Choosing Between a Purebred and Mixed Breed Puppy

Bringing home a new puppy always comes with certain rewards and challenges. There is always the happiness of sharing your life with a creature, but that happiness is often curbed by the new holes in your favorite pair of shoes. Any puppy comes with the ups and downs of bringing a pet into your life, and that will apply no matter what breed enters your home. However, there are pros and cons to both purebred and mixed breed puppies.

With a purebred puppy, you know the basic package that you are receiving. You usually know how big your puppy will get, how much energy he or she will require, and the type of temperament the puppy will have. Each puppy varies, but you have a better chance of matching the type of puppy you want to bring into your home. You also have a better idea of what type of medical conditions you need to monitor as your puppy grows into a full-grown dog. With mixed breed puppies, the outcome is fairly unpredictable. Your puppy could begin life the size of a teacup and end up the size of a small pony. It is also harder to predict how mixed breed puppies will react in houses with children or small animals because the temperament can be a complete surprise. On the plus size, most puppies can be conditioned to live in any number of situations, and puppies can easily adapt to distractions such as children. If you can handle a few surprises in terms of size and behavior, a mixed breed puppy can be a loving companion.

You are not likely to find a mixed breed dog breeder. Most mixed breed puppies up for adoption are located in animal shelters. When you adopt a dog in this situation, you get the benefit of liberating a pet from the relatively unpleasant atmosphere of animal shelters. Purebred dog breeding encourages a good deal of the overpopulation among dogs. Each year, millions of homeless pets are killed, and continuing to support purebred dog breeding only increasing the pool of unwanted animals.

With a purebred puppy, you get the comforts of a fairly predictable dog. However, each dog varies, so this is not a foolproof system for getting everything you want in a companion. Dog breeding also encourages overpopulation, and this contributes to the millions of animals "humanely" killed each year. Overall, adopting a mixed breed dog provides more benefits for the system as a whole, and the experience can be much more rewarding for a potential owner.