Who do you think you are? Canine edition
DNA test finally reveals the origins of Golfo, our Andalusian gigolo
Golfo’s arrival a la Casa Hunt was the culmination of a seven-year campaign of attrition to fill the dog-shaped hole in our lives that began more or less the moment we arrived in Madrid.
In the eighth week of the savage Spanish Covid lockdown the argument, “we’re not here to look after him, it wouldn’t be fair”, collapsed like the Spurs defence. We were never not there.
Agnes, Field Marshall of the pro-dog militia, showed us a rogue’s gallery of potential candidates residing in a protectora close to Toledo.
There he was, the biggest rogue of the lot, 30kg of indeterminate fluff with a cheeky grin and a “come get me” countenance. We couldn’t not. I mean, just look at him!
Two weeks later, as soon as the regulations eased, he arrived: soft, shy, incredibly furry, and very, very big.
“What is he?” we asked the heroic rescue people.
“No idea,” they replied. “Maybe San Bernardo?”
Andalusian gigolo
Golfo – he came with the name, which we later discovered approximates to something like gigolo in Mexican Spanish – may have come from Almeria in the south. He’d been abandoned. We were his third home, as the first placement they found for him didn’t work out after Golfo ate a rock requiring him to have expensive surgery.
He moved in. He became part of the family immediately with full sofa access rights. And we soon discovered that – stone intolerance apart – Golfo was a robust, healthy boy, but that he came equipped with a full range of anxieties.
The things we have discovered he is scared of include: bins, bin lorries, large mechanical machines, road traffic generally, his own shadow, shadows generally, downstairs, upstairs, suitcases, separation, raised voices, and so on. Weirdly for a dog, he’s not scared of either thunder or fireworks, which is just as well as living in Madrid can involve a lot of both. A firework is not just for Guy Fawke’s in Spain, it’s for a random Tuesday in May or a sixth birthday party or just because.
And of course we have always been curious about his origins, encouraged by endless repeats of our own question.
“What is he?” people ask us wherever we walk him. “He’s lovely, what is he?” People love him, and he loves people, so there’s always conversation. It’s like being back at the school gate.
“No idea”, but of course we all had our own ideas. His massive size indicated some sort of mastin or mountain dog. Maybe a Burmese or San Bernardo as the people from the protectora thought.
People often tended to see in whatever they wanted. Collie owners saw collies, pointer people, pointers and others Aussie shepherds or Lassie or whatever. But we didn’t know and no pasa nada. He’s our Golfo, the hound from the pound with separation anxiety and a love of sticks.
Agnes, still Commander-in-Chief of Dog Operations and in particular the horror show that is Cholo’s medical care (more of which another time), took it into her own hands to find out, buying me a DNA kit for my birthday. Golfo, ever eager to please, bore the indignity of having his gums swabbed with great dignity for a few moments before trying to chew the swab.
But we got it done, posted the swab and sat back and waited impatiently.
Of course he is
Two weeks later, the email arrived: “Golfo’s DNA results are in!” I had him sit by the kitchen table to hear his story.
And, Golfo is… drum roll… 36% German shepherd. Of course he is. I mean, just look at him! But weirdly nobody ever really called that out, perhaps because temperamentally our gentle, anxious giant doesn’t fit the mould.
German shepherds are the cartoon villains of the canine world, forever cast as the baddie, straining at the leash outside a barbed wire fence just waiting to take a chunk out of some smartass airman’s ass.
The 6% Golden Retriever helps to explain the gentleness as well as perhaps some of the, er, intellectual limitations. The rest of the top five – Caucasian Shepherd, Great Pyrenees and Central Asian Ovcharka – all massive dogs, help to account for the size and the fact that storm Filomena, which buried Madrid under a metre of rare snow, was his absolute favourite time ever.
Further down the ancestry list are the real peculiarities. Chihuahua 4% because of course he is. Another 4% is accounted for by Polynesian Street dog, which I like a lot. He’s part Portuguese pointer, part German pointer, and part non-denominational pointer. There’s some Belgian Malinois and Berger D’Auvergne, Great Dane and Chow Chow (!), which is an actual thing. Exotic.
There’s a huge amount of shepherd in there – at least two-thirds – which perhaps explains why Golfie’s superpower is that he can hear the cheese Tupperware being opened from anywhere in the house or garden. He loves a bit of cheese.
And it’s interesting to know what he is, of course, but it doesn’t matter. He’s our Golfo: our rescue from Toledo, the very gentlest of giants, champion shedder, occupier of inconvenient floor space and of all the chambers of all of our hearts.