Who am I? Isn’t that what all of us want to know? When we start exploring which breed of dog best reflects the individual traits we possess as a genetic being, it’s important to keep in mind that most of us are too complex and diverse to be defined by a single breed of dog. Just like most dogs, the majority of us humans are mutts or a mixture of different breeds of dogs. As we’ll see, that usually ends up being a good thing due to hybrid vigor.
It’s thrilling these days that it’s possible to perform a blood test on our mixed breed dog and discover all the different breeds that are contributing to the unique individuality of our beloved pooches. Understanding our dog’s genetics can help us to understand why our dog behaves the way it does. With the advent of ancestry.com and other genetic researchers, we humans are able to discover the same things about ourselves! The more we’re able to understand our genetic makeup, the more we’ll be able to understand our behavior. In the same way that a Poodle or a Rottweiler have very different ways of behaving due to their very distinct DNA, people will behave quite differently if they’re German or an Italian.
Being a mutt or a mixture of different DNA has its advantages because we’ll naturally be more diverse and multi-dimensional than a “purebred” individual. The more dissimilar maternal and paternal DNA are, the stronger their offspring will be since the offspring will have received the best of each parent’s DNA due to the dominant and recessive genes that exist on the parental and offspring’s DNA.
This pairing of divergent parental DNA creates a best-of-both-worlds scenario called “hybrid vigor.” Offspring that are produced from two very dissimilar parents are typically born with qualities and abilities that are superior to those of either parent individually. That’s why mutts (who are an example of hybrid vigor) are healthier than their purebred counterparts.
Breeding for hybrid vigor has been common practice in the cattle industry for years. One particular crossbreeding that was very popular when I was a student at the Texas A & M College of Veterinary Medicine was the cross between an Angus or a Hereford cow and a Brahma bull. The Brahma had been selected for its superior resistance to parasites and disease while the Angus and Hereford breeds were chosen for their premier meat production. The breeding of these two dissimilar breeds produced offspring that had a great resistance to parasites and disease in addition to being excellent meat producers.
Hybrid vigor is the opposite of inbreeding. Inbreeding occurs when individuals with extremely similar DNA reproduce. With inbreeding, undesirable recessive traits tend to show up with increased frequency than in outbreeding situations. That’s why, back in the day, when German shepherds were being overly inbred, there was a much higher incidence of hip dysplasia and other anatomical problems than we see in the puppies born today to dissimilar parents.
In recent years, it’s become popular to breed different breeds of dogs together in order to create what’s called a “designer dog.” Most of these designer dogs look like a cartoon that’s waiting for a punch line. Even their names are comical: there are Goldendoodles (Golden retriever and Standard Poodle), Labradoodles (Labrador retriever and Standard Poodle), Maltipoos (Maltese and Poodle), Cockerpoos (Cocker and Poodle), Puggles (Pug and Beagle), Schnoodles (Schnauzer and Poodle), Schweenies (Shih Tzu and Dauchshund), Peke-a-Poos (Pekingese and Poodle), Doodles (Dachshund and Poodle), Buggs (Boston terrier and Pug) and too many more to count. Though these dogs may never be acknowledged by the American Kennel Club or welcomed at the prestigious Westminster Dog Show, they’re far from inferior because they’re endowed with the genetic benefits of hybrid vigor.
Breeding different breeds of dogs together can often be used to minimize or eliminate certain undesirable behaviors in a breed. For instance, a certain percentage of Dobermans are born with a bizarre condition known as “flank sucking.” As the name implies, these dogs compulsively suck at their flank areas for hours at a time, possibly as
a salve for boredom or, more likely, as a means of comfort akin to a child sucking his thumb. Sometimes, the flank sucking is transferred to a toy or a blanket or clothing.
I once worked with a veterinary technician who had a flank sucking Doberman. She told me how the dog would constantly sneak a slipper or one of her daughter’s stuffed toys. She showed me a video that she’d taken of the dog nursing with total concentration on a brightly colored pink bunny! Yet, if her dog had been a mixed-breed Doberman instead of a purebred Doberman, the dog most likely would not have inherited the flank sucking behavior since it’s primarily seen in purebred Dobermans.
