What Breeds / X-breeds Show Up In Shelters?

[Trisven13]

Chip details can also be wrong - My pedigree Affen was chipped as an Affen X

I know a Dane who was chipped as a Greyhound - simple error on the person entering the data into the database.

Yep and you also can't put down, for example, "Terrier mix" for a dog that has no obvious breed - I found out the hard way when dogs came back as Australian Terrier X.

[Everythings Shiny]

I used to work in a shelter. Our main dogs were:

Staffy's

Staffy Blends

Bull breeds and their blends

Kelpies and blends

Cattledogs

then the DD dogs

[Dame Aussie]

The DD's were getting more and more common towards the time I left my old job.

Most common were definitely Spaniel x Poodles and CKCS x Poodles, almost all from pet stores.

[Mags]

I would like to see Micro-chips have permanent details of the breeder on them - Registered breeders, so they could be contacted should the owner not be found and for the stats.

Definitely agree with this. Most of us know of someone that has been contacted about an animal they bred because the owner hasn't bothered transferring the microchip into their name. I would feel a whole lot better knowing the breeders name was permanently there as a back up person if need be. Unfortunately I had a friend told that once you sell the animal you have no claim on it even if the chip is still registered in your name so she was unable to rescue her boy from the pound. She tracked down the new owner and he signed the dog back to her and she managed to get him out of the pound but it was a very worrying time for her until she had him out and safe.

[Quickasyoucan]

Having a bad habit of scanning DOL pound pages I have seen (obviously no proof because not involved with individual dog).

over the years:

Masses of Malamutes and huskies.

A lot of kelpies.

A shiba inu

A basenji

A lot of beagles.

A fair few pugs.

A lot of border collies.

A rough collie.

A few shelties.

A few english springers

A few cockers.

A few SBT's that looked well bred and a whole mass of of x's that were bull breed ish.

Some Bull Terriers.

A few belgian shepherds.

A fair few GSDs.

A few cavs that did not look crosses.

Probably 2 curly coated retrievers.

A fair few old labs and golden retrievers.

A few pointers and one or two vizslas.

A few GSPS and Wire Haired GSPs.

I know Paws have had Havanese, pugs, poodles of various sizes, the odd schnzauzer, Shih Tzu.

Staffy Rescue once had 2 tibetan mastiffs.

There have been a fair few whippets.

A few pharaoh hounds.

Dachsunds.

I think also there are other purebreeds that are rehomed via breed clubs and rescue that don't make it to the pound because these dogs are popular, they do get surrendered but they also find new homes quickly.

[Mags]

Just like any other breed it depends on the individual breeder. There are many very good greyhound breeders locally - interestingly all the ones that came into pounds here had been bred elsewhere. The breeder I contacted could tell me where every other pup in the litter had ended up, who he had given the dog to, how he got onto that person, what the dog weighed when it left him, how it had raced and took great pleasure in telling me how the pups were raised around his small dogs and grandchildren. He had always, until that point, put his dogs that couldn't race to sleep as he hadn't trusted the sort of people who want failed racers. He was talked into giving away this pretty young bitch by someone he knew and trusted and, after seeing the state she was in, swore to never, ever be talked out of pts again.

Totally off topic but how sad is that - I would love to be able to source a retired grey from a caring person like that. His dogs would be perfect for retirement as a pet - well cared for, socialised, no health issues and fit straight into a pet home by the sound of it. Shame on the person who broke his trust.

[Rebanne]

I worked in a pound for 10 years, vast majority of dogs that came in were mutts. In those 10 years there were only 3 or 4 papered dogs that came in and guess what? when the breeders of those dogs were notified they were there as soon as possible to pick up their dogs. Same as the greyhound that came in, traced her breeder by the tattoo's and he organised for the dog to be picked up.

That is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what happened in over 75% of the cases we saw. I was horrified, disgusted etc at the attitude some breeders showed.

I can think of only three who gave a toss and I nominated one of those for an MDBA award for the dedication they showed to an old dog of their breeding. I've only ever been able to contact one greyhound breeder who cared and that was for the severely emaciated greyhound in Wodonga Pound - he was awesome. Every other one I contacted would only tell me that they had passed it on.

In the greyhounds case he too had passed it on but he still did the right thing, got another greyhound person to pick her up. She was the greyhound who started me on the slippery slope of being owned by greyhounds :D

[dancinbcs]

I worked in a shelter about 15 years ago and all the dogs were surrenders. More than half were Cattle Dog crossbreds, GSD crossbreds or Staffy crossbreds. Almost all the litters surrendered were these crosses as well and most were pts. The rest were small terrier crosses and the odd SWF crossbred. In six months we had 4 purebred dogs. One each GSD, Bull Terrier, Mini Bull Terrier and a Foxhound.

