Are we breed obsessed?

 So while I was thinking about the Animal Planet show “Dogs 101” in my previous post, it got me onto a train of thought I’ve been on before.

What is the first question most people ask when they start looking for a dog (especially if they’ve never had one before)?  Usually, it is “what breed of dog should I get?”  “Breed matching” is a perennial favorite on the dogster forums, and the general concept is that a dog’s breed is the single most important thing to consider when getting a dog.

I was raised with cats, exclusively. I was emphatically NOT a dog person as a kid or teen.  To cat owners, asking them about breeds of cat is pretty useless, because the VAST majority of cats are just well, cats.  The only truly popular pure breeds of cats are Siamese and Persians, and no one would tell you that they are significantly different from other cats. Same size, same coat (yes, there are alley cats with Persian-type hair, and Siamese markings) and personality varies, but if you like one kind of cat, you will probably like others.  It is much more about the individual when you choose a cat, and if a cat is being a pain in the butt, usually no one says, “well, he must be part such-and-such.” So that’s my background.

Over in dog world, breed is EVERYTHING.  People are constantly asking, “what kind of dog is he/she?” With Bruno, I say “shelter mutt” nowadays and leave it at that, but I was very curious when I first got him.  Okay, okay, I confess: I bought the Mars Wisdom Panel DNA breed test.  Supposedly they’ve tested many dogs of every AKC breed, and developed some kind of algorithm for finding patterns that all dogs of each breed have, and then they look for these patterns in mixed breed dogs to tell you their heritage.  It’s proprietary technology, I can’t tell you a lot more… And just how accurate it is, no one really knows.  But I wanted to know bad enough that I ignored that, and bought it anyway. And got this:

50% match: Chihuahua

25% match: Chinese Shar Pei

25% match: Scottish Deerhound

For a dog who looks like this, and weighs 50 lbs:

So, even if this is true, what did it gain me?  Nada.  He’s still the same medium-sized black mutt.  It’s kind of like the old chesnut, “if a tree falls in the forest and no is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?”  If no one can believe the test results, and if it has zero relevancy to my life or his, does it even matter if it’s accurate? 

For the record, Bruno’s a lab mix at the vet, was a shepherd mix at the shelter, and is a chow mix at the groomer- I let people think what they want about him.  He’s still my funny little furball no matter where he goes!