Designer Dogs. The Secret World of Unethical Dog Breeders

Fluffy French Bulldogs, Double Merle Doodles, Albino Dobermans, Microbullies… Just to name a few. I’m sure we have all seen the increasing craze for these designer dogs. Marketed as “Hypoallergenic”, “Rare Colors”, “Designer”, there is a dark side to the world of dog breeding.

In recent years, breeders have begun to breed their dogs for exotic looking coat patterns, unique face shapes, or even changing the entire size and build of a breed. These breeders are prioritizing profit over the health and welfare of their dogs and the dogs they are selling. More and more cases have come into light about poor living conditions of dogs being used for breeding, over breeding females and dumping them in shelters or on the side of the road when they are no longer useful, or selling sick and underage puppies.

These so-called “designer” dogs are also what many come to find as actually just genetic disasters. Many breeds that are becoming more sought after such as Fluffy or Merle French Bulldogs, and Microbullies are bred to have a smaller stature, and smaller face than the breed standard. This leads to severe breathing problems to have become incredibly common, as well as bone deformities such as Discospondilitis, and Spina Bifida. In other designer breeds such as Albino Dobermans or any of the many kinds of Doodles, things such as blindness, deafness, gastrointestinal and immune disorders or behavioral problems have become almost unavoidable.

Shelters are seeing an uptake in their already overcrowded facilities due to these breeds being purchased, and then dumped due to “unforeseen” medical or behavioral problems that are unfortunately genetically wired into many of these dogs. This places immense pressure on the rescue systems to find spaces for these dogs or else they are euthanized. Yet at the same time, people continue to purchase puppies which allows breeders to continue producing puppies who could very well end up in a shelter with an unknown fate.