The 2 year old GSD had papers with 4 generations of "A" stamp hip results so I rang the breeder. She had already refunded the full purchase price on the dog because it had severe HD. She had offered to take it back to have it pts but the owners said they wanted to keep it. Then they surrendered it and didn't tell us about the hips. The dog was pts.

The Bull Terrier was an oldie whose owners where facing severe financial hardship and had to surrender the dog and several cats to move in with relatives. Sadly the dog had scars on her face from living and playing with her cats so she looked like a fighting dog. Rather than risk her going to dog fighters she was pts. The Mini BT was hidden until the the staff found a suitable owner by asking lots of questions before anyone saw her. She went to a lovely family.

The Foxhound was brought in by the rangers from the pound. He was due to be pts but had a tattoo in his ear so they figured he must have been some sort of purebred and they never saw purebreds in the pound. They wanted to know what breed he was. The shelter boss had a look and asked me to come out and see if I could work out if he was a Deerhound or an Elkhound . The dog was a purebred Foxhound. By sheer luck we eventually found the owners who had reported him missing as a Beagle cross because that's what they thought he was. A truckie friend had found him in Vic where he had apparently got lost from a hunting pack, hence the tattoo number. He brought the dog to Sydney and gave it to them and none of them knew what he was.

[Rebanne]

OK, this will be a long post

I have only worked in one shelter so can only speak for that one but we would frequently get "Purebred" dogs in.

What I mean by this is that the dog was obviously a particular breed, some would be chipped to pet shops some to owners and some to breeders

From my experience I would say about every 2 out of 10 dogs that came in was purebred.

Purebred with papers or just looked like a particular breed?

Whilst it may look like a purebred dog without papers you have no idea, not to mention the rest of the litter could look the complete opposite.

so very true. Now talking about a mutt here but my Emma came in with her litter mates. She was the only tri colour, the rest were solid blacks but they were obviously siblings, they were like peas in a pod except for the colouring.

[Aetherglow]

OK, this will be a long post

I have only worked in one shelter so can only speak for that one but we would frequently get "Purebred" dogs in.

What I mean by this is that the dog was obviously a particular breed, some would be chipped to pet shops some to owners and some to breeders

From my experience I would say about every 2 out of 10 dogs that came in was purebred.

Purebred with papers or just looked like a particular breed?

Whilst it may look like a purebred dog without papers you have no idea, not to mention the rest of the litter could look the complete opposite.

No, no papers, that's why I said we were going by what they looked like.

To be honest pounds will rarely if ever know if a dog is actually purebred as they would never get to see papers, only what's on the chip, if the chip says it's pure, who are they to disagree?

Chip details can also be wrong - My pedigree Affen was chipped as an Affen X

I know a Dane who was chipped as a Greyhound - simple error on the person entering the data into the database.

Of course they can, but the pound only has that to go on. I had many dogs come in chipped as something and obviously something else.

It seems that data entry errors are fairly common. One of my cats' microchip company details had his name completely wrong, my name wrong, and my address wrong. I also found that even though I had carefully, in block letters, filled in the correct breed details for Tarja for her council registration they had entered her as a different and even rarer breed, a Finnish Spitz!

[Aussienot]

When I worked at a shelter in south west Sydney a couple of years ago we tracked surrendered by breed or type over two years. In terms of absolute numbers Staffies and Staffy crosses were the highest, Rotti and Ridgeback types and crosses were second, Jack Russell and Fox terrier types were third and Kelpie, Border Collie and Cattle Dog types were fourth most surrendered.

These categories were the hardest to place because their problems all seemed to be having had little or no training and very little socialization. Often big unruly dogs. Dogs who only needed a heap of training, loads of exercise and lots of face time to become wonderful pets. All achievable things that were never provided. Most had been puppies acquired with good intentions but no clue about how to raise a dog you can live with.

Small white fluffies and Labs or Goldens were usually adopted quickly. Oodle cross breeds were also easy to rehome.

Documentable purebred dogs were the exception. When the breeder could be identified and contacted, we made every effort to let them know. All were horrified, roughly one in four was in a position to come reclaim the dog. When there was a breed rescue we would contact them. Golden Retriever Rescue always came when we called. Most of the rest were as over run as we were.

Greyhound kennels would rock up with trailers full of slow dogs to be put down. I never had an opinion about Greyhound racing before then.

