Beans' Pedigree (WTH Kinda Dog is He?)

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

If you don't know Beans, he's ostensibly The Boy's dog, though somehow he seems to be hogging up my bed most nights. And he snores. Like a drunk.

All Jake wanted for his 17th birthday was a puppy and a BBQ with his friends. The BBQ ended up being a three day sleep-over extravaganza, with various kids rotating in and out of the Casa for various shifts. 

A couple of weeks later, The Boy showed me an ad on Craig's List. Four puppies. Your choice, forty bucks each. I didn't save the photos. All the pups were cute, but my choice, based on pics alone, was Beanie Boy. With that in mind, Jake and Mrs TWC putted over to an edgy neighborhood on the outskirts of Moreno Valley to have a look. Beans was interested in them, the other three puppies were, like, Dude! Strangers! Run! Any doubt that The Boy may have had about which pup to choose was pretty much erased right there. Two twenties changed hands and home they came.

 

Napping Beans (with his boy)

It's hard to believe that this little guy is taller than I am when he stands up on his hind legs and he weighs as much as the House Blond. 

This is important: The family assured Jacob that Beans' Ma was a Black Labrador Retriever and his dah was a Pit Bull. That assessment of Black Lab was borne out by the vet who recorded his breed as Lab/Mix. We thought so too, but were iffy on Pit Bull. I mean, look at his feet and those spots and that head and he's huge and he does that mouthing behavior that Great Danes sometimes do.

Stripper Beans

Mouthing behavior is where the dog sort of takes your arm or hand in his mouth and gently gnaws without hurting you. Love bites. OK, when he was a pup and had those razor sharp puppy teeth.....for six months I looked like a cutter. 

Took a year to mostly break this dog of that habit. I say mostly. But he is gentle about it now. Long way around the barn to say that we sort of decided that Beanie Boy must have some Great Dane in him. We looked at a lot of pictures and read a lot of material and Dane made sense. But never Pit Bull. We ruled Bully out entirely. 

The other day I got an email from the folks at Wisdom Panel, the genetics lab that processed the genetic samples we submitted. There isn't a dime's worth of Black Lab genes in Beans.

Coffee Beans (look at the size of those feet)

I said: WTH? They musta made this up. Have you seen him swim? Lookit the size of his feet. And they're webbed like a duck. He can climb hills like a sand rail.

Basketball Beans

This dog coulda easily been trained as a hunting dog. He's got no fear of firearms and he will fetch anything you want to throw. Football? Yes. Basketball? Yes. Tennis ball? Yes. Rubber Chicken? Yes. Jack Rabbit? Yes. OK, I can't throw a jack rabbit, but Beans can snag one. Not a Lab? Really? Pulllleeeeze.

Stick Chasin' Beans

So, what breed is Beans? Primarily Doberman Pinscher and American Staffordshire Terrier (Pit Bull). There is a little Great Pyrenees and a teeny bit of Dachsund and Scottish Terrier about three generations back. Now, in fairness to our determination that there somehow must be a Great Dane in the woodpile.....well, there is. Great Danes were one of several dogs used to create Friederich Doberman's distinctly new breed. 

Happy Mundane.