are the most agressive, grouchy, dominant, horny dogs around. Anything crossed with them seems to produce a short legged, bad tempered version of whatever the other breed was. The ONE exception is an endlesly happy shepherd x dachshund. It seems not even dachshund genes are enough to overcome the Border Collie's.
Chow chow genes, however, are. The WORST dog I knew (thank the heavens that's past tense) was a Chow x Border Collie. It got the chow fur with the Border Collie coloring (which was in a constant state of growing out from one bad shave after another. It had the Border energy with the Chow's 'doesn't like strangers' thing and more than a touch of wanting to chase/herd things. It lived on a horse farm and spent its days intimidating newcomers into not getting out of their cars, chasing the ponies, and running from one corner of the place to the other barking at the planes that few overhead (we were in the flight path of SeaTac). It also had a habbit of chasing horses with riders. I love dogs, even the ones I don't like (fluffy whites), but I hated that dog. Glad it's dead. Hope no one ever breeds another like it.
Post a Comment