This is absolutely true, and is a result of genetic inbreeding during the process of artificial selection. Deleterious mutations are often pulled along with the good (external) features being selected for during breeding. Lots of inbreeding within dog families is done in order to establish "pure" breeds, and recessive mutations, then, are held at high frequencies in the population, and exposed when parents both carrying the recessive allele(s) mate and give some of their children two copies of the recessive allele.

Mutts, on the other hand, tend to have much higher genetic variation, and in the case of dominant / recessive based diseases, lots of the deleterious stuff is "masked," or simply washed out of the population by natural selection, and not maintained by humans' artificial selection.

Check out the big brain on Brad.

[Ali G]So's, like, wha happenin' when one cuzin an' anoder cuzin' be gettin' d'ere freak on, den? When da baby come out wit, like, six fingers or two willies or sumpin'.[/Ali G]

Finally, sweet relief.

We got the word last night that Loon is cancer-free. All the margins were clean on her excisions. Two of the lumps we had removed turned out not to be mast cell tumors at all, but due to inflammation around the area, the needle aspirates came back as a false positive.

Thank you again for your kind words and positive thoughts-- I truly believe they made all the difference in the world.

In the meantime, cue up The Cure's "The Perfect Girl" and play it in Loon's honor. She'd be pleased!

so happy to hear this dana!!! i can imagine how relieved you guys must be. YAY FOR LOON!!!!!!