Hybrid Vigor….

Did you know that with a crossbred dog you get added benefits? I had read about hybrid vigor when I was researching at our start. Then in college it is something we talk about regularly in all of my livestock production classes as a way of bettering our herds. It’s amazing to me that I can learn about cows and relate these things to dogs and vice versa. This is a really deep and somewhat confusing genetic subject but I’m going to do my best to simply explain it. Hybrid vigor is caused when two purebred breeds are crossed. Then for every generation after you slightly lose a bit of that extra vigor. Generally speaking the next generation would come from crossing a F1 generation to a F1 generation which you don’t typically do with a labradoodle. So a F1b labradoodle I feel would have more hybrid vigor than these F1 X F1 crosses due to that backcrossing. When you do a cross like this you cause a reverse in any inbreeding in any of the lines. While we check pedigrees of our parent dogs before purchase they typically only go back 3 generations. This also applies to purebred dogs in some sense that if you cross two different lines of dogs the inbreeding in the two different lines will be reversed. The problem with the inbreeding is over time it causes health problems, shorter life, less fertility, and higher mortality before and shortly after birth. When you cross these two purebred animals you get increased health, resistance to disease, longer life, higher fertility, and higher survival rate. There also have been studies on the effects of hybrid vigor on the mother dog and her ability to raise a litter and it showed increased survival due to the mother’s ability. So not only do you get a great dog but you are getting a healthier dog when you choose a labradoodle. But let me mention this does not include genetic diseases only overall health these can only be prevented through choosing lines that have been tested. Hybrid vigor is one of the many reasons that we chose to do labradoodles. They truly are one of the best dogs.