I’ve just realised my dog has ancestors!

[SirChenjins]

I mean, I know he’s got ancestors, but the thought that he had a great x whatever grandparents roaming the land in Georgian times or medieval times blows my mind. He’s descended from dogs who lived through major events in history and when I was born in the 60s his great x whatever grandparents were living too.

Does anyone else think it’s amazing that dogs have great etc grandparents? DH doesn’t share my awe sadly - I think he thinks I’m a bit mad (in a nice way).

Awwww this is so sweet! I have photos and a family tree of my dog's great grandparents as when we got her, I researched her genetic line throughly for obvious reasons. I found out her great grandparent was a breed award winning French king Charles spaniel so now we sometimes talk to her in French hehe!

She seems to like it despite not been able to speak French 😂

Those of us with retired greyhounds can generally track their ancestry right back because of the charts produced to track them.

Every living mammal, bird, reptile etc (everything that has sexual reproduction) has great great great grandparents stretching back millions of years.
The unusual thing about some dogs and cats is that some have a documented pedigree with a known family tree going back more generations than most humans know their own ancestry. That is vaguely interesting but the simple fact of having grandparents isn't.

Well, that’s me told @OpusGiemuJavlo !

I think it’s very interesting - I wonder who CheDog’s great x grandparents owners were, where they lived, what they called their dogs if they kept them as pets, or did the dogs roam about wild - and if so then at what point were they taken in a bred from. The day to day lives of his ancestors is what I find fascinating - not the mechanics of reproduction.

Plants and trees do too OP. Mad isn't it?!

I saw a Facebook post from the previous owner of my cat, that said she was the granddaughter of x cat. That blew my mind a tiny bit.

Even crazier - you and your dog have common ancestors!

You might like reading about ancestor trees in forests. The matriarch trees are really interesting.

You’ve just evolved up a level, by becoming less human centric in your outlook! 😁

Yes I share your awe 🙂

Here

When we got Ddog as a puppy we met both her parents. Just pets living in a family home. I think about them often, 8 years later! The mum was beautiful and so gentle and tired from puppy feeding! I found her relatable! If I could I would have adopted my puppy's mum as well. The dad had daft wiry hair sticking out in tufts which our Ddog went on to sprout, after being deceptively sleek and smart as a puppy. I like thinking about my dogs parents and wonder what her siblings are doing now too.

I used to have a labrador and I googled all of the dogs listed on his Kennel Club pedigree papers.

I found that by doing that I could trace some of his lines back quite some way beyond the 5 or so generations that are on the pedigree papers. It was fun and addictive. 😃 Try it. 😉🤣

I was intrigued too when I found that my dog was distantly related to the royal labradors (the late Queen's KC prefix was Sandringham, presumably now passed to the King). I forget how many greats were in it, but the link was a lab called Sandringham Martin.

My ddog has documented lineage back to the 1950's hardly long compared to humans but fairly impressive to me, one of his ancestors, I can't remember how many generations, a few, won one man and his dog!

I know someone who has 3 generations of dogs it's very sweet granny dog has a gorgeous frosty face I want to squeal every time I see her.

We know of 4 generations of our dog I can imagine you could go quite far because they have shorter lives.

My (now departed) dog's grandfather won Best in Show at Crufts one year, and one of DDog's cousins has a celeb owner.

I've managed (just now) to trace lineage back to 1922 which is pretty cool, although I'm sure I could get a bit further if I had more time.

You can go a fair way back, but I found it tended to run to a halt once I began to encounter dogs that were not KC registered. So I generally got about as far back as the turn of the 20th century.

Sometimes old news articles etc. came up with the odd grainy photo too.

Researching the history of the breed helps too. For example, the first UK labradors being imported from Newfoundland via the Dorset coast and related to the trade in salted cod. Amongst those, I understand, came one called Malmesbury's Tramp (born in 1878), who was very important in the breeding lines of just about all of today's UK born labradors and the many are his descendants still. This was as they were being adapted from their original work of hauling in fishing nets from the North Atlantic to being trained as working gundogs.

I find it all fascinating.

My dog is a pure breed but isn't kennel club registered so the 4 back Is due to knowing the the parents/breeders who know the parents/breeders actually I don't think it's 4 back but knowing of two sets of generations?

Op, I read a book about medieval animals which said they were divided into curs, hounds and lapdogs. What were your dog’s medieval ancestors, do you think?

Mine are both lurcher mutts, so we only know who one parent is out of the both of them, and she is a total bitsa too.
But the other one is part saluki, and the amazing thing about salukis is that there is evidence for them as far back as 7000BC. The Bedoin kept detailed pedigrees for thousands of years too

When I got my rottweiler in 2009 we got her registration documents with family tree going back about 6 generations.. Was quite amazing.. I gave her her dm's name as a middle name.. Sadly we didn't breed her. Not responsible is it really? Or would have used her name. If we are lucky enough to get another we will use her name again.
Though will prob make me sad!

I've never had a dog but I still have a KC family tree for my late Grandparents corgi. It shared a (great?) grandparent with one of the Queens dogs, a Kaytop iirc.

My friend had a retired racehorse, and their pedigrees go way back to three arabian stallions that were imported in 1680, 1704 and 1729.

I'd never thought of that either! My old scrungly cat probably has some noble ancestor that lived through hard times in history - I will have to remind him of that next time he acts like he's never been fed.

I was going to say this!

I’m more fascinated by the fact my greyhound has 100+ siblings, as his dad was prolific.

My cat's a rescue so definitely no pedigree records there. Given his general demeanour I like to think he is descended from a long line of south London mousers.