What kind of dog is that: a conversation and a contest

What kind of dog is that? A question that comes up around here quite a bit. In fact, I would bet that it's asked multiple times a day. The answer to the question can change as fast as the weather here in Colorado.If you were to put the average stray dog in front of 5 different people who work, or volunteer here; I would guess you might get 5 different answers.

Here at the shelter, we receive around 1,700 or more dogs each year. Very few of the dogs are purebred, and none that I've ever seen come with an owners manual that tells us what breed they are. How we determine what mix a dog is, can many times determine how fast a dog is adopted. The truth is, in all but the most obvious cases, the breed is determined by an educated guess. This is especially true with puppies. Most times we don't know what breed  the parents were, and even when we know the mothers breed, that still is only half the equation.

I can't tell you the number of times we have guessed right or wrong. What I can tell you, is that sometimes a year or two after we have adopted a dog, the family will stop in and let us know we were wrong. This happened just this morning. A very nice lady stopped by to thank us for adopting a puppy to her around a year ago. We had guessed that the pup was a Jack Russel Terrier/Chihuahua mix. We had told her we thought the dog would be small as an adult, but that we can't guarantee it. A year later, and we sure were wrong. It seems that the pup just got off to a slow start at growth, and is now much larger than anticipated. The proud owner went on to say how great the dog was, and how much she loved her.

I'm happy to say that there is now a tool that can be used to help better determine what the breed of a dog is. That tool is a DNA testing kit. We are selling these here at the shelter, and if you are curious about what kind of mixed breed your dog is, you can stop by and purchase one. It's easy to use, and you just mail it in and get results in about 3 weeks. We have used it here on a couple of dogs, and its very interesting to get back the results.


Now, on to the contest. We have a dog here named Keebler. He has been with us for around 3 months, and
really needs a new home. He gets along with other dogs, and is great with people as well. He is an interesting looking fella, and we are calling him a heeler/husky mix. The truth is he doesn't look to much like either of those breeds, so here is where you come in.

We want you to guess the breed of Keebler. We are sending in a DNA test on him tomorrow, and for the next 3 weeks you can take a guess and win something for your efforts. First prize will be a DNA test of your own, to use on your dog. Second place will receive a free LPCHS t-shirt of your choice. Third place will get a LPCHS hat or beanie of your choice. A little hint for you is that most times these test results come back with 4 or 5 different breeds. This is due to the fact that most mixed breeds were born from mixed breed parents as well. My suggestion would be to list up to 5 breeds that you think might be in the mix.

Send your guess to chris@lpchumanesociety.org. and we will announce the winners as soon as we get the test results back. Good luck.