Update on Luca, aka: "Big Dawg"

I've made several posts over the last few years about our adopting Luca from a rescue. At the time, the rescue had no paperwork on him or his 5 other littermates. They received the litter from another rescue and one volunteer heard from another volunteer that the mother of the litter may have been a Great Pyrenees. Luca was the runt of the litter and kind of sickly. The vet at the rescue assured us that he would be lucky to reach 45 pounds. We brought him home and after a couple of visits to our vet, she thought the same....lucky to reach 45 pounds.....in the 5 1/2 years he has lived with us, he has doubled that, hence the nickname, "Big Dawg". He's a very intelligent, good natured, playful dog. We have grown very attached to him. With all of that said, we have had some fun conversations trying to guess his heritage.....Early on we doubted the "Great Pyrenees" rumor. In the past, we had a couple of black labs and I saw some of that in him including webbed feet......however, he hates water! Hmmm, so much for that guess. Our vet was convinced he had some doberman or Rottweiler in him given the shape of his head and his coloration. It took him over two years to reach his full size/weight (92 pounds) which according to our vet is not unusual with rescue dogs as they are often malnourished. I was fairly certain that he had a lot of "Hound" in him as he always has his nose to the ground. As a pup, I took him to obedience classes at a nearby obedience training club, they offered 50% off fees for rescue dogs. He did extremely well and a couple of the trainers were convinced that he had some "herding" dog in his make up. Anyway, a lot of fun conversations over the years about him. This past Christmas, the kids gave me a DNA kit for him. My DIL is a vet tech and picked out the kit that she felt was the most reliable........Shortly after Christmas, I sat down with Luca and collected his sample and submitted it. This past weekend, I was notified that his results were in. Definitely a few surprises! Below should be a few photos of him over the years as well as a snapshot of his results. I thought all of the dog lovers on this Forum might get a kick out of it.

Mike

Great post, his DNA is a like a lot of North Americans, a true melting pot of a lot of breeds or nationalities as the case may be.

Dog stories are high on my want to read list.
our ole dog “Gus” was sitting on our porch one morning, with about 6 inches of chewed off rope dangling from a tagless collar. I put up flyers and after 3 days was happy no one responded. He lived with us for over 15 years until his passing.
He had one blue eye and a lot of a sled dog look to him but whenever folks would ask about his lineage i would tell them; all im really sure of is he’s a butt sniffing, ball licking, son of a b*tch. No crassness intended here; these are all dog specific terms!

Nothing like a good boat dog.

I could care less about my own personal genetic makeup but it would be interesting to know Sadie's. It would be even better yet if I could clone her. Do you mind sharing which test you used?

The first couple years I found the "what breed is she" discussions interesting but I'm pretty over it now. Now when people ask, "what kind of dog is she?" I tell them, "The good kind."

Alan

My brother had an old black Lab looking mutt that kind of turned reddish over the years and started to lose some fur on her tail. She was a great dog, but kind of odd looking.

People asked all the time, "What kind of dog is that?" I got tired of the question so I would just say "She is part Czechoslovakian Mining Dog and part Hungarian Boar Hound." That would just cause them to walk away.

@ Alan- The Brand is Wisdom Panel, there are several packages, I'm not sure which one I actually got as it was a gift......below is a link to the website.
Wisdom Panel

I dug a little deeper into Luca's findings.....they provide a family tree....in his case going back about 4 generations I could only "snapshot" 2 generations.....even funnier, they list"family"......One of his brothers and 4 "Close family members" and about 30 "extended family members". If a picture was provided, they post the dog's pic/name and state/region where they were living at the time of their DNA analysis.

Mike

Great post, great dog! 1% chihuahua

Ask about the type of dog he has a friend of mine replies “she’s an Attention Hound“ and she craves it.

Dogs are honest. That makes them great companions.

Thanks Mike, I had no idea these DNA tests were commercially available for cats and dogs. I'd love to test one of the family dogs.
The first is a flat coated retriever, and according to a vet, she has suffered at least two traumatic households before our daughter rescued her. She shows all the traits of that fine breed other than the emotional scars she carries. She is lovely. The second is an obvious cross of rottie and lab, displaying the distinctive coat and build. A real sweetheart. The third is another rescue, but from the DR. Strange but true. Once a street dog, she has happily made the adjustments to home life, though this scruffy bundle of muscled energy does have too much energy to burn at times. This is the mutt I'd be interested in testing for past wayward lives. We'll see if this happens. Disappointingly, none of these dogs were the least bit interested in water play, of any kind. Not lake swims, nor canoe rides, no paddling of any kind. They all in fact take the extra precaution of walking around puddles, and simply hate peeing in the rain. A canoe dog may not enter our lives, but it would be interesting to know where they came from.

We adopted a dog (she has now past) and my wife wanted to have a DNA done on her so that was a Christmas gift from her mom. First I’ll show you the dog. She weighed about #40.




So...... the DNA
In order of percentages
Pug
German Shepard/ husky
Rhodesian Ridgeback
Chihuahua

We actually called the company and asked them to run the test again. They took out the chihuahua and replaced it with Chow.
So I hope you get a shaker of salt along with the test because we needed a few more then a grain of salt.
She was a good dog, came to the shop every day with me and even though we now have another great dog I still miss her.
Jim