Seriously, get over the "designer dog" BS

A fellow blogger was given a dog, which looks like this:


"It's a puggle", she says. A reader commented that indeed, the puggle is a recognized "species."

Yeah... not so much. A "puggle" isn't a breed, it's a portmanteau word to refer to a dog believed to be a pug x beagle cross. Waste of a beagle, if you ask me, because why breed a scenthound to a breed with a nose so misshapen they can't even breathe? People do the dumbest things.

So I looked at the photo and it looks nothing like a pug. Not much like a beagle either, but certainly nothing like a pug.

"Oh yes he does," she says. "He has a wrinkled face."

And... your point is? Most puppies have wrinkled faces. Many breeds also have wrinkled faces as adults, such as... scenthounds. Imagine that. Pugs don't just have wrinkles, they have a squished face, which is a genetic deformity that has been bred for selectively, for no good reason, to produce things like bulldogs and mastiffs. And pugs. All dogs who are not very good at breathing, and in the case of bulldogs and pugs, not much good for anything else either.

Luckily, this puppy looks nothing like a pug. Yes, it has a wrinkled face. But it doesn't have a squished face, or bulging eyes, or a curly tail, which is very common in "puggles" if you look at the "breed's" official website. There's nothing about this dog that suggests it's ever even been near a pug.

You know what it does look like though?


A bloodhound puppy.

Not a highly typey, award-winning bloodhound puppy, but it looks like a bloodhound puppy. And you're gonna be sorry if that's what it is, because a bloodhound is a BIG HUNTING DOG. It needs tons of training, tons of exercise, mental stimulation, firm leadership, tons of exercise, and did I mention tons of exercise? It needs tons of exercise. Like a beagle, except tons more.

Also, most hounds bark often and very loud. That's what they're bred for.

Also, bloodhounds are reputedly difficult to house train. Or to train to anything, but most people never go any further than housetraining, so that's no big deal, maybe.

And also, bloodhounds are on average a medically high-maintenance breed.

So other than the fact that there's no such thing as a "puggle", maybe you shouldn't take home a puppy of unknown ancestry just because someone made up a cute portmanteau word for it... because in your lack of knowledge, you might be taking home a bloodhound that you'll never be able to handle.

There are two kinds of dogs: purebreds and mutts. Purebreds are bred from consistent stock to have consistent traits, so there is some predictability in them. Mutts are everything else, and you never know what you're gonna get until you try. And calling it a "puggle" doesn't make it anything other than a mutt. Or maybe a bloodhound.