More hybrid dogs...
I've come across another "designer dog" (read as: an on-purpose mutt) on Friday. I swear, my forehead is going to hold a permanent bruise from hitting my head on my desk out of frustration by all these people trying to pass off their mutts as some kind of new purebred dog. But, I suppose if I paid $800 for an unpapered puppy, I might be in denial
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The way that the system is set up almost guarantees that the existing gene pool becomes smaller every year. This is often exacerbated by overuse of popular studs and lines, and "line breeding" to try and remove genetic problems, that further reduces the overall degree of genetic diversity. Then you have the added problems of extreme interpretations of "breed standard" producing physiological exaggerations that can be deleterious to animal welfare.
There is certainly a good argument for breeding F1 "hybrid" dogs as pets. The breeds used need to be carefully selected, the dogs chosen for health and temperament, and tested for possible genetic diseases, and the pups should of course be spayed/neutered (as any pet dog should be). The dogs bred in this way can be said to have the best of both worlds: the advantages of both genetic diversity (like mutts) and carefully selected parents (like purebreds).
Crossbred dogs have been shown to be both longer lived and healthier than their purebred counterparts, and when done responsibly, F1 hybrids can make wonderful and very robust family pets. There's a good article that touches on this topic written by the Senior Geneticist in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Sydney at http://vein.library.usyd.edu.au/links/Mcgreevy.pdf
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