As promised at the end of January, here’s some photos of Chai, my friends’ second rescue dog whom they adopted because her previous caretaker had passed away.
Chai is a 13 year old multi mixed breed (a true mutt, if I’ve ever seen one!) and has seemingly never had any obedience training or been disciplined much. She’s 13 chronologically, but a puppy at heart. She’s also an alpha personality and IMHO that makes it a bit difficult on Amber (the last photo in this post). I honestly feel sorry for Amber but one of the friends I’m staying with doesn’t want to hear that. In the end, I’m not one of the dogs true “caretakers”, so I honestly have no right to say anything about that and do my darndest to say nothing about it.
I’ll miss both Amber and Chai when I leave tomorrow, BUT I’ll miss Amber many more times than Chai.
I thank both the dogs for the affection they’ve shown me and their caretakers for allowing me to take care of these two bundles of joy.
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
82
My Dad stuck some kind of weird, Tickly, Swabby Thing in my mouth and swirled it around for the longest time! He did give me a treat afterwards, at least, and reminded me that I Am A Good Boy.
Now he says the Swabby Thing was $100 worth of pure, unmitigated bunk, because it says I’m primarily a mix of Great Pyrenees followed by American Pitt Bull Terrier. Then a bunch of others at 7-8% or so like Staffordshire Terrier and Retriever mix. [ETA - although he realizes with several other minor amount breeds in the mix, I could look like anything.]
Despite the foregoing, he’s now planning to throw another $100 down the drain on a different brand of Swabby Thing to see if he gets a different result.
Here’s a stock image of a Carolina Dog (which are not uncommon around here).
More seriously, I can see some Pitt in the width of the head back at the jaw hinges, once you get past the too-narrow snout, and generally retriever maybe in the overall bodyshape (but that was down around 7%), but I’m really having trouble seeing GPyr.
Overall this pup is doing very well since the time we got him from the shelter 3 months ago. He’s filling out - from 41 pounds up to 56 when I checked him Sunday.
Adorable dog! Wow, that’s almost exactly the same experience we had with our pup and the Swabby Thing. The test results came back stating that our dog Biscuit has almost every type of canine DNA under the sun. Hmmm. Recognize any similarities?
We concluded the Swabby Thing must not detect the presence of Carolina Dog. Biscuit came to us as a rescue pup from Tennessee, so I like those odds. Her characteristics and behaviors most strongly match with Carolina Dog and Labrador Retriever, so that’s good enough for us. (Okay, I can’t explain how Biscuit manages to get our neighbor to let her into her home to eat cheese but perhaps some behaviors are better left unexamined. )
After a bit of training so we could all understand each other better, my husband and I couldn’t ask for a sweeter or more joyful pup. Wishing you the same.
In some cases the Swabby Thing proves credible. But from my experience, the DNA tests don’t currently—maybe can’t?—discern the presence of Carolina Dog lineage. Ancient breed that went unrecognized until relatively recently. Yeah, I fell down that rabbit hole when Biscuit came into our lives.
I’m not someone who would fork over the $$$ to find out my own ancestry, let alone that of my cat
Of course we already know he’s a snowshoe - which is really just a mutt / cross between American domestic shorthair and Siamese
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CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
88
Yep - I already know he’s a mutt. I wanted to find out how much of which mutts, some of which are more prone to sudden, unpredicted violent behavior than others.
Gotcha. Another reason why I despise the whole breeding “business” in general.
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CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
90
I just know what I hear about it on the news. I think it can be done ethically, but I gather often it’s not. Too much, and too close, breeding for some exquisite phenotypical features that are supposed to exemplify a particular dog breed - leading to a lot of early onset skeletal or organ failures (many breeds). (Tangent, but that’s similar to how growers in the PNW ended up with the most beautifully red, but mushy and flavorless, “Red Delicious Apples”.)
Too much breeding for aggressiveness by particularly unethical (and/or, hate to say it, “redneck”) breeders (Pitbull Terriers, sometimes Rotties and some few others).