We also asked where the dog had been acquired from and pet shops and trading post/Gumtree were by far the largest suppliers of ultimately surrendered dogs. If pets purgatory did not sell companion animals anymore that one thing would reduce dog euthanasias.

[Dame Aussie]

OK, this will be a long post

I have only worked in one shelter so can only speak for that one but we would frequently get "Purebred" dogs in.

What I mean by this is that the dog was obviously a particular breed, some would be chipped to pet shops some to owners and some to breeders

From my experience I would say about every 2 out of 10 dogs that came in was purebred.

Purebred with papers or just looked like a particular breed?

Whilst it may look like a purebred dog without papers you have no idea, not to mention the rest of the litter could look the complete opposite.

No, no papers, that's why I said we were going by what they looked like.

To be honest pounds will rarely if ever know if a dog is actually purebred as they would never get to see papers, only what's on the chip, if the chip says it's pure, who are they to disagree?

Chip details can also be wrong - My pedigree Affen was chipped as an Affen X

I know a Dane who was chipped as a Greyhound - simple error on the person entering the data into the database.

Of course they can, but the pound only has that to go on. I had many dogs come in chipped as something and obviously something else.

It seems that data entry errors are fairly common. One of my cats' microchip company details had his name completely wrong, my name wrong, and my address wrong. I also found that even though I had carefully, in block letters, filled in the correct breed details for Tarja for her council registration they had entered her as a different and even rarer breed, a Finnish Spitz!

Yes, very common, we came across countless data entry errors, phone numbers, addresses, names, breeds, you name it.

[Fuzzycuddles]

OK, this will be a long post

I have only worked in one shelter so can only speak for that one but we would frequently get "Purebred" dogs in.

What I mean by this is that the dog was obviously a particular breed, some would be chipped to pet shops some to owners and some to breeders

From my experience I would say about every 2 out of 10 dogs that came in was purebred.

Purebred with papers or just looked like a particular breed?

Whilst it may look like a purebred dog without papers you have no idea, not to mention the rest of the litter could look the complete opposite.

No, no papers, that's why I said we were going by what they looked like.

To be honest pounds will rarely if ever know if a dog is actually purebred as they would never get to see papers, only what's on the chip, if the chip says it's pure, who are they to disagree?

Chip details can also be wrong - My pedigree Affen was chipped as an Affen X

I know a Dane who was chipped as a Greyhound - simple error on the person entering the data into the database.

Of course they can, but the pound only has that to go on. I had many dogs come in chipped as something and obviously something else.

It seems that data entry errors are fairly common. One of my cats' microchip company details had his name completely wrong, my name wrong, and my address wrong. I also found that even though I had carefully, in block letters, filled in the correct breed details for Tarja for her council registration they had entered her as a different and even rarer breed, a Finnish Spitz!

Yes, very common, we came across countless data entry errors, phone numbers, addresses, names, breeds, you name it.

Scary to think even though I swapped the details over I may not be reached because of a data entry issue :/

[Panto]

Many DOL'r, including me, use the argument that pedigree dogs are less likely to end up in shelters than BYB dogs or DD's. Many of us have images of shelters overpopulated by one type of dog or another. I have a sense that some breed rescue groups are much more active than others . . . perhaps due to higher rates of people buying the breed image without understanding breed characteristics.

I'd love to know the facts. The only data I've been able to find is LA county data, which shows a huge number of bull breeds/bull breed X's (40 to 45% of all pound dogs) . . . and a spike in Chihuahuas a couple years after the Beverly Hills Chihuahua movie came out.

Has anyone seen shelter data that keeps track of dogs by type, if not breed?

I only skimmed, so am not sure if someone else has posted this, but a report from pedigree, drawing on data from various sources including PetRescue:

http://www.pedigreeadoptiondrive.com.au/assets/pdf/THE%20PEDIGREE%202010%20DOG%20ADOPTION%20INDEX.pdf

Not sure if there is anything more recent, will have a looksee...

[Loopy Lola]

Many DOL'r, including me, use the argument that pedigree dogs are less likely to end up in shelters than BYB dogs or DD's. Many of us have images of shelters overpopulated by one type of dog or another. I have a sense that some breed rescue groups are much more active than others . . . perhaps due to higher rates of people buying the breed image without understanding breed characteristics.

I'd love to know the facts. The only data I've been able to find is LA county data, which shows a huge number of bull breeds/bull breed X's (40 to 45% of all pound dogs) . . . and a spike in Chihuahuas a couple years after the Beverly Hills Chihuahua movie came out.

Has anyone seen shelter data that keeps track of dogs by type, if not breed?

