What Makes a Dog, Part II

Posted on August 5, 2009 by lisa rogers

Yesterday was our dog, Niko’s, birthday-he’s officially 12. This year, we fulfilled two birthday promises–first, we ran a Wisdom Panel, which is a mixed breed dog DNA test and the results are in. It turns out you guys know your dogs–he’s equal parts Doberman pinscher, Siberian husky and Flat-coated Retriever. That third one was a bit of a surprise–at one point we had considered Lab an option but Niko’s never been real €˜lab-like,’ so we often dismissed the likelihood. And prior to receiving the results I wasn’t overly familiar with the Flat-coated Retriever as a breed so it never came to mind.

While at 12, this knowledge doesn’t much change the way we’ll care for Niko-if he were younger I truly believe this information would be extremely useful in helping to manage his health and care-it has been fun exploring the detail of the individual breeds that compose our dog. In addition to receiving a call from our vet and having a conversation about the results, we also received a results packet directly from Wisdom Panel. It contains information about the nature of the test itself and the amount at which each identified breed is detected, followed by some of the breed-specific information we’ve had so much fun digesting since receiving the news.

We’ve certainly found a multitude of Niko’s characteristics consistent with each of the three breeds and then there are some that, well, just seem unique to Niko. Part of that I imagine stems from environmental factors-those first critical nine months of his life spent with his original owners followed by the three months at the Oregon Humane Society. And while we would do anything to undo the wrong that was done to Niko when he was a young puppy (we’ve spent the past 11 years trying), we couldn’t imagine one thing different about him.

Signs of Niko’s age are showing everywhere-his arthritis flares up more frequently and severely and we’re finding our regular methods of increased care don’t seem to have the same level of effect. He’s also suffering from hearing loss and slight incontinence. When he’s in pain it’s hard to keep thoughts from racing to the worst, but much of the time he’s happy, otherwise healthy, loving his walks, friends, family and food. Which brings me to our second promise-our ritual birthday steak dinner. My husband made a special trip to the store and selected a choice cut of meat. Following dinner we took Niko for his evening stroll and afterward he lay out in the fading Oregon evening sun, which is when I snapped the photo below.

So, we now know where our loving, loyal, furry, squirrel-chasing dog came from and he reminds us that each day is precious and to be taken as it comes. I was going to close this posting by suggesting a new designer breed of Siberian husky, Doberman and Flat-coated Retriever, which could be called something cutesy like €˜FlatCoberMusky.’ But there’s no duplicating perfection-Niko broke that mold.



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