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Much Ado About Poo -- A Rebuttal, Part 2

© John Hopkins

As you may recall, in the Web article Much Ado About Poo, its writer attempts to rebut several claims supposedly made by the breeders and sellers of Poodle-mix hybrids. This is the second in a series of articles written to explore and answer these claims.

The second claim that Poo breeders supposedly make is, "We're combining the best of both breeds into one! Shelties shed but Poodles don't. A Shelti-Poo will look like a Sheltie but not shed." To ridicule and discredit this alleged claim, the writer of Much Ado About Poo states that, "A breeder can't pick and choose what features will be passed on from each breed -- it's strictly a matter of luck because the genetic combinations involved in the crossing of breeds is random and unpredictable."

If breed characteristics could not be passed on from one generation to the next, most of today's recognized breeds of dog would simply not exist. The way genetics really works, however, is that the offspring of a first generation (F1) cross have a one in two chance of resembling either purebred parent and a one in two chance of being a true-poo, sharing the characteristics of both parents. Reputable breeders of poodle mixes will use only a registered sire and dam to produce their F1 hybrids.

Many Poo breeders stop with F1 hybrids and do not continue to breed into the second (F2) generation. Reputable breeders of Poos beyond the F1 generation will use only the unrelated offspring of an unrelated, registered, purebred sire and dam to further enhance and expand the bloodline. In an F2 cross, only one offspring in four will resemble either purebred ancestor, one in eight for an F3 cross and so on. Thus, by the time you reach F4 nearly all offspring will predictably be true-poos.

The arguement that the offspring of an F1 cross have an equal chance of inheriting the bad characteristics of their parent breeds as they do the good, is also not true. Thanks to something called "hybrid vigor", this kind of crossbreeding usually results in many more desirable traits being passed down than undesirable ones. For example, Poodles are among the smartest of dogs and their coats are non- to low shedding with very little dander. It is therefore small wonder that many poodle-mix hybrids are highly intelligent and resist shedding.