And that is because no one has taken the poor things to the vet!!!!!!!
Any animal (dog) can have any of those problems...
the fact that it is a mixed breed is irrelevent.
If it has a growth the size of a tennis ball, it just means it has not been treated by a vet.
Eye conditon, may be something very easily treated or infection that may need meds to cure.
Bad legs..the poor dog could of been knocked down or suffering for an old injury that has progressed.
You dont know what has happened to the dog or what is wrong with it.
I dont think comparing a stray dog that hardly eats and has to scavange food, lives outside, gets no vet treatment, parasite prevention/treatment and lives an extremely hardlife to our pampered pooches.
Of course those animals that hard life are going to show wear and tear and not look the picture of health....would you?
If a well bred pedigree lived that life as those dogs do it would look the same and have the same problems.

I personally dont think one is particulary healthier than the other,
any dog can be unhealthy!!!

about the the dalmatian and deafness thing. 30% of all Dals in the states are thought to be unilaterally or bilaterally deaf.... to me thats VERY high. they are discussing ways to get rid of it... unfortunately the accepted way right now is to kill the deaf pups. no thought to not breeding the parents again, or making sure the siblings aren't used for breeding stock.... no just kill the puppy. breeders who dont kill the deaf pup are harassed by the Dalmatian Club of America.... this is not going to work to prevent deafness.... get a brain

Sorry had to get that in since you mentioned it! one of the solutions presented is to outcross to another breed, I cant remember which one they want to use, but there is a huge outcry about it, even though it would help get rid of the deafness.

I have one good old fashioned mongrel, and 2 cross breeds. the mutt was a street dog a good looking, smart and so far healthy guy (8 mos). one cross breed is deaf but otherwise healthy girl (5.5 years), my other cross breed is 6.5 and her teeth are rotting right out of her head. she was a rescue, 1.5 years when i adopted her, she had had at least one litter of pups, and now, not even 7 years old yet, she's going in for surgery next week to get 3/4 of her teeth removed, the rest will go in a few more years. this is a genetic flaw, why else would a 6.5 year old dog loose all her teeth (she was never malnourished and we brush her teeth and give her things to chew) she is a Lhasa x Bichon. of my 2 prev. dogs, one was a street mutt (again lol) and the other was a rescue cross breed. The cross breed was an English Springer Spaniel x'ed with an American Cocker Spaniel... she had hypothyroidism, and went deaf at age 10 (even tho she never had an ear infection in her life) the street terrier died at 16 of intestinal cancer but was healthy up until that point... My true mutts have always been healthy, my cross breeds not so much, but to echo others, this is not proof and is irrelavent. just my experiences.

Cross breeds live longer.

http://users.pullman.com/lostriver/breeddata.htm

Looks like they do from the information gathered on that website Johnderondon

Actually Miniature and Toy poodles have the longest average lifespan, followed by Dachshunds.
Becky

Uh-huh.

The mixed breeds are all counted as one and averaged out.

We don't know the average lifespan of a mixed breed of comparable body weight to the examples you gave or of mixed breeds which included crosses of the examples you gave. It is reasonable to assume that smaller mixed breeds, as in the purebreeds, will have a greater lifespan than the average figure given which included their larger cousins.

It could be that you are correct, and minature poodles have a longer lifespan regardless, but this study doesn't show that so we can't make that conclusion. What it does show is that, if you average out the longevity stats for all mixed breeds regardless of size or lineage, they have greater longevity than purebreeds given the same treatment.

Erm it does say that if you scroll down and read the average for each breed. Plus another longevity survey also found that to be the case but found that non-pure breds only had an average lifespan of 12 point something years. Mini poodles still at the top though!
Becky

Yes, I understand that.

What I'm saying is that the figures only allow comparison between individual purebreeds or comparison between all purebreeds vs. all crossbreeds.

We cannot use them to say that such and such breed is longer lived than mixed breeds because all you would be saying is that a minature breed is longer lived than an average of small, meduim and large crossbreeds which is not so surprising. To determine whether minature poodles were actually longer lived than mixed breed dogs of similar size we would need the mixed breed figures in this report to broken down by weight - which it isn't so we can't.

All we can say, from the data we have so far, is that, on average, mixed breed dogs live longer than purebreed.


Not sure which survey you're refering to.


Top of the purebreeds. (I like poodles. Very underrated, currently, I feel). But to say that these studies show min.poodles to be longer lived than mixed breeds of comparable weight would be misleading. We simply do not know but, given that the average mixed breed is longer lived than the average purebred, it doesn't seem that likely.

That depends on where you live. I live in Canada, Western and a little North, and here, until 15 years ago, a purebred dog was a rare sight (seen in the urban areas more though). The CKC estimates a little over 10% of ours are registered and purebred. In the USA, I understand from the CAVEAT blog (a Canadian blog) that the estimate is 25% of dogs are pure and registered.

In the UK I understand 75% are pure, which is really quite shocking to those who live here.

Keep in mind across all of the rural areas in the Midwest States and as well the prairie provinces of Canada, and Northern Canada, dogs have been bred for work as a tradition. Farm breeders breed a good dog to a good dog, regardless of pedigree or breed. Northern breeders do the same (hence the fuss by the border collie associations regarding the AKC recognizing them as a breed.) Dog shows are rare, few and far between.

From the comments section of this book page (scroll down) you can read of the different cultural ideologies regarding dogs and how they are bred on this continent. "The Dog Wars: How the Border Collie Battled the American Kennel Club" gives some insight on

http://www.amazon.com/Dog-Wars-Borde.../dp/0979469007

"Big one, little one, handsome one, ugly ones, long-coated, short-coated: nobody gave a damn. How's his outrun? Can he read sheep? Can he move a rank old cow?" - Don McCaig, Dog Wars

This other article also tells of similar feelings in Alaska where there is an attempt by some to appoint the Malamute as the state dog, as opposed to the common sled dog (a much more appropriate choice). "Malamute promoters barking up wrong tree"

http://www.adn.com/outdoors/craig_me...ry/668658.html

"He or she might be a malamute or part malamute, or a Siberian husky or part Siberian husky, or a German shorthair or part German shorthair, or an Irish setter or part Irish setter, or a Targhee hound or part Targhee hound, or a cross between a black-and-white dog and a mongrel.

Whatever the case, this dog is the essence of all that is best about the 49th state:

• We don't care where you came from.

• We don't care what you look like.

• All that matters is that you can perform."

BTW my 16 year old sled dog is sitting beside me, and still walks twice daily a 1/2 hour with me, (although she has slowed down and has just this month begun vetmedin for her heart). She was born in Yellowknife, NWT and is of the common working bred mutt variety, as is described in the Malamute promoters article above.

Of the 15 or so dogs I've owned/taken in/fostered in my life only four have had traceable ancestries or been identifiable by breed of any sort. I could, however, tell you what "type" most belonged to, which tends to be how dogs have been bred here.

My personal experience has been that the mutts have been far hardier and healthier. As I study genetics (human and now canine), scientific theory tells me, generally, that should be true.