Whenever I think of a mixed-breed Doberman, I always think of the crazy mixed-breed Doberman I purchased when I was a student at the University of Texas. As I’d just finished my first semester of college in a dormitory (dormitory lodging was required of all freshmen back then), I was thrilled to be moving off campus so that I could finally get a dog. In anticipation of that wondrous event, I’d started browsing the free-to-good-home section of the Austin, Texas newspaper on a daily basis. One morning, I discovered an interesting ad for Shepobie puppies. Having never heard of a Shepobie before, I called to inquire and was told that Shepobies were a mixture of German shepherd and Doberman pinscher.
Intrigued, I took a drive to see the pups and immediately fell in love with a goofy looking male pup. The pup had the short, tight chocolate coat of a Doberman but the monstrous, erect ears of a German shepherd. His ears looked like two socks blowing in the wind on a clothesline as they flopped around wildly whenever he ran. His ears were all the more hilarious since most Dobermans get their ears cropped short as a puppy.
Having fallen in love, I took the pup home. After much deliberation, I decided on Loup as a name since I’d been studying French in school and had just learned that Loup meant wolf. The pup seemed to take his name to heart as he got more and more “loopy” as time went on!
I blame the Doberman part of Loup for the fact that he was either desperately loyal or pathologically dependent as he wouldn’t (or couldn’t) let me out of his sight for a second. The perfect example of his eccentric personality took place one sunny afternoon while I was attending a class on the University of Texas campus. I’d tethered Loup to a tree outside the building where my class was being held (believe it or not, people did that sort of thing back in the 1980’s!) but, as soon as I was out of sight, the crazy dog somehow performed a Houdini and was able to slip his tether.
Instead of just running around and having a good time once he was loose, Loup was compelled to find out where I was. I can just picture Loup in my mind even now, anxiously standing by the door where he’d seen me go in, waiting for a distracted student to leave the door open just enough so that he could sneak inside. Once inside, it was only a matter of time. Incredibly, he managed to track my scent all the way up a long marble staircase to the top floor where he found my classroom! Once there, he announced his presence by scratching and whimpering at the door.
I was just as shocked as everyone else that a dog (much less my dog) was scratching and whining at the door. Though everyone seemed to be enjoying the distraction, I was mortified. Shockingly, the professor was nice enough to actually allow Loup to stay in the room by my desk until class was over.
Loup’s plethora of eccentric behaviors could be exhausting at times. His most annoying behavior was his tendency to whine and whine (for hours if need be) when he didn’t get his way. I blame the German shepherd part of Loup for his incessant whining. Like most Shepherds, Loup was extremely vocal and, as such, he felt compelled to express his every upset. Loup had clearly been born with a flair for the dramatic and he liked to flaunt it.
Because his habitual whining, my friends must have had some very mixed feelings whenever they saw me coming with Loup in tow. As Loup was an eighty-pound dog and, as we’ve seen, not an especially mellow fellow, my friends tended to prefer that Loup stay outside during my visits. Loup, of course, found this completely unacceptable and, in protest, he’d whine and whine and whine until it was finally time for me to call it a night or my friends finally screamed in exasperation, “All right, all already! Let the dumb dog in!”
Comically, until Loup was let in or I left to go home, the night’s activities were repeatedly disrupted as each of us took turns yelling at Loup to shut up! Momentarily chastised, he’d actually shut up for a moment or two, just long enough for us to think that he might have given up. The moment that we’d start to actually enjoy the peace and quiet, though, the faintest of whimpers would waft through the door and, on cue, everyone would groan. Then, from that moment on, though ever so carefully so as not to incur our wrath, Loup escalated his aria of doggie angst until he sounded like a canine Pavarotti performing La Boheme at the Met!
Loup’s protestations were an absolute matter of principle to him. He sincerely believed that he was just as human as the rest of us. And, as far as he was concerned, ostracizing him constituted a flagrant violation of his rights and he wasn’t going to stomach such an injustice quietly.
Before Loup, I’d have never believed that a dog could actually take over my life. Loup was a force of nature and he’d crash over me like a rouge wave might a sleepy seaside village. His behavior actually had the ability to alter my behavior. And, as Loup never had a doubt as to what he wanted, he simply accepted that it was his job to utilize whatever means were required to to get me on board! Cheeky dog! He’d keep at me and keep at me until I finally broke down and gave him what he wanted.
