Toronto Bans Sale of Puppy Mill (kittens and puppies) Pets

There is a valid distinction which can be made between breeds of dogs and humans. Humans may prate about "racial purity," but there's just no such thing. Did you know, for example, that the Koreans and the Japanese are more closely related to the Turks than to anyone else? The Chinese are very, very distant cousins at best. Don't even get me started on the Germans.

I don't normally have a problem with that - I've been raised with mutt doggies - but they all came from a friend or relative.

If you have children though - getting a mutt or even a pure breed dog from a shelter could be a problem. Could - in if you do not know the history of the dog - you may not know what you are getting and I'd rather not have such an issue with kids.

Even one mutt we adopted from a family when I was a child, my parents ending up giving up from our family - he was too "snippy" biting at us kids frequently.

Reason we ended up going to a family breeder for us - we wanted the type of dog to fit our family and lifestyle. If I did not have children, I'd probably visited a shelter - where I have adopted all my kitties from.

Which is why, early on, I recounted our experiance with our oldest son's adoption.

I tend to think of muttdom as a kind of safeguard to pedigree nonsense. I'll admit I can be wrong, in that mutts of mystery heritage may carry a variety of genetic baddies instead of the usual breed batch of developed booboos.

I've had one Venice shepherd (border collie? shepherd and more, found on the railroad track behind our studio as a puppy), one irish setter found in a lumber yard as skin and bones about a year old, and one forlorn older corgi that might have had some mutt or might have been from a breeder in oregon that didn't go for the cutsie corgi profile/breeder routine, via the humane society. The first two had tendencies to wanderlust, which I shudda known given where we found them. All of them very loved by me. I tend to think the Pacc was tossed from a car because of his hysterics about other dogs in other cars - was found trekking down highway 101 when brought to the humane society. In contrast to the first two, he had no interest in wandering.

yup. several of the vets I've dealt with over the years have told me that, generally, they find mutts have fewer health problems than purebred dogs. Everyone will have their own anecdotes on this.

Of course, on the flip side, with purebred dogs you know what types of health problems to watch out for.