The Nuts and Bolts of Layla

[nightdog_barks]

So I'm not sure if I ever mentioned it here, but back in March I decided to pull the trigger on an Embark DNA test ... for Layla. We were curious, what can I say? I'd thought about doing it sooner, but I always held off because we had a truly pants result from a test on our previous dog, Chango (an obvious Chow/Border Collie/something mix that the testing people interpreted as ... Pekingese). But that was many years ago, and surely, I thought, canine genotyping has improved since then! Plus Embark has really good reviews! So I stuck a cotton swab in her mouth (she bit it), swabbed it around to get a lot of saliva (she was very baffled), and sent it off.

The results came back this afternoon.

50.0% Golden Retriever
36.1% Labrador Retriever
13.9% ... Belgian Malinois

:D

For what it's worth, I think they're pretty much on track with what we'd suspected. Two thumbs up, 10/10, would rec Embark.

Comments

[nightdog_barks]

Heh, I forgot to mention that she knows Shake and Paw very well. For some reason, she picked up on that super-fast. (She also just wants her paw to be held sometimes.)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE OTHER POST. I need to get some more tiny treats, and then we'll start having some fun. ♥ ♥ ♥

[silverjackal]

You're very welcome! The fact that Layla likes shaking paws mean she enjoys using her feet and would likely really enjoy other tricks of similar mechanism (i.e. touching targets with her feet, waving, and so forth). The "enjoys having her paw held" is actually a known Golden retriever propensity. In general most dogs don't care to have their paws held (like you'd hold hands with a human) though they'll rest paws on people, but Goldens disproportionately love it.

[nightdog_barks]

... well, for pete's sake. I'll have to do some Googling for other Golden oddities. I'm wondering if Goldens are also disproportionately oral -- Layla often seems as if she's part snake, because she'll get up close and personal by my mouth and stick her tongue out like she's tasting the air.

[silverjackal]

All retrievers have an oral fetish. ;D It's part and parcel of the retrieving -- they want to mouth things, to carry things, etc.

The behaviour you're describing, though, is different. The "breath smelling" is an information collecting tool, and also one that's often an offered, bonding behaviour. I wan't to write "submissive" but it's not really that because dominance theory is nonsense. Puppies lick and mouth and scent the mouths of adult dogs, particularly their mother's. Dogs trying to be friendly with other dogs scent their mouths. They can actually get a lot of to-them interesting information that way -- when the other party last ate, what they ate (important in following them back to larger food sources), what their metabolic status is, etc. Tolerating the behaviour is also a signal of trust, strengthening bonds on both sides.

Most of my dogs have been very cursory about breath scenting because they're confident dogs, and also have the GSD propriety and space-bubble thing going on. Ronin wants to stick his nose in my mouth all the time. :( He only refrains from doing it, or face licking, because I give cut off signals (thoroughly canine -- raising my head and tilting my mouth away). He takes every chance he can get to smell my breath, the little weirdo, and I indulge him within limits because it's important to him. Prior to Screechy-pants I would have told you that shepherds generally don't breath scent as much as other breeds (many scent hounds are of course obsessive) but Ronin is the exception so maybe it's only a GSD thing to be more reserved about it.

Edited to add: my TN addled brain finally disgorged the term I was searching for, and had to write around instead. Breath scenting is affiliative behaviour, with the dog acting asking for acceptance, and the dog (or human) tolerating it granting that acceptance. There's also a strong element of information sharing underlying it, but it's social in nature.