Where a dog's personality comes from

Bear was my Australian Shepard mix - he was with me from 1992 till 2004. He was so incredibly good and everyone who met him noticed he was something special. I'm grateful my wife (in picture) got to know him; her and I met in 1999 and lived together shortly after. It wasn't long before she loved him as much as I did. There were so many peculiarities to him that would make us laugh. We talk about him still and laugh a lot.

He passed away in '04 and we were totally crushed. It was extremely hard to say the least but we stayed positive, which mainly means remembering to be grateful to have had him instead dwelling on the loss. When you get a dog, you know you're going to go through that so you have to decide if it's worth it and it certainly is.

But even so, it took us 2 years to get another one. Enter this little one:


His name is Oberon or we call him "Obie". He's just totally awesome.

Obie is so much like Bear it's unreal...it's just uncanny. So many little habits that are the same and so many of those peculiarities. We've said he is Bear reincarnated but in all seriousness I don't believe in that. But I do think there's something going on there and it's given me a lot of food for thought.

But there are also major differences - obviously there are parts of a dog's personality that are a product of the breed while there are also aspects that develop as a result of being around us. Bear was a herding dog while Obie is a bird dog and those 2 distinctions are obvious mainly in their favorite play. It's like these aspects that are different only come out when they are at their full-out play/work mode. When they are/were just sitting around and socializing they act the same.

I think it's fascinating to consider. We have a female now too - Lanie and she is very different personality-wise. I wonder how much of the difference in her is being female and how much is being the 2nd dog in the house. We had Obie for a few months by himself and I think that's the biggest difference in their personalities - when she came into the house, he was already there which made her different.