He's a "Sheep-zu"

A few posts ago I wrote about a dog breed analysis test that we were doing for Winston. Well, now we are even more stumped about his background, as is the vet. It could not detect dominant breeds in his background, but did identify two breeds that are somewhere in his genetics. (As a side note for my biology friends out there, it looks for SNP variants between breeds.) So, based on the results, Winston's background says he is part Shitzu and part Old English Sheepdog! We hadn't even imagined that he could have either of these backgrounds, so we were totally surprised. Here are pictures from Wikipedia of each:

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While I have to admit that the Shitzu part threw me off (I mean, they're nice and all...they're just yippy and little), I know that Winston is still the coolest dog in the world. So, it's likely that he has other breeds in his background that the test didn't identify....a true mutt. While this doesn't completely stop the speculation of his background, friends have enjoyed trying to picture a 10-lb Shitzu running off with a 75-lb Old English Sheepdog.