Another example of his ability to control my behavior happened one day when I was visiting my boyfriend, Gary Vail, in Dallas, Texas. Gary and I were driving home from the grocery store and, as it was a hot summer’s day, we had all the windows down and Loup was happily slobbering in the back seat. To Loup’s displeasure, Gary and I started arguing. As we were in the middle of trying to prove each other wrong, we didn’t notice that our agitated voices were upsetting Loup. Clearly, Loup reached his limit of what he was going to tolerate because, just as we stopped for a stop sign, he jumped out of the car through the back seat window! Our argument immediately forgotten, Gary pulled the car to the curb, we jumped out and promptly started chasing after Loup. As proof to the power of Loup, Gary and I made a pact to never raise our voices again when Loup was around, most especially in the car!
Yes, Loup was a hybrid. Personally, I believe that hybrid vigor is such an important goal genetically that we humans seek it out subconsciously. I believe that hybrid vigor is the reason we’re always attracted to our opposite. If we choose someone who’s completely different from ourselves, we’re much more likely to create a hybrid vigor situation for our offspring. Children who come from completely different parents genetically are going to be more likely to inherit qualities and abilities that are superior to that of either parent. Since all of us parents long to have our children surpass our own level of accomplishment, this instinctive (though subconscious) attraction to someone who is opposite to us is what allows our offspring to reap the superior benefits of having the genetic diversity that is typical of hybrid vigor.
I most certainly feel that I was blessed through hybrid vigor as a result of my half-German, half-Italian heritage is concerned. I can’t express how grateful I am for the German part of myself that’s able (at least to some degree!) to control the wild out-of-control-do-anything-say-anything part of me that’s Italian. The Italian part of myself, though, has definitely jazzed up the part of me that’s German which, left to its own devices, would tend to be rigid, overly disciplined and reserved.
Due to having experienced it myself, I wouldn’t recommend that any child be raised by an Italian mom in a non-Italian neighborhood. Being the only kid who has an Italian mom is on a par with being the only kid in town who has braces. I felt constantly conspicuous due to the fact that NO ONE’S MOM WAS LIKE MY MOM! My mom was simply over-the-top on every level such that she was a never-ending source of embarrassment to me. My mom seemed to thrive and to actually find it invigorating to argue and fight with any and every one over any conceivable issue. It happened at the grocery store, the post office, my school, church, you name it. That’s why (as detailed in chapter one) I had no problem determining that my mom was the epitome of a Schipperke because, as a breed, Schipperkes are one of the most ornery and feisty creatures on the planet!
My mom’s feisty behavior actually resulted in her becoming somewhat famous in Amarillo, Texas where I grew up. Her temper tantrums were a matter of public record and, as I was an unwilling party to most of them, I eventually learned to do my best to cringe and bear it. Early on, I realized that there was never going to be a moment of peace as far as my mom or my family was concerned. My mom was explosive and there wasn’t a single place in in the world that she would go head to head (and occasionally fist to fist) with my dad if she felt my dad had it coming. In my memory, my mom was always the most scary when (enflamed by an alcoholic drink or four), she’d go bar hunting in the middle of the night when my dad had failed to come home after work.
There was no question that my dad was a mischievously tortured soul and, as such, he repeatedly sought solace (and consequently got himself into trouble) through alcohol and women. My dad would go out drinking after work with the men who worked for him (or sometimes, he’d go all by himself) and he’d simply forget to come home. That, as one might imagine, did NOT go over well with my Italian mom. My mom would work herself into an increasing intense state of outrage as she waited and waited for my dad to finally show up at home. On the nights when it was clear he wasn’t going to show, my mom would either leave my brother, sister and I at home as she went in search of my dad or she’d pile all of us into the car to accompany her as she drove around half the night in a rage, screaming and crying as obsessively hunted for my dad. Us kids would be clinging to each other, terrified, in the back seat, dreading what might eventually happen, as she scoured the parking lots of bar after bar in her search for my dad’s truck. My mom did not know how to “quit”. Inevitably, when she’d finally find him, she’d charge into the bar, get up in my dad’s face and start cursing and slapping him and any woman who’d been foolish enough to cozy up to my dad.
