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Can A Litter Of Puppies Have More Than One Father?

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Can a litter of puppies have more than one father?

I’m not sure when I first heard about a litter of puppies having more than one father, but I do recall hearing that it is a true statement…A litter of puppies can most definitely have more than one father.

Why was I thinking about this? Well, last Saturday at the pet adoption I saw two puppies at the Cuddly Canines booth that looked totally different, but were said to be siblings. Here’s a picture:

Chow Chow Labrador Retriever Mix

Koa and Sequoia

Picture from Cuddly Canines Website

Here are some photos I took at the Orange County Super Pet Adoption:

These precious baby boys were born around June 1st to what appears to be a Chow-Lab combo. They are indeed brothers, although they look nothing alike. Koa looks like he just hopped out of the clothes dryer after a quick spin through the fluff cycle, and Sequoia has beautiful short flaming red hair! Both boys are sweet & cuddly.

By the way, I looked today and these two are still up for adoption. If you’d like to adopt one or both puppies go to the Cuddly Canines website and fill out an application.

Now I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I think these two puppies may have had different fathers.

Another Multiple Father Example

Here’s a picture of a litter of puppies we rescued from the Riverside Shelter a couple years ago:

These puppies were German Shepherd mix, but two of them looked more like Labrador Retriever then German Shepherd. Once again I think there were multiple fathers involved with this litter. DNA test anyone?

Answers From Yahoo Answers

I read this on the Yahoo Answers site and also on many other sites across the internet:

A female dog can have as many different fathers for her puppies that bred with her. Dogs can release multiple eggs and they can be fertilized by whichever dog’s semen is present. If more than one male bred her, that’s how many fathers the puppies can have. the main reason everyone gets a fair shot at the eggs is because the semen wait a day or two before fertilizing the eggs.

When a dog ovulates the eggs are not totally mature. They finish maturing as they enter into the uterine horns. Then whatever dog’s semen is present releases from the uterine lining and heads for the eggs.

Now one single puppy cannot have two different fathers. Each puppy will get half of it’s DNA makeup from Mom and one Father, but since often dogs have litters it’s possible for two puppies from the same litter to have 2 different sires.

Have you had or seen any litters of puppies with multiple fathers? If you have some stories or photographs please send them to me. I’d love to post them to my blog.

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Comments

      • These puppies are a mysterious breed. We know mom is a blue nosed bully beauty. But no idea what dad(s) were!

        Reply

    • What cuties!!! Puppies r so innocent. I never realized the gift of animals, until Opiate Detox. Of all bad experiences in my life, from being molested as a child to childbirth to a crushed leg caught under a van when the jack broke to abuse from my husband to facial shingles…, the worst was opiate withdrawals at age 45. Whiplash put me on opiates 5yrs, to deal with the shingles pain and spine damage it caused. Opiate addiction was not a choice. 5th day in detox, was the 1st day i could sit up and join therapy group. My first group: a 100lb service dog walks in, his owner introduces this big baby, his leash is removed, he walks past 10 people, he plops on the floor on top of my feet, he dozes off into a nap for a few minutes. Unlike humans, he didnt ask if i needed love, he didnt think i was ugy and he didnt judge me. For the first time in a week, as he layed at my feet and looked in my eyes, i didnt think of killing myself to end the physical and emotional pains of withdrawals. For the first time in a week, I smiled both physically and emotionally. I can tell your puppies hav beautiful spirits. Iam sure they bring a smile to everyone they meet.

      Reply

  2. I have an even stranger question…bear with me…
    Background: I rescued a litter of puppies along with their mother from a junkyard. The mom was a cute medium-sized black & tan dog. The puppies (who are now 8) are all HUGE dogs, so I’m guessing their size probably came from the genes of the dad (or dads).
    Here’s the thing…Four of the five are brindle all over. The fifth looks exactly like a Rottweiler, but his paws are brindle. Even though it’s possible that both the Rottweiler and the Brindle traits came from the genes of one dog, is it possible that a single puppy can inherit traits from BOTH fathers that bred with the Mom?
    Sorry if that’s too complicated!

