New breed necessary?

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First of all I have to mention that this is absolutely OFF TOPIC as it has nothing to do with setters. I´m posting this here anyway as my experience with all other forums on dogs are very bad due to such unfriendly and even rude people and their comments.
I would love to read what you think of this:

I have heard of a "new breed" it is called "Waeller", it`s a crossbred between a Briard (french sheep-dog) and Australian Sheperd. On the breeder`s website you can read things like, cross-breds are so much healthier than pure-breds and that "new breeds" are definitely what we all need. They even refer to Dr. Wachtel the famous austrian specialist and veterianan who writes interesting articles on pure-bred dogs and the fact that the genetic pool becomes smaller and smaller and diseases increase because of selective breeding.
I´m only a very happy and prowd owner of a lovely dog with no ambition to reach any titles and I`m not planning to breed AT ALL. I have no plans to get a "Waeller" either, I promise!
I`m just very interested in so many things that concern breeding, dogs in general.

What do you think? Do we really need breeds as "labradoodles"? "Waeller"? Don`t get me wrong, I don`t want to accuse anyone. I´m just wondering about many many things, very often in fact :-)
Some of these websites are so full of self-confidence as if it`s a new religion somehow.

[Teresa]

Personally, I think that we would be better off if this efforts people are making to create new breeds are not necessary... People just want to get excentric dogs these days!

I personally prefer "good old" breeds.
The fact that there are now more genetic diseases is true, but instead of creating new breeds, I'd rather see an effort to enlarge the genetic pools of the breeds we already have! I do not believe it would be that hard, for instance, if we created and "exchange" Setter program, I'm sure we would find a good australian bitch for a good french male, for example. There would genetic differences between the two dogs, now matter how small! The puppies would have refreshed genes and less likely to have genetic diseases. If we did that is a carefull way, we would enlarge the genetic pool f the breed.
Of course I do not believe this will ever be done, because it would be expensive, hard work and there are people who do not like to share "their" genes, but I trully believe this is what should be done, not only to Setters, but to any breed we already have!

[Margaret Sierakowski]

The only way one can "enlarge" a gene pool is by outcrossing to another breed. Once there is a closed stud book, one cannot enlarge a gene pool, it can only get smaller as some lines are not bred from and die out. A process that is accelerated by line breeding and the use of popular sires. Exchanging dogs internationally and searching out less known and less used lines helps the delay the process of diminishing gene pools but it doesnt enlarge the whole gene pool

OK there are gene mutations but that is a very slow process

And lets remember all the modern dog breeds derive from crossbreeding somewhere back down the line. Your solid red Irish Setter was probably the product of crossbreeding sometime back in the eighteenth century between a red and white setting spaniel and an unknown solid coloured dog. I was interested to read recently that there were some solid red hounds in Ireland in the eighteenth century.- that could be an explanation of where the solid red setter came from . I've often wondered what the solid coloured dog behind the early Irish Setters could have been, as there didnt seem to bean obvious candidate in Ireland

There are some good modern breeds derived from crossbreeding not so very far back, most of the continental pointing breeds for a start

[Sue and Cash]

I agree with you Teresa. When we decided to find a new puppy we first had to figure out if we wanted a different breed due to our bad luck thus far with the irish setter. I called these people who had an ad in the local paper here who had viszla/weimie mix pups. After Dub's illness I thought maybe I should try a new breed and a mix at that. Okay so I called and she tells me they want $650.00 for the little boy who is left. I was shocked! I said that is so expensive for a mixed breed. She was angry and said well we have the mom and the dad right here and they are pure bred. But as I tried to explain to her that once you mixed them, they aren't pure anymore. And that was a big steep to ask for a mutt. She then offered me the boy for $450.00. I told her I hadn't even seen the dog to be discussing price breaks. Needless to say we were just interested in hearing about them and got turned off by her. We of course couldn't find any breed that made our hearts sing other than another Irish, so our pup is coming in Jan. But I wish there was some sort of collective way world wide to try to improve the gene pool as to improve my odds of not losing another dog so young! I am willing to take the chance again regardless of outcome. But to think we could possibly help the future of pure breds in general would be a very worth cause. As far as "designer breeding", I feel the asking price is crazy and I don't get the whole doodle craze. We have dozens of them at our dog park. Some are cool, and some are just insane. My setter looked like a senior citizen next to some of them. Just so keyed up and rowdy for my taste. I liked them better when we called them mutts and charged accordingly. Time will tell if these new breeds are healthier.

[ursula wilby]

I find it rather interesting that lots of buyers of these so called designer-breeds actually are totally unaware that they have not bought a pure-bred dog.
An american friend of mine phoned me up to tell me he had finally bought a dog!
An import from Australia no less!
That was the first time I heard the expression Designer-breed. I thought he was joking...he thought I was having him on when I told him that he had imported a crossbreed.
He was convinced this was a very special breed.

And he is not the only one!

[Dee Rance]

I bet your friend didn't tell you how much her 'designer' dog was...there are people over here in UK that have purchased Labradoodles from Australia, and the UK, and have paid many thousands of pounds for there dogs...and it doesn't mean that because it is a cross-breed, that it would be healthier, not so, even the lowly mongrel has its problems, (I once had two sisters, mongrels, one lived until she was 15 and the other died at 7 with a form of cancer). My Akita bitch died at the tender age of 15 too, as did one of her daughters, but her son died again at 7 (Splenetic tumour) so all breeds have their problems even X breeds, you pay your money and you take your chance...I think that it all depends on ''how much money'' Exploiting the general public by charging vast amounts of money for what is actually a X breed.....People used to give them away, free to good home, most adverts said...in the old days some would even get rid of a bitch if she had mated with something that wasn't wanted....now they cost more than a pure breed. Or what is now a pure breed, in other animals you can put in another breed and after, usually, 5 generations you then have pure breed again. So long as each female was mated to a pure breed male...But you can't do that to dogs. once a X Breed always a X Also some of these Labradoodles take the worse from both breeds and some of them do shed their coats. Me I will stick to the setters...