i agree. For instance when living in Germany there was a dealer that owned Friesian horses, and he didn't look after them, my friends did a few visits and said they were starved and standing in poor conditions and they felt sorry for them and wanted to buy one, but after a long conversation we agreed if you buy any them your keeping that owner in business of carrying on treating the animals like that. RSPCA were called out a few times but the problem was the RSPCA always gave notice for visits so they had time to clean up their act. You buy the horse it gives him an insentive to do it again to sell another. (slightly different circumstances, but people do breed just for a bit of cash and over price their animals to make it worth while) why else would you breed unless you knew you were making money from it??? (cross breeds of course, as pedigree your trying to improve the breed and reduce health issues)

A Dog Is a Dog, Is a Dog, If I were a millionaire would my love of Staffy as a chosen breed be any different to if I lived in a box? NEVER.... if I had a penny or a million pound I would still choose the same, A dog for sale at £1000 might not pull at my heart strings where as a free dog might or visa versa, you cannot know, If I fell in love with a dog I couldn't afford I would probably move hell and high water to get him/her. The price of something is immaterial if you love it. Yes there are irresponsible back yard breeders out there and to take from rescue may be more responsible, but just maybe the little pup you buy from a byb may have ended up dead or in rescue if you didn't take him home, cos irresponsible people sell to anyone with the money to pay, good bad or ugly.

i agree completely

At least with a pedigree you know what your getting.

Exactly.

No moron breeding his Labradoodlydoo with his Cockerdoodledo is spending anywhere NEAR what a responsible breeder does when producing a litter. If everyone had to spend those kind of costs we wouldn't have a problem with irresponsibly bred dogs.

Aren't Northern Inuits/Utonagans/other Northern type crossbreeds with designer names some of the most unhealthy, inbred dogs around?

That's fine. I happen to have two beautiful rescue mongrels that are, to me, worth more than any pedigree and with no health issues what so ever in their, so far, long and happy lives

If someone tried to tell me either of my two is worth less than their £1000 pug or boston terrier I'd punch them in the face

i disagree, i have been frauded and had a lot of debt for years because of this, there is no way i would buy a dog i can not afford, its not just buying the dog that is the problem, its the care for it and buying its basic needs, i have had to put off buying a dog for ages because i couldnt afford one, even though they pulled at my heart strings. I would love to own a horse again, if i won the lottery i would not buy a horse over priced because i could afford to, i would buy one at a normal price that i would if i hadnt won the lottery and just saved. Maybe being frauded has made me appreciate the value of money, but i certainly would not throw money away to get a dog when i could get the exact same breed somewhere else cheaper. There will always be other dogs.

no offense but I think if you read through all my posts o on this you'll see nobody is saying that they are worthless in the true sense, we are talking purely FINANCIAL here. And if someone told me their mutt cost the breeder the same as a responsible breeder spent etc, id laugh

Sadly, that is very true with some lines, particularly I understand with Northern Inuits. My experience with Hal was that he was extremely healthy with good hips. As far as I know, all of his offspring are fine - Ben is from Hal's second litter, and is fine, those that I have met from the first litter ditto, although one is very overweight sadly.

Louise, im pleased your mongrels are healthy, but please don't use this in the mongrels are healthy and worth as much argument as mine died age three when he was PTS. Pedigree lived 14 years and the dog I have now is 6 this year. So people cant always bargain on the mutts are so much healthier..and certainly shouldnt be paying more for it