[chronicles] Papa Was A Rolling Stone

My dog Trudeau is a mystery. He is a mystery wrapped in an enigma that sort of walks in a circle around a riddle. He bays like a bloodhound, and his color is a little shepherd-y, and his white paws are rather dapper-looking but not particularly helpful in identifying his breed. Taking a walk with him is like taking a game show on the road: random passersby engage in self-styled trivia quizzes to try to discover his heritage. Simply being in Trudeau's presence turns everyone in the world into a dog expert, and they will not only guess what breeds compose his background, but they will tell you, quite emphatically.

malnpudl, drunk with the power of modern science, dropped by my vet's office awhile back and pre-paid for me to have the mutt genetically tested. Yes, that's right. You can DNA test your dog to find out WTF sort of genetic material spawned the mutant beast, and if you're anything like me, you can even have a roommate crazy enough to pony up the cash for it.

Unfortunately, if your dog's heritage is too heavy on mixed breeds -- mutts for generations back -- there isn't much a DNA test will tell you. And even then it's not 100% reliable. My vet had warned me, before we did the test, that the results she'd seen from it to date weren't terribly enlightening. But it wasn't my dime, and apparently Mal had a burning need to know, so I went ahead with the test regardless, and after waiting and waiting very patiently for results that, as it turned out, were mailed directly to my vet and not to me, today I managed to access the company's online system to review Trudeau's test results.

Prepare to have your minds blown, my friends.

Trudeau's lineage is muttly enough that there are no breeds listed as "significant," which means that neither of his parents were purebreds. There are also none listed as "minor" genetic contributors, which would be breeds that had contributed at least 12.5% of the beast's genetic material.

However. There are two breeds listed as "intermediate" breeds, meaning that at least 25% of Trudeau's genetic makeup comes from these breeds, "so you may see some physical and behavioral traits represented in your dog." So what, you may wonder, are his "intermediate" breeds? My bet was on bloodhound and some kind of shepherd dog. My vet was sure it was bloodhound and Anatolian shepherd. The shelter had him listed as a Great Dane cross. But actually, the only two breeds that appear at all in his genetic profile are:

Alaskan Malamute

and......

Basset hound.

Thank you, science. You've just completely blown my mind. I might need to go curl up in a fetal position while all of my ideas about the universe rearrange themselves in my brain.