Boxerdoodles!
I like both standard poodles and boxers, so my guess is this mix makes a really a good dog. I can’t imagine what sort of characteristics they would have, but my guess is they will be closer to the boxer than the poodle in temperament, which means that they are probably very silly dogs.
I’m generally cynical about designer dogs, but I think I may have had the non-shaggy version of this cross.
(That was the “golden boxer.” This dog was free when she was born to my golden retriever, but today this particular cross is a heavily promoted “designer dog.”)
Whatever you feel about designer dogs, I think they can give us some insight into what makes a purebred dog or a dog of a specific type what it is. Of course, boxers and poodles don’t have the history that poodles, retrievers, water spaniels, and water dogs have.
Poodles are, of course, ancestral water dogs, most likely derived from herding dogs, while boxers are derived from the Medieval alaunt de boucherie. They have been separate strains for a very long time.
I’m not so much disappointed that we’re deliberately mixing breeds, but more down about the fact that we’re using it as an excuse to get more money out of people who just want a good dog. I completely understand that the cheapest thing about a dog is its purchase price (and over 10+ years, $1000 really doesn’t matter anyway), but when it’s intentionally priced high because of what it is, rather than what it’s supposed to do, I get a bit irritated.
If the Lab-pit-chow-beagle-coonhound-Dalmatian ever became a designer breed, shelters would probably make a killing adopting all those dogs out. Or being plowed under with the number being surrendered, if you happen to be a pessimist.
Unfortunately, I think Cathy (Fugly horse of the day) said it best: “I’ve heard so much crap in the small animal world about how, if you breed, you’re taking a home away from a shelter pet. In most cases, nonsense. The person who is dead set on having a high quality Viszla, for example, is not going to truck down to the shelter and adopt a Chow-Shar Pei-Lab-Pit mix instead. The truth is, there’s always a market for a high quality, well bred, well conformed animal of any breed. The market that’s dead is the market for the Chow-Shar Pei-Lab-Pit puppies.”