Dogs are experiments in applied genetics

You may recall our dog, Eleanor, a.k.a. the Dire Floof.

She definitely has “domestication forehead“.

Despite looking pretty darned wolf-y at times. I dearly love this dog, but I take one look at that photo — or watch her literally shake the stuffing out of a formerly-sturdy dog toy — and I think, yowza, I’m glad she’s on my team.

We did an Embark DNA test and of Eleanor’s 8 great-grandparents, 4 were Great Pyrenees (50%), 3 were German Shepherds (37.5%), and one was a McNab (12.5%). I hadn’t heard of McNabs before; they’re a herding breed specifically bred for the hot, rugged conditions of California ranches. The Embark results showed her siblings and cousins broadly distributed across Southern California — we ran into one at a dog park and it was like looking at an Eleanor clone. So I’m reasonably certain that there’s a breeder around here somewhere who is deliberately producing these dogs. I wonder if the dash of McNab is included in hopes of improving their heat tolerance.

For reference — this may be handy in a minute — Eleanor is 26″ (66cm) tall at the shoulders, weighs 82 lbs (37 kg), and as of this writing is 2 years and 3 months old. She’s actually quite svelte under all that floof; my standard joke is that she looks like someone skinned a Great Pyrenees and threw the hide over a German Shepherd chassis. Her upright Shepherd ears are a dead giveaway that she’s a mix and not just a skinny Great Pyr.

As someone who is interested in evolution, development, artificial selection, and the morphological changes associated with domestication, watching Eleanor mature from a 40lb, 6mo pup to a full adult has been utterly fascinating. From reading around, both her physical makeup and her personality seem like a mosaic of classic Great Pyr and German Shepherd traits. We were fortunate to miss out on the drooling and the difficult-t0-train-out barking that characterize some pure Great Pyrs, but she got a good dose of the German Shepherd hindlimb geometry that may cause problems later in life.

Last Friday we got Eleanor a little brother, Franklin. Like his adoptive sis, he’s a rescue. Franklin, his mom, and his littermates were living rough in Murrieta, about an hour south of us. A local rescue down there scooped them up after mom was injured defending her puppies from coyotes. Now the whole family is in foster care and up for adoption (about which more in a sec).

We haven’t done the DNA test yet, but we will soon, and we can’t freakin’ wait to see what’s going on with this rascal. His mom is listed as a Great Pyr and looks it, down to the tiny lower central incisors. (We were deliberately hunting for a half-Pyr because Eleanor has been such a good, gentle, loving dog.) We heard there’s a photo of dad, or at least a father to some puppies in the same litter, who looks like a beagle or basset hound (I did not know until the past week that puppies the same litter can have different fathers). Either ID looks plausible, based on Franklin’s sibs, and there’s definitely something short-legged in his background.

If Eleanor looks like a slim Great Pyrenees with perky ears, Franklin just looks like a hound — short legs, loose skin, floppy ears, a little jowly (but, thank heavens, not a drooler). So far the only obvious Great Pyr traits are his white coat, freckles (some GPs have them), calm disposition (thank heavens), and size.

I haven’t until now mentioned an important fact — Franklin and his sibs were born on January 29 of this year, which means he is still about a week shy of being 5 months old. And I reckon he’s already 35 or 40 lbs, I’ll find out exactly when I take him to the vet for his well-puppy check tomorrow. That’s a big pup for not even 5 months!

I wanted to get this post up before all the data comes in. Guesses on Eleanor’s ancestry were all over the map — Chow Chow, Akita, Alaskan Malamute, and I had a stranger walk up and congratulate me on my “beautiful Golden”, whatever that’s supposed to be. All wrong, myself not least — I thought for certain she’d be at least part Siberian husky. Now the game begins again. How much does Franklin weigh now, and how big will he get? What’s his ancestry? How will he change as he grows up — will he look like the world’s biggest dachshund? I’ll provide updates as we get answers to these questions, but I thought it might be fun to get some speculation going in the comments.

If you’re within striking distance of SoCal and you’d like to adopt Franklin’s mom or any of his siblings, please look them up on Petfinder:

• Blossom (mom, looks like a Great Pyr)
• Basil (brother, Great Pyr/hound mix)
• Sage (brother, Great Pyr/hound mix; note that the dog listed on Petfinder as Dill is actually Sage, and the dog listed as Sage was actually Dill, and is now Franklin — Franklin Dill-ano Roosevelt, in full)

…and reach out to Rovers Return Dog Rescue, through Petfinder, directly at the website, or on Facebook. Sandra and the fosters she works with are incredibly knowledgeable and compassionate folks. Yes, there’s an adoption fee, but these dogs are fixed, vaxxed, flea-treated, house-trained, and will be loving and loyal companions. I’ll do my best to keep this list updated as they find homes.

Incidentally, as much as I loathe promoting the world’s largest retailer, there is a pretty good Prime Day deal on Embark DNA kits right now. Which is a good segue back to the point of this post:

Who is this dog? Post your guesses in the comments.

Source: https://svpow.com/2026/06/24/dogs-are-experiments-in-applied-genetics/