Traverse City Record-Eagle

Marta Hepler Drahos

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January 25, 2010

Marta Hepler Drahos: The beauty of ancestry

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS

For his last birthday, my husband got the news that he was going to be a grandfather. It came as both a joy and a relief; at 65, he was beginning to lose hope.

As we exclaimed over ultrasound images and Buddha-belly photos, we tried to guess what the baby would look like. With my stepson's fiery red hair and his wife's delicate Indonesian features, it was hard to imagine.

It was just the opposite with our dog, Jesse James. With his sleek black fur, deep chest, scenting and retrieving instincts and houndy bark -- woowoowoowoooooo -- it was his ancestry that was baffling, even to his vet. I wanted a doggie DNA test to satisfy my burning curiosity, but at more than $100 it was hard to justify.

So when I got a gift catalog in December and saw that the price had dropped, I asked for a test kit for Christmas. Even before the decorations came down we'd swabbed Jesse's cheeks and sent the samples off to the lab.

For weeks I raced home after work to check the mail on the counter where another Christmas present, a book called "Long-Distance Grandparenting," lay. It was hard to tell which arrival I anticipated more: my first grandchild or the DNA results. When the latter finally came, my husband got to them first.

"You're going to be surprised," he announced, with a knowing smile.

It was an understatement. I was dumbfounded. Flabbergasted. And every other word for stupefied. Because number two among the five breeds listed in order of prominence was ... Dalmation. Dalmation?!

Suddenly it all began to make sense: the floppy ears, the slightly knobby head, the mottled black-and-white-make-gray chest we always attributed to German short-haired pointer, English setter or English springer spaniel heritage. It also explained the skin allergies, for which Jesse gets special yam-and-whitefish food.

Numbers three through five on the list were even more surprising: German shepherd dog, Norwegian elkhound and West Highland white terrier.

But the real shocker was number one. Over 75 percent of the DNA found in Jesse -- who takes up three couch cushions when reclining -- was Yorkshire terrier, the diminutive Teddy Bear-breed illustrated as Toto in the novel, "Wizard of Oz."

Now when I look upon Jesse's black countenance, all I see is white. Spots. A curly tail and tall, pointed ears. Glenn Close and the Wicked Witch of the West.

When I look at the baby, all I see is ... baby. Born two days before we got the DNA results and called Axel Aditya -- the first chosen from a book of baby names while his parents lounged on a Kauai beach, the second a Hindu name that means "of the sun" -- he's a beautiful blend of all his ancestors, East and West.

And I don't need a DNA test to break it down for me.

Reach staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.

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