I'd love to have a snappy answer for people who ask what breed mixes my cats might be.

If I say something like "undefined heritage" or even "domestic short hair", some people insist on asking again.

Does anyone have a suggestion?

I have a funny story about cat breeds that made one person stop and stare. My niece has a little mixed breed kitten that is probably part Siamese and Sealpoint???. She wads practicing with the vegetable based hair color for pets for an upcoming pet parade. She colored parts of the face, tail, and ears a beautiful shade of light pink. We took the cat to the local feed store [they welcome pets on a leash or carrier] to pick up some supplies. This lady comes up, starts admiring the cat, and asked about it's breed. My niece playfully says, "Oh he is a Sealpoint!" The lady says she has never seen one that color and my chi,ed in and sasid "He is a Strawberry Sealpoint - a new breed!". That was it! The lady had to have the breeder's name and phone number because she had to get one right away since it was so beautiful! We all laughed and told her it was vegetable hair coloring that is non-toxic and washes out. The lady just stood there and stared! She said she still wanted a cat that color and walked away wondering if she could find one!

I hope that lady never finds a (mythical) pink cat. People like that adopt just because the critter "looks cool" and not because they want to care for a pet for the next 15 or 20 years.

People like that get one of the currently popular breeds and end up tossing them aside in a year or two.

By the way, I've decided that surely I must own a couple of black Siamese. :-)

I don't know why everybody puts so much weight on those DNA tests. They are by no means accurate, they are at best the same wild guess as just looking at a dog and if people knew a bit more about purebred dogs they would be more likely to recognize certain breed characteristics. If the dog pictured is the dog in question, Pug comes to mind, but I think he would need 2 copies of the liver color gene in order to look the way he does and I don't know if that exists in Pugs, it does in Min Pins and Chihuahuas for sure. Not sure about terriers, but Dachshunds probably. I always think it's funny that people get mixed breed dogs and then want to know what purebreds are in the mix of a dog with no background. Diseases are passed on in different breeds via different genes in many if not most cases, thus if for example one breeds two dogs of different breeds with dwarfism together the result are puppies without the disease, only if two dwarfs of the same breed would be bred together will the offspring be dwarfs. The same goes for many other diseases, that's why there are so many breed specific tests for diseases, it's not because the disease does not happen in other breeds, but they have only developed a test that can detect that disease in that one particular breed. And

How good that there are so many people out there who adopt pets!
Is the breed important?

If I was them and someone asked me what kind of dog he is I would just reply "he is a good dog", isn't that the best breed?

Dagmar
www.animalconnection.com.au

I think it's important with these tests to remember that they're identifying genetic markers that are commonly found within a particular breed. Both the percentages and the breeds themselves are to be taken with a grain of salt. Rather than saying, "This dog's purebred ancestors are _____," it is more accurate to say "This dog has genetic markers in common with ________, and they probably shares some genetic heritage." Remember that all breeds were once just mutts that displayed some traits that a person wanted to capture, so the mutts that gave rise to a particular breed may have propagated their genetic material either in other mutts or in other purebreds, albeit at lower rates that he identified breeds.

Hence, you get some that are "no duh," or "makes sense," and some that are, "Do you really expect me to believe Dog 25 is part Entlebucher Mountain Dog, part Bernese Mountain Dog?!" When in reality, maybe he shares some common ancestor and genetic marker with those dogs... back before they became Entlebucher Mountain Dogs and Bernese Mountain Dogs.

That webpage is a blast! 60 lb red-headed mutt is how I often answer the breed question. (Dogs 3, 12, & 100 look somewhat similar to mine.) I also sometimes answer Carolina Dog or ridgeback/shar pei. Other times I used temperament as my guide and say hound/terrier mix. The shelter said Shepard/lab. The DNA test says 50% Am Staff, 25% Chow Chow, and 25% Toy Fox Terrier. The previous comment explains how my dog can have results for such a small breed with the large breeds, because for the life of me, I could not imagine how the mating would work.
My husband say the Maddie's shelter medicine program site and at the first dog thought the site was showing how wrong DNA tests are. Interesting, I thought the site showed the opposite. The site doesn't really say.
I believe my dog does have Chow Chow. It is consistent with both temperament and health issues.

The dogs are all adorable!!! I wanted to look at the photos because I thought it would be fun, but I noticed something I didn't like as soon as I looked at the picture of the first fur-baby...the 'Leash', it looked a bit snug. As I continued to the next photo, again the leash seemed a little snug. I continued on and I stared at each picture intensely and repeatedly, then I realized it wasn't 'Only' one or two or even three particular dogs, all Thier leashes seemed constricted. By no means am I insinuating cruelty, I'm just expressing what caught my attention immediately. Please correct me if I'm way off or if I'm looking at something that isn't there, and please don't be upset with me~~maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me....Peace :)