DNA Shows our Beagle is Not Just a Beagle!

Like most families, we too have a family pet, “Doc”.

My youngest named him, a nice looking Beagle around three years old now. But no, he doesn’t look like a doctor.

Actually we had just watched “Back to the Future” with the kids the day before, and I’m pretty sure that’s where the name originated from. But if you ask Kasey, she’ll tell you because he looks like a doctor. Oh well…kids imaginations!

To get back to the point, we got Doc from the pound when he was a puppy. They didn’t really have any information on him. But he looks to be a well bred full breed Beagle.

And as luck would have it, a neighbor of mine also has a female Beagle, although this one is AKA registered and all that. But…

She wants to mate her dog with mine, even though we don’t have papers or any way of knowing if he is even a full bred Beagle.

She doesn’t care if he has papers. But she does care if he is a full breed. As she wants to give the puppies to here family as gifts as they all love her dog.

So okay, to get to the point, she suggested I give Doc a DNA test. YES! A dog DNA test!

I didn’t even know there was such a thing! But apparently there is. And she’s even willing to pay for it.

So I asked her a few questions and she assured me it really wasn’t any big deal at all. Just a swab from the dogs mouth, that’s it. She told me a lot of owners use the DNA kits to identify your mixed breed dog.

So not knowing anything about Doc’s background, I figured why not? At least we’d know if he was a pure breed or not. Or maybe something really interesting could be found out.

Plus I though the kids might be interested as well. After all, it’s a great excuse to get them excited about DNA and science. NOT an easy task!

So low and behold, we did the swab, sent out the results and waited.

The result? Doc isn’t a pure breed after all. Poor fella!

He actually has a little Cocker Spaniel in him. Although to look at him you’d never guess it. But it’s there, in his DNA.

So no puppies for Doc…yet.

But the whole DNA thing was quite interesting and fun for all of us. Even Mike got into it.

I guess you can get a kit for about anything now and know pretty much anything. It’s amazing what can all be done from right at home in today’s world.