    Reply

    • It’s normally impossible for a puppy to inherit traits from 2 males unless genetic engineering was involved. It’s 1 sperm per egg. Even if 2 sperms managed to get inside the same ovum, there would be 3 sets of chromosomes so they wouldn’t be able to pair up (there’d be 1 pair and 1 extra set left over). In order to properly undergo mitosis the chromosomes must be paired in the centre of the cell – then they are pulled apart by the action of microtubules and microfilaments – which separates an equal number of chromosomes (1 half of each pair) into each cell. If the chromosomes aren’t properly lined up and paired mitosis normally fails. Occasionally, an extra chromosome (produced through a fault in meiosis – the production of the gametes) can get through mitosis in a zygote without the division failing – these result in serious genetic defects like Downs Syndrome, or rare intersex conditions like XXY males.

      There is something called a chimera – which is extremely rare and highly unlikely to be causing the colouration you’re seeing. In chimeras some of their cells have one DNA sequence, and some cells have another DNA sequence (in a normal animal, all cells have exactly the same DNA sequence). Normally chimeras are produced in laboratories for research purposes but there are a few instances of natural chimeras being produced too. In animals, chimeras are produced through the fusion of two zygotes – shortly after their conception. If the 2 zygotes came from 2 fathers, then the animal produced would contain genetic material from 2 fathers (but each cell in the animal would still only contain DNA from 1 father and 1 mother).

      Even though it’s possible that your puppies are chimeras, it’s HIGHLY unlikely (and nothing about the colour of the pups suggests it), and far more likely that they are just expressing recessive genes that aren’t visible in the phenotype of the known parent(s). What you described on one of the puppies sounds like brindle points – which are quite common, it’s a combination of the tan point gene (which is recessive to sable and agouti colouration) and brindle gene (which is recessive to solid/self colour), so you wouldn’t see it in the parents necessarily. You said the mother was black and tan – so she’s definitely carrying the tan point gene. The tan areas on a black and tan dog are modified by the brindle gene to show brindle colouration there instead of tan colouration. Therefore the father must have been carrying the brindle gene – even if he wasn’t expressing it (but since 4 of the 5 pups came out as brindle and the other was brindle -pointed I suspect he was homozygous for brindle). As long as the pups don’t also inherit the dominant solid allele (which the mother did not have or she couldn’t have been tan point), they can express a brindle colouration with only 1 brindle allele.

      With this theory, 50% of the pups should have been brindle and 50% should have been brindle-pointed. You got a result skewed towards brindle (80% brindle and 20% brindle-pointed) but this isn’t unusual with the small litters dogs and other mammals have and is just a random occurrence of chance / chaos (like a coin flip coming up heads 4 times in a row and then tails only once).

      The fact that the pups look like Rottweilers could be coincidence, or the father could have been a big mix with the inclusion of a Rottweiler in there somewhere.

      Sorry for the long post, I got interested in the theory behind your anecdote (also my science knowledge is probably really rusty).

      Reply

  4. i have a pure bred pitbull and she got tied up with a chowchow and then with my pure bred pitbull can she have two different sets of puppies

    Reply

    • It’s definitely a possibility. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell the difference once she has her litter. By the way, if she does we’d love to see pics!

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Reply

  5. Hi I have a female Chihuahua, I have 2 male Chihuahuas and they both got her on the same day. One is short haired and one is long haired, could she have different kinds of puppies or would the DNA take over just one?

    Reply

  6. my beagle/basenji something mix lol just had 8 puppies, 2 different dads we believe. our pure bred great pyrenees and pure border collie both mated with her in 24 hrs, and today they finally arrived. some of them are big and bulky, mostly white with some light brown, which im guessing have the pyrenees as daddy. and only one of them looks like a collie, very dark brown with some white. see, this dog had pups before with just the collie, and they all looked like dad. so these pups are definitely with 2 dads.

