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All dogs are wonderful, regardless of whether they are pedigreed or not.
However, where you get your pets from is important.
If you want a purebred dog you have a couple of choices.
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Many breed clubs and societies have a rescue service, where they help dogs of a particular breed find new homes. These are usually not young pups, and are sometimes handed back to their breeder by their owners, or rescued from pounds or shelters. Occasionally breeders will have retired show dogs, or younger dogs who didn't quite 'make the grade'.
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You can find breeders of a particular breed by contacting breed clubs, the canine registration body in each state or territory such as Dogs ACT or Dogs NSW, who are able to give you breeders contact details
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Web sites such as Dogz Online have breed pages, with lots of pictures of individual dogs of many different breeds, perhaps some you have not heard of. Contact details of their owners and breeders can be found, and people are usually very happy to share information about their breed. You can ask lots of questions and make sure that a particular breed is right for you - a very important thing. Buying a dog from a breeder also gives you someone to go back to and ask questions of. A responsible breeder should ask a lot of questions of you, as they need to be sure that yours would be the right home for a puppy of that particular breed. Welcome questions like this - you would not want to buy a puppy from someone not responsible enough to care about where their puppies went.
If it does not matter to you what breed a dog is, then please consider rescue.
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There are groups such as ARF (ACT Rescue Foundation) who rescue dogs from death row. Members foster them in their own home, usually with other dogs, and take on things such as basic training and socialisation with them to make sure they fit well into their new home. Lots of details about these dogs are then available, as they have been living in their carer's home.
More people are buying pets from pet shops. Not all pet shops are careful about where the puppies they sell come from. There are some very large puppy farms (several hundred breeding dogs) that supply to some pet shops, and the conditions the dogs are kept in, or the breeding practices, may be far from ideal. The pups from the pet shops often cost more than from a breeder, and there is no-one to go back to with questions, or problems, and no details available of the parents of the pup. All you need is the asking price. Health testing is often not done on breeding stock, and so many will develop problems. We see many of them here at the kennels, such as skin problems, bad temperaments, jaws that don't meet (especially in dogs who's parents have very different muzzle lengths to each other) hip displasia, pigmentation problems, trainability problems, allergies and digestive problems.
Hybrid Vigour
This term is used to describe the supposed health benefits of cross bred dogs, refered to as 'Designer Dogs'. It is really a misnomer, as a hybrid comes from crossing two different species, such as a Lion and a Tiger ( a Liger or Tigon) or a horse and a donkey (a mule). Two dogs of different breeds are still the same species.
To say that they are healthier than purebred dogs, ignores the fact that responsible breeders health test their breeding stock, and there is knowledge of what genetic problem may be in a particular breed or line. Some breeds, such as Labradors, have regulations in place where both parents must not only have their hips scored, they both must be below a certain score for them to be able to be bred from, and puppies to be registered.
I have heard it said many times that crossbred dogs do not have the same genetic problems of purebred dogs, that by crossing two breeds you miss out on that, the best of both breeds.
So are only the good points inheritable? Surely if the good is, then so is the bad?
For that to be correct, it would mean that all genes were recessive (both have to carry it) and no two breeds would carry the same conditions. But some genes are dominant, and that means if you breed a dog that carries, or is affected by something we'll call 'Condition U', which happens to be a genetically dominant condition, then some pups are going to be carriers, even if the breed does not have 'Condition U'. As a breed, Labradors have problems with hip displasia. They are one breed that have to prove the hip score of parents to be able to breed. But Standard Poodles are also known to suffer from hip displasia, as are many large dog breeds. So the pups of an untested Labrador, and an untested Poodle, can easily have hip problems. A gene does not ask the breed of the other parent.
There is so much about genes that we still don't know. Some are dominant, some are recessive, and some seem to have more than one gene - polygenetic. So to say that they don't have the same conditions as their parents is misinformation.
We own both mixed and purebreed dogs, and have two that have health problems. Both are rescues - one a purebred and one a mix. Kelly, a working Kelpie (who's family tree also has a big splash of something brindle) has structural problems with her hips and knees, and has arthritis because of it, as well as big temperament problems. Our purebred Shih Tzu has a skin problem caused by food allergies (and is also very pushy, but that's just her).
So rather than pro purebred, or pro mixed breed, we are pro dog.
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Canberra
Boarding Kennels 