That’s why we’ve preferred to just get mixed breeds from the shelter. The only downside is required sterilization. I understand and agree with the rationale in general, but out of the last 5 dogs, there was one that we would really have liked to have been able to have at least a first litter.
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CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
91
Thanks for the essay. I used Wisdom Panel, and this one does claim to have Carolina Dog in their testing panel. But who knows? I can agree than any combination of a bunch of mutts might end up looking like one or another nearly pure breed, but I was thrown by that Pyr result.
Thank you for that! I’ve had this debate with two friends who insisted on adopting pure bred dogs. When I asked them if they were planning on showing the dogs they said no they just wanted an animal companion. I am convinced that some of those pure bred animals have been inbred so many times it isn’t healthy - maybe they are more at risk of certain diseases or behavioral issue but I am not a vet so what do I know. I asked both of them if they would consider adopting a dog from a shelter and my question was greeted with silence
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CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
93
I admit I do get the allure, some ways (of adopting a purebred dog, not buying one from a mill, I mean). In the first city we lived after getting married, we were pretty close to a major metro area. We went to the bigtown shelter first, and they had quite a few AKC registered purebred (in some cases, of “champion” level (some special recognition - I may be wrong about what it was called after all these years)).
The shelter had the official papers and everything on these dogs that had been turned over by the original owners. One was an absolutely gorgeous brindle large breed of some sort that I don’t remember anymore. I tried to get my wife to agree to that one, but she wanted a smaller dog. So we ended up back at the local shelter and got the “Black Labrador Beagle”, as we ended up referring to her (well, her name was Corbie (all raven black in coloring)).
But going back to adopting (or buying) only purebred dogs - we’d walk ours and chat with neighbors around us walking theirs. Two of them had purebred dogs of some sort; small universe and anecdotes etc., but each of them ended up needed pricey orthopedic surgeries by age 5 or 6.
My mother wanted a cat that didn’t shed. She forked over close to 300 Euro for a Russian blue kitten that had to be put down for some genetic defect maybe 6 months after my mom got her. She was in chronic pain, it seemed.
The breeder had no interest in hearing about it. I have zero patience for that shit, and I don’t care even for “ethical” breeders.
If your* companion has to be of a certain provenance, you don’t really care about the companion, you want a prestige object, like a fancy car or expensive sneakers or purses or what have you. Like those bimbos who get teacup chihuahuas or other toy / miniature dogs bc Paris Hilton had one and it makes for such an adorable accessory!
There are PLENTY of dogs (and cats) in existence, and shelters the world over bursting with them. #offmysoapboxnowkthxbyeeee
I have a friend who used to breed English setters. She showed them and had a few big deal champions. We bought one from her that had a slight, virtually imperceptible, underbite and would not be bred. She was pretty perfect, and we still miss her. When one of her dogs was bred, she found males quite far away. No inbreeding. Anyway, after Opal died we found Southwest English Setter Rescue and got our current dog, Hopps. He is from the same breeder. (There aren’t a whole lot of English setters out there.). Because those dogs were so patiently and thoughtfully bred, their qualities were extremely predictable. While they all have great aptitude for bird hunting, I don’t hunt, but I prize their extreme gentleness and general goofiness. I think preserving a breed of dog for such reasons makes some sense, but we have also done extremely well mutts. In my opinion, all dogs are awesome and deserve kind and loving humans, but there are enough of them out there that we ought to take living dogs, mutt or purebred, ahead of commissioning a breeder to breed a dog for us.
bunches o’ nonsense surrounds so much of such discussions . . .
“Huskies” - nominated to be one of the most ten dangerous breeds.
really?
this guy - more likely to lick you silly . . .
A pit bull showed up on my deck on very cold winter night. We are in a somewhat rural area so I know most dogs in my area. Not this one. I hesitantly opened the door to check her out. She jumped up on me and I slipped to the ground on my slippery deck. She proceeded to lick my face. I put the cats in a room with my husband for the night and that dog slept on the sofa on top of me much of the night. We were able to find her home a few days later. Your picture of your scarry dog reminds me of that.
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