On the occasion when my dad came home after work, things didn’t fare much better. Every nigh (like some kind of fated ritual we were all doomed to repeat like Sisyphus and his rock), my mom would cook dinner as she made increasingly nasty remarks about my dad’s latest transgressions which, of course, he could hear as he sat in his recliner in the living room. As our anxiety and the pits in our stomachs grew and grew, we kids silently prepared ourselves for what we knew was coming. Due to her inability to ever just “Stop!”, my mom would keep prodding (like a crazed person poking a bear in a cage with a stick) until my dad finally had enough. My dad would go from zero to one hundred in a single second as he’d slam down the footrest of the recliner, leaping up in a rage as he tackled her breaking dishes and spilling food until he had her pinned to the ground. All of the yelling and screaming would (thankfully!) induce the neighbors to finally call the cops, whose arrival would temporarily (at least) bring a stop to the madness. I was always filled with a confusing mixture of fear and relief as I heard the crackling of the police radios and saw the swirling blue lights dance around the interior of our house. My sister and I would cautiously peek out of our bedroom door and, straining for a look down the length of the hall, we’d try to see how much damage had been done on the battlefield of the kitchen and living room this time around. Wide-eyed and terrified, we’d watch the bored police try to futilely calm my mom down while they deliberated among themselves whether it was going to be necessary to take my dad to jail for the night to keep the fighting from reigniting the minute they walked out the door.
Given the constant upheaval in my family, I naturally concluded very early on as a little girl that my family was seriously messed up. I’d heard of other dads going out and drinking but they’d only been gone for at the most an evening while my dad was often gone several days at a time (despite my mom’s unending efforts to find him). And, of course, there was the kicker that NO ONE’S MOM WAS LIKE MY MOM! Most women in my mom’s era would suffer in silence or, at the very least, keep their family’s problems private and behind closed doors but that simply wasn’t an option for my mom!
My mom had absolutely no filter with respect to what she might choose to say. She’d blurt out anything that might pop into her head. The topic she most compulsively talked about, of course, was my dad. Nothing any of us kids did could ever compete with her obsession with my dad. She’d talk and talk and talk to anyone who’d listen about all the fights she had with my dad over his drinking and womanizing. Her battles with my dad were like badges of honor for her and she never tired of reliving them. Much to my eternal mortification, she also wasn’t the least bit shy about sharing the details of her sex life with my dad, detailing her complaints in front of me no less!
Having observed my mom’s behavior day in and day out from the time I was a little girl, I’d simply come to the conclusion that my mom was an anomaly, some kind of aberration from what a mom should be. I had no doubt that there wasn’t any other mother like her in the world. What I didn’t know was that, if I’d been raised in an Italian neighborhood, I would have been able to see just how typical my mom’s behavior was for an Italian. But, other than a few short visits to my mom’s family in California, I’d had almost no exposure to Italians, most certainly not enough exposure to comprehend just how wild and crazy Italians can truly be. If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have understood that my mom’s behavior was simply a reflection of her Italian pedigree.
When my twin daughters were juniors in high school, I’d reached a point of such complete burn out from my work at my veterinary clinic, that I decided in a moment of desperation that we all needed to escape to Europe! I’d always been fascinated by stories of families who traveled abroad, convinced that they must be blessed with a very unique bond after having shared such an adventurous travel together. I’d also been searching for a way to bridge the ever-widening gap between my teenage daughters and I and it seemed that this might be just the thing to get us reconnected again. So, off to Europe we went!
I’d purposely selected a European tour that would take us to Italy and Germany as those were the countries where my grandparents had been born. Despite the fact that I’d spent hours and hours studying our itinerary and researching all the places we were scheduled to see, nothing whatsoever prepared me for what I experienced when our tour bus arrived in Italy: I was surrounded by people who behaved and acted out as if they were robotic clones of my mom!
As our tour bus meandered through the Italian countryside, we’d occasionally stop at various eateries and shops for refreshments where I stood anchored in shock as I watched the chaos. It was as if no one in Italy had ever learned how to wait in line! Instead, people pushed and shoved, jockeying for position as they screamed and shouted out their orders: acting just like my mom! And, just like my mom, everyone was royally pissed off, grumbling and complaining at the poor service and how they were forced to wait so long. After watching this kind of pandemonium at every establishment we entered for several days in a row, it hit me like a pot of pasta to the head that my mom would be completely normal here! In fact, she might actually be considered a bit mellow as compared to the other Italians I’d seen!
Near the end of our European tour, the tour bus lumbered into Germany. Here, we found a nation of full of hard-working, taciturn, somewhat humorless individuals who were so much like my dad that I was completely taken aback.