    Reply

  7. Hi! I have a dog that was supposedly a chow lab mix, but I’ve seen many full grown and NONE look like her. Also, when my parents went to get her they said all the other puppies were short haired and looked like blonde labs, and mine was separated because she didn’t want a bath. And she was really fluffy. As she got older she looks like a chow-wolf mix which I have just found out is called a Eurasier. She has identical health problems and personality traits as this dog, so I am pretty sure this is the case of different fathers. It just sucks because she is the most loyal dog in the world and its hard to pinpoint a good mix/breed that would be similar to her for when she passes (I’m totally dreading that day and I try not to think about it) but I just find this very interesting because I’ve never even heard or seen that breed before so I find it odd that it may be her father. Sorry this is long! I just felt like putting in my two cents! 🙂

    Reply

    • Thanks for leaving us a comment! No problem on the length of your comment. We love hearing back from our readers and all of their different stories. Hopefully you can find out what breeds your dog is mixed. Have you tried one of the breed tests from your local vet? I’m not too sure of the accuracy, but it might be worth a shot.

      Thanks again for sharing your story!

      Reply

    • Eurasiers don’t have any wolf in them – they are not a wolf hybrid. It is a breed originally created by crossing Keeshonds with Chows, and then the resulting “hybrids” with Samoyeds. The original name for Keeshond was “wolf-spitz” – but the inclusion of wolf in their name is referring to the wolf-grey colour of their coat, not any actual wolf content in them.

      If you want another dog similar look for a keeshond, samoyed or chow mix, or a blend of all three since these were the breeds used to create Eurasiers in the first place.

      Reply

  8. I would like to send a couple pics of two pups I saved from the same litter. one looks like a pit bull and the other like a lab.. how can I send the photos?

    Reply

  9. Stumbled across this page and its associated comments. Yes, there can be more than one father for a litter of puppies, but this really isn’t required for most of the variation you are trying to explain!

    Just because a given animal does not express a specific trait doesn’t mean it doesn’t possess the relevant allele to pass that trait on to its offspring. A basic understanding of heritability would really help.

    A simple place to start might be: http://www.doggenetics.co.uk/index.htm.

    Reply

  10. we have a lab, who is gentle and free to roam around in a big area. multiple dogs have mated with her last month, and now she’s pregnant. next month she will deliver. there is a strong suspicion that, this lab mother might have litters from more than one father. your blog was informative.. so, if something like that happens, will send you pics.

    Reply

  11. i am in Ghana, Africa,where we have a lot of free range dogs. Most of our sires give birth to litters of pups with very different colors. Your post made me ponder over it and remembered that,the sires mate with so many different studs because they are free range. I believe litters of pups can have more than one father.

    Reply

    • Thanks for sharing your experiences. I remember talking to our rescue coordinator and her mentioning that it was possible that their were multiple fathers in one litter, but also the many varieties of colors, shapes, and sizes could be attributed to several generations of mixed breeding.

      Reply

  12. Our chihuahua got “got” by two chihuahuas and a terrier. Could she have chihuahua puppies and terrier puppies?

    Reply

  13. Yes, I know a pitbull mix who mated with 3 different males (Hawaii beach dogs). She had some puppies that looked pure pit, some that looked like rotties and some that were little furballs, which came from the golden retriever. Cutest little hodgepodge litter I’ve ever seen!

    Reply

  14. I adopted 2 litter mates according to the shelter, but their hair and frames are so different that it’s not hard to imagine they have different fathers. I’m just curious.

    Reply

    • I love seeing pictures of litter mates that look completely different from one and other. It’s so interesting that pup’s can have multiple fathers.

      Reply

  15. We have a 5 month old rottie cross who we believed to be crossed with a Anatolian shepherd. But he’s far to short legged, more like a dashound cross!!
    He’s Black and Tan rottie colouring, short, and stocky. some of the other pups we thorn colour with longer legs. I didn’t know a litter of pups could have more than one father…. I do now and think this is definatley the case with our little one who is just lovely the way he is !

    Reply

  16. Hey i have a puppy from a batch of three fathers 1 is a blue trick pure breed with papers n also 2 black n tan hound dogs.. The mother was boarder collie… I have pictures off all puppies n fathers n mother…. My experience with having a batch of puppies with different experience for sure they all looked like the fathers that they came from only 3 out of 7 where completely different colours from the other 4 where black n tan…

    Reply

  17. snoppy just whelped seven and

    all the puppies have different colour and shapes,although a few of them seem to have striking personality but the difference still stands

    Reply

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