I would love to be able talk further about this .......but just quickly from my own experience manning the phone for our rescue and dealing with the pounds and surrenders ......the staffy/bull breed crosses would be no 1 type dog found in the council pounds . Out of the 9 purebred dogs that we have available for adoption atm 5 are from registered breeders . Three were surrendered by their owners directly and two came in via the vets where they had been taken in for euthanasia.Three of the other four came from pounds so we don't know where they originated from.

Just curious to know, do these 5 come with papers to prove they are registered & if so, is any effort made to contact the breeder whose name is on the papers & also what breeds are they????? sorry for all the questions, but I can't get my head around people calling dogs "purebred" unless they can see the actual ANKC registration papers of the dogs I think it is mainly due to people calling dogs "purebred" that give the genuine purebreds a bad name. To me a dog is not "purebred" unless it is registered with the State body of the ANKC & if it is not registered then it should not be called "purebred" unless maybe it has been genetically tested, which I very much doubt.

Yes they do Sheena , that's why I said the others were unknown as they came from the pound or the the one poodle was already in its 3rd home before it came to us and owner wasn't sure where he originated from .

Okay 2 female 3 year old Pharoah Hounds surrendered by owner .....came with papers .......there is no way I would inform the breeder of these girls due to already rehoming 2 of her dogs and condition they were in straight from her to cut a long story short .

Male 7 year old Golden Retriever ...surrendered by owner after trying to book into vet for pts as he was scared of thunder and fireworks . Vet called and she was happy to hand him over to us . I rang the breeder as he was on breeders terms and saw from paperwork she had run him on for the first 3 years , hip scored etc .......no she didn't want him back .Issue was fixed by having him as an inside dog ;)

Female 4 year old GSD ......surrendered with papers ........have rung this breeder previously and they haven't wanted to take their own back .......she was the 2226 the pup they bred according to her tattoo.

11 month old Samoyed .....breeder known ..was returned due to undescended testes and needing another op so was booked in for pts .....surrendered after vet put her through to us ........issues fixed and now up for adoption.

Other four were 15 month old Husky , 2 year old Malamute , female GSD and a 6 year old poodle.

[Loopy Lola]

That means the stats could be skewed - There is no way to confirm or deny without papers.

There are people who chip Pit Bulls as a Stafford - doesn't mean they are purebred nor a Stafford.

Perhaps the mirco-chip papers could have the following listed...

Spot for the owner

Spot for second contact

Spot for the breeder complete with ANKC number + the option to update the mirco-chip details at a later stage with the ANKC registered number of the puppy.

We already kind of do this with our rescues .......we go on as main contact at time of chipping .....then new owners are added but we stay on the chip papers for life so that we can always collect any of our adopted dogs if the owner doesn't show up or want to pay the fine . We had a hell of a time with the chipping companies at first but managed to come to an agreement . It really wouldn't be a hard thing to implement .

[SparkyTansy]

I too would love to implement breeder contact on chipping details. 4/5 puppies I placed from my last litter I managed to convince them to make me their second contact.

Unfortunately for us we have seen a higher than normal number of Weimaraners come through our rescue, and probably in the last two years, 4 of them have been from the pound. A great many who surrender their weims to our club rescue call us as a last resort before the pound

[raineth]

I keep an eye on what comes through our local pound.

The majority are crosses: bull breed crosses; terrier (JR or foxie type) crosses; swf type crosses, staghounds; and herding breed crosses.

out of dogs that look to be pure, most don't ook to be pedigree. While they look pure, they don't have the conformation that a pedigree normally would have.

the most common purebreds are Kelpies and cattle dogs. Then next would be staffords.

Other breeds that make an appearance are whippets, labradors, border collies, papillons.

Edited December 22, 2011 by raineth

[Fuzzycuddles]

I too would love to implement breeder contact on chipping details. 4/5 puppies I placed from my last litter I managed to convince them to make me their second contact.

Unfortunately for us we have seen a higher than normal number of Weimaraners come through our rescue, and probably in the last two years, 4 of them have been from the pound. A great many who surrender their weims to our club rescue call us as a last resort before the pound

Is this for fear of being judged perhaps? I'd definitely call a breed rescue first for assistance as I'm sure many have wait lists (and thus hopefully a suitable home waiting)

[Dame Aussie]

Many times I tried to direct people to breed specific rescue or their breeders but most of the time it was "easier" for them to surrender at the pound.

Just because someone buys a pedigree dog doesn't necessarily mean they're more likely to look after it.

I also think that it can be about pride, they know they're doing the wrong thing but they don't care. We used to have people bringing in " strays" which we would later find were chipped to them.