Corgi mix or just "poorly breed"? What do you think my dog is?
Hey corgi lovers!
I got my dog Fauna about 6 months ago and I'm still pondering what exactly she is. Sometimes I think she might just be a really poorly breed, undocked Pembroke, but then I've seen husky-corgi mixes that look a bit like her, and sometimes I think she might even have some terrier in her (she actually caught a squirrel once!). She acts a lot like my mom's Australian Shepherd and looks a lot like her too (but with corgi ears and legs), so maybe she's an Aussie-corgi mix?
I got her from the pound with no parents, but another young dog was picked up with her who might be her brother (the attached photos are of him as a 4-6 month old pup). She's the black tri-color dog in the video. She's about 22lbs, 9-11 months old, very sweet, very active, and exhibits that classic herding breed stubbornness at times.
So what do all you experienced corgi owners think?
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faunas brother 3, 144 KB -
faunas brother2, 97 KB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on
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I'm wondering how dominant the dwarfing gene is. A corgi mixed with an undwarfed breed would have only 1 copy of it. Is 1 copy enough to achieve full dwarfing?
I think I've seen a lot of mixes that are intermediate in size, supporting the guess that 1 copy creates less dwarfing than 2.
But this pretty dog looks exactly corgi-sized. The other parent might be a small dog, too.
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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on
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@ John. Good point! Dwarfism does indeed require the recessive gene to come from both parents, however many genes are involved in size and length of leg, so you can have a shorter legged dog, who is not a dwarf. Dwarfism is present in several breeds and I don't know if it is breed specific.... In other words, if you bred two dwarfs of different breeds, would all the offspring display dwarfism?
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Permalink Reply by Lauren Rae & Fauna on
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Her front legs display the dwarf trait for sure. This article is pretty interesting (and saves time reading some long academic journal article) about dwarfism in dogs: http://www.petwave.com/Dogs/Dog-Health-Center/Bone-Joint-Muscle-Dis... I had not idea that German Shepherds and a few other large dog breeds carry the dwarf gene (I'd think it would be breed out over the generations by now). That might explain why if her brother is actually her full brother, he might have normal length legs and she's a dwarf.
I asked a friend of mine who's a wildlife geneticist is he wanted to analyze my dog's genes for fun (he's guilty of asking what she is), but then he laughed and said he doesn't know domestic dogs well enough. He also told me the breed tests were mostly a waste of money because they would only draw out extremes, like it her other parent was a dachshund vs a German shepherd, then it would at least get close to the breed. But it probably wouldn't accurately tell me if the other parent was an Australian Shepherd vs a Border Collie, or Collie vs. Sheltie because they're genetically very similar.
I wish someone at my university was doing domestic animal genetics, but instead I'm left hoping someone says "omg, my dog looks just like your dog and I know for sure she is a corgi-________ mix!" After going through a number of genetic predisposition issues with my dogs and horses (mutts and purebred) growing up, it would be nice to know what to look out for health-wise in the future. Right now though, she's super healthy and athletic, outrunning or at least out-maneuvering all the big dogs in my neighborhood. Dwarfism hasn't slowed her down one bit.
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On the bright side mixed breed dogs are , on average, healthier than purebreds :-)
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Anna, actually I'm quite certain that achondroplasia is dominant in dogs.
http://books.google.com/books?id=i_XAakNgDJwC&pg=PA30&lpg=P...
indicates it's dominant with incomplete penetrance, which is why you usually get longer lets on a heterozygous dwarf than a homozygous dwarf (and quite possibly why some of the early photos of Corgis show a longer-legged dog; post WWII there were large population crashes, and with studbooks not closed as they are now, most likely any shorter legged dog with a foxy head weighing around 30 pounds would have been called "Corgi" if it simply came from the proper section of the world.
You are right that dwarfism is common in many breeds and also mongrels; that is one reason why many of the "corgi-mixes" in shelters are probably no such thing. This pup, however, clearly has a fair dose of Corgi based on other traits.
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@ Beth I have not studied or had experience with dwarfism in Corgis. My experience is with dwarfism (Chondrodysplasia) in Alaskan Malamutes, which I used to breed. In Malamutes the gene is a simple recessive and we ( meaning breeders under the auspices of the Parent Club) did a lot of test breeding to try to eliminate it from the gene pool, because a dog can be a carrier and you may never know it. If the dog displayed the trait, more or less severely, it HAD to come from both sides. Of course that means that all dwarfs will breed true. I thought breeds like the Corgi, the Dachshund and others had been selected for the traits, but I really don't know enough about dwarfism in these other breeds to say that it is the same, even less when it comes to how these genes may behave in mixed breeds. Interesting stuff.
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There are often many genes which, when broken, produce a given phenotype (dwarfing, say). If 2 broken copies are required to produce a trait, it's recessive. So probably several different genes, when mutated, can produce recessive dwarfism.
The 16-odd breeds with chondrodysplasia all share exactly the same unique 1-time-only mutation. It's not a broken existing gene -- not a recessive -- it is an extra copy of a growth factor gene. Purebred dogs of these breeds have 2 copies of it. Mixes with undwarfed breeds would have only 1.
In the black pem/gsb mix that Beth shows (see below), it's dominant: 1 copy, fully dwarfed. But here's Ann Pinkertons Trixie, allegedly a border cardy (cardigan/border collie), 1 copy, not-so-dwarfed (reproduced from her mycorgi page without permission; I have a secret crush on this dog):
So it's complicated.
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John, see my answer to Anna: it's dominant w/ incomplete penetrance, so a cross will give you dwarf legs but the length will be variable.
We saw the cutest corgi/german shepherd mix at our local park. I believe she was about 4 months old in this pic. The breed was known because it was an "ooopsy" breeding between someone's Corgi and the neighbor's Shepherd. As you can see by the photo, she looked exactly like a Corgi but was coal black. She has the Corgi legs, Corgi tail, Corgi head, Corgi gack, and she definitely had a Corgi personality. As far as I can tell, the only thing the Shepherd genes gave her was color. It led to a short-lived fantasy of someone introducing the (usually dominant) black gene into the Corgi gene pool and how cute those dogs would be!
They say a cross breed can give you a dog that looks like a cross between both parents, like one parent completely, or like neither parent at all, depending on how the genes line up. I've found that to be true. The other herding dog in the pick is an Aussie/Border Collie mix and you can see that unlike the black Corgi-mix, it looks like a perfect blend between the two breeds.
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I met a new corgi x GSD today. Looked 90% corgi. Heterozygous, but fully dwarfed.
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Permalink Reply by Ingrid & Ein on
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She's cute! Looks like maybe a corgi-aussie or corgi-border collie mix to me!
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Permalink Reply by Jane on
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I would guess aussie-corgi maybe? She actually looks a lot like an aussie that comes to our play group, aside from the longer corgi-ish body. She sure is cute!
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Permalink Reply by Joelle Soupe on
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She definitely looks like she has some corgi in her, but the feathering around her ears, narrower face, longer legs, and bushy tail suggest another breed mixed in. Maybe Collie? Maybe some Pomeranian too.
Corgi tails aren't very bushy and they kind of hold shape more than a collie's tail might.
My childhood dog was a collie, and I have a corgi now. Her tail definitely looks very collie-like.
You can always get bloodwork done to see what breed she has in her. I think I would be very curious as well, as it's just my personality, if I had a mix too. It'd be fun just to know!
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