When I first read about DNA testing for dogs, I thought it would be one of those silly news items my husband and I could laugh at together. True, we were crazy about Lily, a rescue dog we guessed was a beagle mix, but surely we weren't the sort of ridiculous people who push their puppies in strollers, take their dogs to yoga, and pay $79.95 to determine the ancestry of their mutts, I thought smugly.
How quickly we become what we mock.
"That is awesome," my husband responded. "We have to do that."
Maybe I should have seen it coming. After all, we often speculated about Lily's mysterious past. A veterinarian discovered her four years ago, wandering along a country road - a friendly, well-trained adult dog with no collar, no tags, no microchip and apparently no one looking for her. How did a dog who clearly lives for human attention - at dog parks, she runs up to people, not other dogs - wind up alone and abandoned? I spun macabre stories about elderly owners dying in isolated farmhouses. Lily's innocent gaze gave away nothing.
'The laboratory could have told me she's part dingo, part mutant raccoon, and I'd still love this mutt with all my heart.'
"I don't think that's a beagle, honey," my mother said in the pitying tone one might use to explain that the chihuahua I'd brought back from a Mexican vacation was, in fact, a sewer rat. She guessed Lab.
Now we could know for sure.
Certainly, there are reasons besides idle curiosity to test a dog's DNA. Dog lovers in Connecticut recently tested a shelter dog that looked like a pit bull: They discovered she was a mix of boxer, bull terrier, cocker spaniel and bulldog, which they hope will make her more adoptable. With Ontario's pit bull ban, DNA testing could save some dogs' lives.
We had no such lofty justifications; Lily looks more like a baby harp seal than a pit bull. The hair-covered clothes and beagle-sized Halloween costumes in our closet point toward the "crazy dog people" explanation.
And so I found myself wrestling with Lily, trying to swab her cheek with a thin, bristle-head brush supplied by MMI Genomics. The lab offered tips: "If your pet is active and/or difficult to swab, try collecting the DNA sample while your pet is quietly resting."
Ha. When your dog wakes up to find a long bristle brush inside its mouth, he or she will not be "quietly resting" for long. Lily resisted the DNA collection with the zeal of a privacy advocate, but at last I got a sufficient sample.
Weeks later, the fateful envelope arrived. Sensing the excitement, Lily jumped on her hind legs to sniff the letter.
The big reveal: Mostly beagle, with a trace of cocker spaniel. Vindication!
Has this knowledge transformed Lily's life? Not at all, except for the extra treats she enjoyed as we celebrated the results.
Though we proudly hung the "heritage breed test" certificate by her food bowl, knowing her supposed ancestry hasn't changed much for us, either.
Lily has seen me through an international move and countless personal crises. She's let me cry into her fur, and I've stayed up all night rubbing her tummy when she was sick. The laboratory could have told me she's part dingo, part mutant raccoon, and I'd still love this mutt with all my heart.
Now we have an answer when people ask, "What kind of dog is that?"
But there's only one true reply to that question, no matter what the DNA says: "The best kind."
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