Does Being a Mixed Breed Make a Maltipoo Live Longer?
The question of '
hybrid vigor' does come into play in regard to how healthy a Matipoo will be, but not necessarily how long he will live. Quite a bit of research has been done in this area and studies have shown that some diseases show up less with cross-breeds; however not all of them. Cancer is a leading cause of death for canines and a study by the University of California, Davis looked at over 90,000 dogs. They found that cancer statistics were even with both purebreds and mixed breeds. This includes lymphoma and mast cell tumors.
The element of hybrid vigor did hold to be true for some medical issues, however this was mostly with health conditions that are not considered fatal including cataracts, elbow dysplasia and hypothyroidism
A 20 year long study by the University of Georgia looked at the leading causes of death in over 100 purebred dogs and mixed breeds. Mixed dogs were among the 12 breed groups most prone to die from trauma.
Leading cause of Death in Maltipoos
There are two ways of looking at this. One may place the Maltipoo into the mixed-breed group. In this case, the leading causes of death are:
1: Musculoskeletal disease 13.5%
2: Cancer 27.6%
3:Trauma 16.2%
Or we can look to the Poodle and the Maltese, keeping in mind that hybrid vigor does not decrease the rate of cancer. The leading causes of death are as follows:
Toy Poodle: Neurological 16.1% Trauma 11.7% Cancer 11.4%
Maltese: Cardiovascular 21.1% Congenital 9.7% Cancer 9.2%
With cancer being #2 for mixed breeds and #3 for both the Poodle and Maltese, this lends to cancer being one of the main health concerns for the Maltipoo and certainly a leading cause of death that hybrid vigor cannot erase.
It should be noted that trauma is the #1 cause of death for puppies (of any breed or mixed) and is top concern for all toy sized dogs. It is unfortunate that the statistics for this are so high, considering that this is so preventable.