Mixed Breed Dogs: What's Good About 'Em, What's Bad About 'Em

Also read The Truth About Mixed Breed Dogs.

Whether purebred, crossbred, or mixed, all dogs are individuals. But when it comes to predicting what any given individual will be like, mixed breed dogs are the hardest to pin down.

A dog of mixed breeding might be energetic or placid. He might be sweet-natured or hard-headed. He might love everyone, or be wary of strangers. He might be dignified or a goofball.

I will say this: the extremes of temperament and behavior so often seen in purebred dogs are less common in mixed breeds.

This is because purebreds were developed to do a certain type of work. Purebreds located pheasants and rabbits for the hunter to shoot. They herded sheep, drove cattle to market, guarded farms and mansions. They pulled carts and sleds, killed vermin in the barn, assisted police officers, and tracked missing people.

To help purebred dogs accomplish their work, useful "working behaviors" were bred into their genes. High energy, endurance, independent thinking, strong instincts to chase, to bark, to dig, to guard.

Certainly these behaviors can occur in mixed breeds, too, but they are by happenstance, on an "individual dog" basis, rather than by deliberate design into a breed as a whole.

This tendency of mixed breeds to be less strongly "programmed" by their genes can make them more flexible and better able to fit into a variety of households and living conditions.

Unfortunately, when you acquire a mixed breed puppy, you can't know what he or she will grow up to be like, because he has inherited a virtual smorgasbord of genes. When you acquire a puppy, you're acquiring potential – what he one day will become. On the other hand, if you acquire an adult mixed breed, you're acquiring what he already IS. This is much easier to see and judge.

So if you want a dog who...