Mutt question..?
 

If you are given a well-bred apbt without papers by a trustworthy breeder and only his word is your only proof, would you consider your dog a mutt?

I've read people here would brand a dog mutt just because it doesn't have papers.

Nope, if my dogs came from a Reputable Breeder that knew my dog's lineage, just doesn't do registries, then I would consider them purebred.

However, Tess was from a friend of ours who could hardly remember her Dam's name, let alone whether she was pure or not.

My boy Rowdy came from a backyard breeder that I think had a decent eye for bulldawgs. Rowdy was a good looking bull & terrier and that's what I called him. Bulldawg or bull & terrier. APBT is a registry name and certainly you could see Rowdy carried that blood. But, I could also see AST and if the light was just right, all the other dogs, SBT and whatever else make up these dogs. Was he a purebred? ... yep, as pure as a BYB of bulldawgs can be. If you wanted to call him a mutt, that's fine with me but if you tried to call my bulldawg/bull & terrier an American Pit Bull Terrier ... I would politely correct you. Not because I wouldn't have been thrilled to know he was an APBT, but because I never knew if there was a registered and pedigreed dog in his blood or not.

Bulldog and bull & terrier was a good enough moniker for many of the very early dog men and it's good enough for me. If a mix of bull & terrier makes them a mutt then so be it.

You have much more experience with these dogs than I do, but that's just how I feel and we both know that papers don't make the dog anyway.

But to answer your question, some folks keep their circles tight and and I would have to consider the "trustworthy breeder".

Well, a handwritten pedigree from a true dogman, I would trust. We have received two dogs with handwritten peds from our uncle(JW Truett) and those I know are real bulldogs. Our Boudreaux female, came right from Floyd with a single reg form and that I trust.

However, just because someone claims to be a dogman and has a few years into the breed...that does not make them or their dog's legit. If a person is breeding and selling to the public, even on a limited basis, they should have registration papers, IMO.

Regarding rescues and back yard bred dogs, I think you could possibly get a pure one. I know some of the dogs from rescues look better than a lot of the "breeder" dogs.

Also, what about scatter bred dogs with all kinds of different bloodlines but they were ALL APBT ... you ever heard anyone call "that" scatter bred dog a mutt? ... it's not always a derogatory term, sometimes just an agreeable euphemism or expression.

This.

Even papers can lie, so you have to know what you can and cannot trust... so I'd be just as willing to trust someone who was reputable and kept good records of their dogs as I would a good breeder with registration on their dogs.

In some places you won't see any registration on the 2nd to 3rd gen. Sometimes you won't see any registered ancestors with the 4th gen. But ancestry is of proven gamedogs.

There is no doubt you can get nothing but purebred apbts out of them people because if that place is fighting their dogs.. mixing mutt would do what to your dog? Papers are easy to get nowadays anyways..

---------- Post added at 09:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:57 PM ----------

Well scatterbred is used on dogs that have pedigrees that of different lineage. But that doesn't mean they are not pure apbt. Just different families bred together.. the bad thing about scatterbred is that you can't get the consistency out from them when you plan to breed dogs from them, it will require alot of linebreeding and a few inbreeding in the process. Alot of 3 way or 4 way crosses are indeed good dogs on their own right.. but reproducing them is kinda hard since they have a loose background.

i thought line breeding WAS in breeding..??

This for me. With me it's about "PEDIGREE" not papers... whether the pedigree is from a registry, written on the back of a napkin, or just memorized.

Inbreeding is father to daughter, mother to son, sister to brother. Linebreeding could be cousins, uncles, etc.