Question for Mutt owners......

If I had a mix, I'd call it a [predominant breed] mix, i.e. if it were a Collie mix, I would say Collie mix, not just mix. But I also have a problem with giving too much information to people who ask about my dogs.

I often just use a color. Meg's a purebred, but not a breed most people are aware of, so if I don't feel like chatting, when people ask what kind of dog she is, I say "a brown one" and leave it at that.

Exactly.

I always call Lizzie a Border Collie/Aussie.

I call Maggie a dalmation mix. Even though we're pretty sure she also has lab, beagle, and some sort of bully breed in her, she was listed as a dalmation mix at the shelter, so we'll just keep calling her that.

I usually just shrug and say he's a mutt. But I don't know what the heck Bailey is.

Sometimes people really push me to tell them what the mix is, but it's kind of goofy. Everyone has a different guess so how am I supposed to know what he is? (And I change my own guesses fairly regularly.)

I also find the "designer" names annoying. But MAYBE if I had a poodle mix I MIGHT call it the -doodle name, just because those are becomming so common people would probably correct me if I didn't say it. But that would only be if I knew the mix for sure.

My dog Luna is from a shelter so we don't know where she came from, but I truely believe she's a "deer head chihuahua." They're being bred more commonly, but since I personally don't consider it a real breed, I have never told someone that that's what she is (except friends and people who know deer heads aren't a real breed). For all I know, though, she could be a chi/terrier mix or something, so sometimes I get the, "She doesn't really LOOK like a chihuahua!" I'll say she came from a shelter and is probably a mix.

We get this question a lot with the service dogs I work with, though, and it's a little more complicated there. They come from shelters so we usually don't know what they are. But telling people that the dog is a "_______ breed" is pretty much an advertisement for that breed..... so we try to be tasteful and vague. For example, we have a dog now that is truely a mix of several different things, but the best we can think to call him is an anatolian mix; but the trouble is that it's a rare anatolian that has the temperment of a service dog, especially this particular dog, so we don't necessarily want people rushing out and buying an anatolian just like the one they saw as a service dog. So to the public we just call him a mix.

Oh, and one big pet peeve? When people say their dog "is just a mutt," like a mutt is worth less than a purebred.

Every time I take King and Molly to a kennel, or almost anywhere else, they always say "Border Collie Mix", even though I tell them they aren't, the mom was a Lab/Doberman, and dad was "probably" the Husky next door. Side by side with a real BC or most BC mixes, the body is different, the head and eyes aren't quite right, and the back legs aren't right at all, King and Molly both, but King especially is "rear wheel drive". Except for the cat herding, and mouse hunting King does, he just doesn't have the obsessiveness most BC's have.

Ding Ding Ding we have a winner! :rofl1:
My mother was laughing about the "Whapett". She's going to pee herself when she hear Whip-Ass!

Bit of a mouthful saying "she's a boxer staff collie springer lab mix"

So I just say she's a bit of everything

And if people ask what, I tell them.

Honestly, I never think to call mixed breeds by a cutsie name. Naturally, I want to call them whatever predominate breed they are...mix. Or just say they are a mixed breed.

I call Foster a Golden/Poodle mix most of the time... but I always get Oh you mean he's a "Goldendoodle" just like others have said... Most people ask "He's sweet is he a GoldenDoodle?" I simply say yes, because they look at me like I have ten heads if I say, nope a Poodle/Golden mix.. LOL

As some of you might know, Jose` is about 12 LBS and supposed to be a purebred Chihuahua. However, he doesn't even quite look all Chi, even besides his size. Well.....the other day, I had them on a leash walk down by the little store and someone oo'd and aww'd over them and then asked what breed they were, to which I replied, "Chihuahuas." She asked if the other one (Chulita, the 5-6LB Chi) was simply not full grown yet. I had to chuckle and informed her that, no....Chulita is 9 yrs old, correct in size and it's Jose` that is the defective, over-grown one...that for all I know, he might be a mix, regardless of what the byb told me. He looks like the product of a covert affair by his mother. So, I wound up giving a very complicated answer....should have just said a Chi mix. I've tried that. Then they ask what kind of mix. And I have to think on that for a while. Hmmm. What could it be?

I dont think it matters much what you call them.

Where the dog comes from is important... what you call them not so much.

I dont see the difference between labradoodle or lab/poodle cross or lab mix.

I think it is just people getting too caught up in semantics.

I feel the more you start calling them labradoodles the more you sound like you agree that they are a breed, even if inside you don't believe they are you sound like you believe they are. If someone asks if you have a labradoodle and you say yes then you are confirming for them that it is indeed a breed and a breed they might like. They would not adopt a lab/poodle mix they would only get a labradoodle, they want a purebred not a mix, people actually think it's a breed of dog, different from a mix. If someone asked if my dog was a labradoodle I would probably say "yes he's a lab/poodle mix". I want people to be aware that a mix is a mix, there are not Labradoodles and then Lab/Poodle mixes, they are both mutts, the same thing, one is no better than the other, sadly people think there is.

I refuse to call Lucy a bich-poo. Maybe I'm just silly but I feel better calling her a bichon/poodle mix... I don't want to give the impression that I think it's an actual breed or something, kinda like what Maxy is saying. Just like I wouldn't create some weird name if I had a GSD/husky mix; I'm not going to do it for my poodle mix.

Xena is 100% pure bred mutt.

I call Wrigley All American as that is what he competes as in CPE.
if they ask further I say I think he's a schnauzer/lhasa mix but we really don't know.

^ ^ This. And it can really do harm by calling a mutt by a designer name. As I said, say I have a Maltese/Poodle mix for example, and someone says oh, what breed is that. I can either say "Oh he's a mix of a maltese and poodle". Or I can say "He's a Malti-Poo". Someone may fall in love with his looks, and go out looking for a "Malti-Poo" breeder. All this does is support backyard breeders even more.

I normally call my Dobe a Dobe mix, my other dog Chance I call her an Alaskan Husky since they are an assortment of breeds which are bred for working ability so they still use different breeds for working enhancement. She looks simialar to the Alaskan Husky...so that's what I call her I would also call her a natural dog as she may not even have any purebred in her. Artifically selected purebred dogs have not been aound that long so there are still many dogs out there that are natural dogs due to natural selection.