Heinz 57

I saw a news article recently about a Border Collie that could distinguish over one thousand different words. My first thought was "wow, that's pretty amazing" and then my second thought was "there is no way my black dog is part Border Collie".

Molly has a lot of things going for her: she's cute and fluffy, she always seems pretty happy, she doesn't care about fireworks or thunder (because she's deaf), she doesn't destroy the house when I leave, and she has finally figured out how to get on the bed without me showing her the step, but she's the spoon in a drawer full of knives when it comes to intelligence.

In the six months I've had Molly there have been many debates (often with perfect strangers) about what breed she is. Most people get thrown off by the white legs with black spots and think she must be a Border Collie. I think her inability to learn how to turn over a paper plate shoots that theory out of the water.

My current theory is that she's some sort of Spaniel mixed with Newfoundland. The Newfie part is mostly wishful thinking, but it would explain her coat and her goofiness.

I was thinking about doing one of those genetic tests on her, but my scam-alert goes off when I read reviews on them -- reproducibility doesn't seem to be a strong point for the labs that run these thing, which shows when people send samples from the same dog in twice and get completely different answers. So I'm not sure if it's worth sixty bucks for the entertainment.

In the end it doesn't really matter. If she can ignore the fact that I'm a German hillbilly peasant mix, I can live with not knowing what she might be. In the meantime I'm listing her breed as Clydesdale. It's a registered breed of the prestigious TKC (Theresa Kennel Club).