Like most Germans (who are the polar opposite of Italians), my dad had his PhD in the art of bottling feelings. He’d bottle them and bottle them until he had no choice but to explode. If my mom were to start nagging or my sister and I were to start bickering, my dad would initially appear to be tuning us out. He’d be stretched out on his recliner, watching TV or reading the newspaper, seemingly oblivious to the activity around him. Yet, if one were to look a wee bit closer, my dad’s steadily growing irritation could be spied in the way he’d started to jiggle the change in his pocket or wiggle his foot back and forth.
For some perverse reason, we never stopped before it was too late (you’d think we would have learned!) My dad was a big round man but when he’d fly out of that recliner, it was as if he’d been launched from a cannon. Like a pistol firing at the start of a race, I’d hear the footrest slam down and, without thinking twice, I’d take off running! As it was the only door with a lock, I always tried to make it to the bathroom, hoping that I might bolt the door and buy myself some time. But the human cannonball always managed to slam through the door before I could lock it. By that point, the only thing I could do was cover my butt with my hands and beg for mercy. But, once his fury was released, nothing was going to stop him from doling out the spanking that I had coming.
Germans simply don’t suffer fools. I’d learned this from my dad but also found it reinforced daily on our trip to Germany. One chilly day in September as we floated down the Rhine River on a cruise boat, I approached the boat’s concession stand so as to order some hot chocolate to warm up my daughters and I. After wordlessly taking my order, the unsmiling matron disappeared behind a partition. After standing there for several minutes, I decided to return to our table and simply wait there until the server returned. But, just as I was starting to walk away, the woman leapt out from behind the partition barking at me, “Vere do you tink you’re going?” I explained that I was going to have a seat until our drinks were ready. She stared at me as if I’d been so rude as to pass gas in her presence. With undisguised irritation, she spat, “You Americans!” In an attempt to lighten the mood I said, “Well, at least we keep you entertained!” She snorted like a bull who’s seen red and said, “Not so far in my lifetime!
Near the end of our Rhine cruise, my daughters and I decided to visit the restroom before the boat reached the dock. But, as we entered the hall that led to the restrooms, there, anchored like a hundred-year old oak, stood the no-nonsense server. Defiantly, she propped her fists on her hips and glared at us, daring us to just try and go around her. I explained that we simply wanted to use the restroom but our full bladders make her budge an inch. With a hint of sinister delight, she jutted out her arm like a linebacker ready to take immense pleasure in sacking a quarterback and growled, “Vell, you’re too late!” I was confused as to why there’d be a curfew on the restrooms but I didn’t argue as I could tell there wasn’t any room for discussion. Very obediently, we turned tail and skedaddled back to our table.
When attempts are made to evaluate the pros and cons of being a hybrid versus a purebred, it doesn’t take long to discover that there are advantages to both. Any of us who have ever had a purebred dog or is of a single ethnicity ourselves knows that there’s an immense sense of pride and honor at being part of a particular heritage. Members of a specific lineage share a great number of traits in common and this shared commonality creates a powerful sense of belonging that’s almost impossible to break.
When I visited the homelands of my ancestors, I felt a revitalized sense of pride in my dual heritages. I’d always been proud of my German and Italian heritages but, once I’d actually stepped foot in the birthplace of my ancestors, I experienced a profound sense of belonging that I’d not known before. I was able to gather a better sense of who I was as an individual from my participation in two cultures that had existed for centuries before me. In actuality, my extended family consisted of all Italians and all Germans. I found that I was embracing and even becoming protective of all the odd, idiosyncratic behaviors that were characteristic of the German and Italian cultures. These cultural traits and behaviors (which were, in reality, my traits) now felt as familiar and endearing to me as an old pair of slippers.
With that being said, I won’t deny that part of me is extremely thankful that I’m half-Italian and half-German. Being a hybrid has allowed me to inherit some of the best qualities from both Italians and Germans. I adore being a German-Italian mutt, especially considering what I’ve personally observed: that being a purebred German or Italian can at times be too much of a good thing!
In the next chapter, we’ll continue to explore how genetics dictates our lives and why it’s so difficult for any of us to ever change that much. Understanding just how little any of us can change is critical to our pursuit of peace as it’s what makes it possible for us to first, accept and then, embrace who we as a genetic being. Woof!