(06-13-2021, 12:29 PM)NYC4jags Wrote:

(06-13-2021, 12:13 PM)TheO-LineMatters Wrote: That's not true at all. Sure, the majority of the dogs in the pound are pits or pit mixes, but it's nowhere close to 90%. It's more like 50%. There are still plenty of lab mixes and shepherd mixes and a variety of other dogs as well. Every dog I have ever had has been a mix of something. I've never owned a purebred and every one of my dogs has been super sweet and very friendly to people and other dogs. My vet even told me that mixed breeds even tend to be healthier all around.

Mutts and mixes can indeed be healthier than many of the purebred dogs in general as all of the inbreeding produces a myriad of health issues in some breeds that become very common among those breeds. 

English bulldogs and great danes have remarkably short life expectancy as a result.
Beagles have a high propensity for glaucoma and blindness.
Rottweilers have high occurrence of hip dysplasia. 
And the list goes on and on….

A most excellent series on the History Channel, Life After People, touched on this.  For anyone who has never seen it, it's a documentary series about what would become of the world if people suddenly disappeared; projected on a timeline from the immediate to millennia, and even eras, into the future.  

One projection touched on what would become of domesticated dogs. A veterinarian commented that mutts are better suited to quickly adapt to suddenly foraging for their own survival because pure breeds have had some of their wolf-like survival genetics suppressed for the sake of appearance and disposition.

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