Are mixed breeds of dogs actually wrong?

Having seen and worked on many dogs in Nigeria I have come to notice that about 80% of dogs existing here are mixed breeds. Many of these dogs have close resemblance to the breeds they are called but an expert will give you features that will disprove you. Today in Nigeria people cross Rottweiler and German shepherd and because it has the color distribution of Rottweiler and the German shepherd structure they are called Doberman Pincher. I say this because I got into an argument with a client while registering his dog into our database and registered his dog as a German shepherd/Rottweiler.

His own argument is that it looks like a Doberman and therefore should be named as such. I quickly told him that dogs are not just called those breed names, that they share certain characteristics that make them either German shepherd or Rottweiler. The argument went on and on. We began to surf the internet to explain things but he insisted I should call the dog Doberman which I refused to do. I tried to explain to him that there are certain diseases associated with these breeds that are important for medical reasons. The man simply refused.

Is it wrong for a dog to be a mixed breed? In my practice I have encountered dog breeders treating mixed breeds as trash, paying less attention to these dogs all because they are mixed. Is it the dogs fault to be a mixed breed? Why do we have to discriminate these dogs because they are mixed?

I once stumbled on a book titled “Designer dogs” by Caroine Colie on amazon and quickly bought it. This book talks about dogs that are mixed with names as: Labradoodle being a cross between Labrador and poodle, Goldendoodle –Golden Retriever and Poodle etc. the day I received this book I spent close to six hours looking at the beautiful dogs admiring the way they inherited their parents traits. It was real fun. The same way I see other brought to the clinic and equally admired them.

The problem comes when it is time to sell them or their puppies here in Nigeria. In fact, no one wants to buy because it’s a cross.

During my studies as a veterinary student, I learnt how these known breeds where created. Many dog breeds in existence now were not like they are today centuries ago. The mastiffs we see today where not like this centuries ago. They are dogs crossed severally before they became what they are now; they get registered because they were able to maintain their characteristics for a long time.  

If the breeds we have now were products of mixing of several other breeds to get the current breed then why do we, especially Nigerians treat them as useless or undesirable?

My conclusion is that a dog is a dog and should be treated as such. They deserve every good social and medical treatment any other dog gets because in many years to come they might become very popular breeds and very desirable.