I’m going to tell you all about my pedigree! A pedigree is a record of a dog’s family kind of like the way a family tree shows the ancestors of a person. Dog breeders often make pedigrees to show the lineage of their dogs. Both pedigrees and family trees can go back as many generations as you want to go. Although for dogs they are most often just three or four-generation pedigrees.
A couple of weeks ago I told you about celebrating my birthday in my Happy Birthday to me! post. Well, while preparing that post I started reminiscing about my birth mom and my littermates. Do you know what reminiscing means? It means to look back on past events with pleasure or fondness. My mom loves to reminisce and when she does, she will often tell me stories! And, as you know, I love stories!
If you have read my book, Blogger Dog Buffy! Service Dog, you know quite a bit about when I was born and the time that I spent with my birth mom and littermates. That was nine years ago and just a small portion of my life but an important part! If you haven’t had a chance to read my book yet I will tell you a little bit about my mom and my littermates so that you know about them And if you have already read it there may even be some new info that I share. I love talking about my very special family!
I was born in California and had a human family that took care of me. They were the caretakers for me, my mom Waverly, and my brothers and sisters. As you know from my birthday post I was born on October 22nd. Including me, there were eight puppies in my litter! When we were born we were marked with a specific color that correlated with our birth order. This is so our caretakers knew who we were and so proper records could be kept on us as we grew. When we are tiny puppies we all look very similar especially the black puppies. I was the Neon Pink puppy! This means I was the fifth puppy born.
I love to reminisce about those early weeks and the fun things I did with my littermates. We played games of chase and wrestled with each other. We would grab each other’s tail or paw or play bitey face. Sometimes while wrestling with my brother one of our sisters would pounce on us. We all fell over in a heap! We also had fun playing “King of the Mountain!” and my favorite “Be the Wolf!” which I tell you about in my book. I loved playing with my brothers and sisters!
Our games seemed like they were all for fun but while playing we were also learning how to interact with others. If we got too rough we would let our brother or sister know that they needed to be gentler. We were learning how to share and how to take turns. Sometimes even Waverly would play with us and show us how we should be behaving.
As I said earlier, my mom was Waverly. She was a beautiful black Lab. Just like me! My dad was Pryde. He was a very handsome yellow Lab. It was decided that they had the good qualities needed to produce potential service dogs. Waverly and Pryde were friendly, calm, hard-working, and smart. I think I inherited those same qualities!
My beautiful mom, Waverly, is on the left and my handsome dad, Pryde, is on the right.
Waverly and Pryde are among many dogs that are breeders for the organization where I was born, raised, and trained. Each dog in the breeding program has records that show their physical qualities, including health clearances, and the qualities that would make good service dogs like trainability and behavior traits.
A few years ago, my mom, had a friend of hers make a pedigree that shows my family. It is a three-generation pedigree which means it shows my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents! There are even pictures for most of my relatives so you can see where I got my beautiful looks! Although I only knew Waverly I am sure all of my relatives were extra special just like me!
Pedigree designed and created by Jennifer Higbee Photography.
But even more important than the beauty of my relatives is the depth of solid qualities that I got from Waverly and Pryde. That part doesn’t show in a pedigree. Instead, those qualities are found within the extensive records that are kept for each dog. Things like trainability, confidence, and friendliness. When deciding which dogs should be bred together these qualities are studied so that the best pairings can be made.
I think Waverly and Pryde passed on to me excellent qualities. Because if you ask me or my mom we would say I am an exceptional service dog!
Here I am with some of my littermates!
I am wearing the Neon Pink collar. Next to me is Beaumont, Bristol, and Burney.
