Nerding out

Over the summer, we won a Wisdom Panel DNA test when Oh My Dog! did a giveaway.  We didn’t manage to use it early enough to test out Eddie, but we finally sent it in this week.

And, um, I hope this works because someone likes to lick everything and hasn’t been able to lick anything due to the cone on his head.  Clean sheets, floors, arms, feet. SO much licking that can’t be done right now. Except he may have tried to lick the swabs while they were in his mouth. So there’s that.

What if my lanky Dobie Hound with a curly tail isn’t a Dobie Hound?  Does his strong cold nose just disappear?  Plus, several of the breeds we think he might be aren’t covered by the test. Which makes sense, since they’re mostly UKC breeds.

Or maybe he’s really a beagle.  It seems like a lot of beagles head through Upstate South Carolina’s shelters and rescues, but there are also a good number of purebred and mixed blueticks, black and tans, treeing walkers, foxhounds, redticks, plott hounds, and redbones like Smelly Nellie Belly. Lions and tigers and coonhounds, oh my!

Or maybe he’s a super secret member of the Pittie club. South Carolinians love them some pitties and way too many are subjected to backyard breeding.

I know these tests are debatable in their reliability, but I am still really curious and maybe it will turn up the breeds that were used to create the breeds that aren’t included in the test.

More importantly, if he isn’t a lanky Dobie Hound with a curly tail, will he fatten up and have his tail fall straight? Obviously that’s how this works.

Plus, there was this article about how a lot of us are made up of more than one set of DNA that blew my mind when I read it yesterday.  I promise it’s just nerdy enough and not super-nerdy.

While I sit here and my (tired, uncaffeinated) brain spazzes out contemplating potential p-values of dog DNA testing, whether all of my dog’s DNA is even found in his cheek cells, nurture vs. nature, where that curly tail came from, why he is on antibiotics when he doesn’t already have an infection, and whether there is a dog form of MRSA, here some more pictures of our work-related hike the day before Gambit was a full-fledged princess. Who got carried on 1/3 of his walk today because he was being princessy limping.

For the record, mushrooms break really easily when you try to dig them up. They also do not keep well overnight when stored in a zip loc bag carried by a hound.  This is my evidence that it used to look like a mushroom.

These things hold up slightly better.

Poop bag clips are great for carrying lichen and fungi.

This is pretty much the only time his nose came off the ground. He must really be a sight hound.

By the way, the cone does not prevent Gambit from spending 20 minutes desperately sniffing a 5 square foot area. Just so you know.

What do you think our Gambit dog is, if not a Dobie Hound or a purebred shelter mutt?  If he is a Dobie Hound, what might the hound be?

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