Weekly Round Up: A Breed Apart

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  The big news item of this week is that the results are in on Doggo's DNA test!  

A Doggy DNA Teaser

We did a Doggy DNA test and the results are in!  Obviously Doggo looks like a German Shepherd, but the pattern in her coat suggests that there is something else going on and she has white patches on her chest and paws.  The question was if there enough of any one breed in her to test?

Yes there was!  I'm going to drag this out and give you the full answer at the end of the post, but here is your teaser:

• 33% Breed A
• 33% German Shepherd Dog (fun fact, the breed is called "German Shepherd Dog" and not "German Shepherd")
• 25% Breed B
• 9% Supermutt!
  

The mystery breeds are similar in size to German Shepherds.  Breed A is known for being very affectionate and for kissing, which are definitely two traits that Doggo has.  Breed B accounts for the white in her coat.  When we've told people the results, the reaction to Breed A is "I would never have guessed that" and Breed B is "oh I can see that" (well I personally couldn't see it but that's what folks are saying).

The test predicted that her adult weight will be 46 pounds so at this point Girlfriend has 16 pounds to go.  She tested negative for all of the genetic diseases that the test screens for.

I'll let you ponder what Breeds A and B might be while we get on with the rest of the story.

Eats

Bad picture, good food.  I did a very loose adaptation of Rainbow Plant Life's creamy umami noodle soup with crispy mushrooms.  My broth is beige compared to her white thanks to my shortcut of using a spoonful of chili paste instead of Thai chili peppers - you know, an ingredient that I would have had to go to the grocery store to get.  Big thumbs up for the broth on this one.  I think that there's a slight edge to browning mushrooms in a skillet as opposed to baking them but there is also the convenience factor of being hands off.

Workouts

The usual during the week.

I went on a tear with the hiking challenge this weekend and knocked out three hikes.  The big payoff was this blue heron who came right up to the edge of the water and had zero cares that I was there.  I returned the favor by not getting any closer than he did and using zoom to get this shot.

Watching

Nothing notable to report.

Reading

I have mixed feelings about Wellness by Nathan Hill but the mix is leaning toward the positive side.  It's a big sprawling satire on marriage, parenting, and modern times.  The genius part is that the author is able to build up a believable world and characters without getting cartoonish.  I don't live in a world where the latest thing in home design is separate bedrooms for spouses,  but the way he lays it out makes me believe it and laugh at it.  I like the two main characters and I believe in them as real people.

What I don't like is that the book is very long and the story gets flabby in places.  Taking a detour to tell the story of the wife's great grandfather, grandfather, and father...no thank you.  I've given these and other ramblings a good skim.

On the audio book side, lots of hikes mean lots of listening.

• I finally, finally, finally got around to Nicole's recommendation of Lauren Bacall's memoir.  She (Lauren, not Nicole but if only...) wrote a nice juicy memoir called By Myself, which she later updated and that version is called By Myself and Then Some.  I loved By Myself but the trouble started when the book went to the "Then Some" chapters where the story switched from juicy personal stuff to "let me tell you about that time that Barbra Streisand cast me in a movie as her mother"...I found myself bored to tears and jumped ship at that point.  I loved getting to hear her voice telling her story, and I will forgive her for only writing about two sentences about Malabar Farm.
  
• My next book is something that I learned about from a Cool Blogger but I don't remember who (please tell me if it was you!).  Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar is her memoir about being kid #4 of 19.  I watched the Duggar documentary on Amazon a while back, and she really stood out for having taken the mess that her parents handed her and making a good life on her own terms.  It is jaw droppingly good, though of course what she went through is very sad.

Enough stalling, tell us what kind of dog Doggo is

Surely!

My little Pit Bull!  The combination means a very affectionate, very intelligent, high energy dog.  That checks out with what we've seen of Doggo so far.

I googled the three breeds and was surprised to find a video of a dog that looks very similar to Doggo - that dog has more of a Pit Bull face, but the coat pattern and the white patches are very close.

See all y'all next week!