A friendly disagreement over a rescue dog’s breed led one owner to settle the debate once and for all with a dog DNA test.
In a Reddit post, the owner, u/WorldlinessOk6575, shared the surprising results that proved their instincts were right—and a veterinarian’s comment in the replies gave the story even more context. Since the post was published, it has received comments from those agreeing with the poster’s perception, noting that sometimes, a pup’s owner knows best about its potential breed.
“I rescued Baymax almost 11 years ago,” the owner wrote. “My immediate guess was cattle dog and collie just by his coloring and snout. Plus, he was originally a farm dog from Ohio. My vet kept insisting he was a German shepherd mix.”
The Big Reveal
To settle the matter, the owner decided to have some fun and purchased an Embark DNA kit. The results were a perfect 50 percent Australian cattle dog and 50 percent collie, a perfectly even mixture that confirmed the owner’s original guess.
Redditors in the comments were quick to agree.
“Cattle dog and collie was my immediate first guess too, it’s so neat when they come out as such a recognizable and even mixture,” one person wrote. Another took the humor a step further, saying, “I think this is the most obvious 50-50 cattle dog/collie mix I’ve ever seen. He looks like someone put a collie head on a cattle dog body. He’s so cute!”
Many questioned how a veterinarian could have been so wrong.
“I wonder if your vet has never seen a collie before?” one person asked. “I get that German shepherd mixes are more common, but that head is the collie-st collie head that I’ve ever seen.”
A Veterinarian’s Perspective
The post received a professional’s perspective from a veterinarian who explained the difficulties of visually identifying a mixed-breed dog.
“I’m a veterinarian. I am also very good at identifying purebred dog breeds. Mixes? Not at all. Terrible at it,” the vet wrote. “It’s not that veterinarians are exclusively bad at guessing breeds. It’s that most people in general are bad at guessing breeds and veterinarians are people. Clients ask me to breed identify and I don’t do it because dog genetics are wonderfully complicated.”
The veterinarian’s comment highlighted the potential for a visual guess to be misleading, stating, “Genotype doesn’t always translate to expected phenotype.” They added that seeing DNA results on the forum, even when they’re surprising, reinforces their belief in the complexity of genetics.
“I love seeing how genetics pan out!” they said.
A Herding Dog’s Life
The owner’s guess was not only visually spot-on but also perfectly aligned with Baymax’s temperament. In a follow-up comment, the owner described Baymax as a “very fun dog” with a strong “herding instinct.” Baymax would try to join in when horses took off running but was always respectful and could be called off.
“He’s really good with people and other dogs which is quite the opposite of my cattle dog,” the owner noted. “And while he’s not typically fond of most kids, he used to love to play with my younger cousins and the neighbor’s kids. They would play soccer with him in the summer and throw snowballs in the winter and he loved every second of just being outside and chasing a ball for hours.”
Newsweek reached out to u/WorldlinessOk6575 for comment via Reddit.
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