Poll: What Do You Call a Mixed Breed Dog?
May 2, 2010 by Paris and John
Filed under Bloggie
I’m always trying to figure out how to get more people to adopt dogs…and I’m wondering if one reason they don’t is because of the term “mixed breed.” Since so many shelter and rescue dogs are mixed breeds (but not all by any means), are people turned off the adoption experience because the term “mixed breed” is, well, boring?
What do you call mixed breed dogs? Do you have any ideas for other terms? (I thought of “unique dogs”–which they are since each is often a real combination of breeds like our Tiki, above, a mix of doberman/poodle/Sheltie/bulldog and Irie, a mix of lab/coonhound/GSP. Maybe people would like the idea of mixed breed adoption more if they realized they were getting a dog that’s a unique blend!)
Some regions have interesting terms for mixed breeds. In Australia, they’re sometimes called “bitsa” or or “bitzer”, short for “bits of this and that.” In the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos islands, the mixed breed dogs are called “potcakes” since they’re often fed the bits that stick to the pans. In the US, the only slang term we can think of is “Heinz 57″ in reference to the 57 Varieties slogan of the Heinz company but that seems so commercial.
What do you think?
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