The Rise of Dog Identity Politics

If one can identify the breeds which were mixed to produce a dog--such as chihuahua and poodle (i know someone who has such a mix), then i don't believe that what you have really is a mutt. Blending two "pedigree" breeds also does not necessarily immunize against inherited diseases common to a specific breed. When i think of "mutt," i think of several breeds in one small package. It's appalling to think that people would actually ask what kind of mutt.

you're the guy who walks matching dogs - you should know from pure-bred

I went looking for a definition of mutt, and got some surprising results. Most of them, as related to dogs, defined a mutt as a mongrel. Definitions of mongrel in reference to dogs were a mix of several breeds, or an indiscriminate mix. I was also amused to see that the word mutt apparently originally arose as a pejorative, a shortening of "mutton head." Any one familiar with sheep knows that they are not particularly bright, which seems to account for the rise of the pejorative.

Yeah, that was hilarious. The dogs happen to resemble one another, which is simply coincidence. (If one looks closely, i think one would recognize that the dogs are significantly different in build.)

I was walking the dogs at the beach one day, and as i passed a bench on which two women were sitting, one turned to the other and said in a low voice (but not low enough that i didn't hear her): "He just got that other dog to match the first one." I didn't know which she assumed was "the first one"--not that it mattered.