commander30

With only five Catz and five Dogz breeds left to go, it's time for another quick aside... tamsins. This is Gandalf, my first tamsin. Tamsins aren't an official breed, or even a hexed breed--they're all just mixed breeds who happen to fit a "standard". Tamsins have a pretty simple standard that leaves room for a lot of variation--basically all a tamsin is is a dalmatian with mutt markings. They can have other markings too, and they can have any fur coat color or length, just as long as their body and face are dalmatian-shaped.

They've been popular with Petz players for a long time. Gandalf here, in fact, I adopted around ten years ago, back when tamsins were first becoming popular. This was back when most websites required an in-depth application for adoption (nowadays most are free--"I'd like tm8!" "Alright, here you go!"), but I found a site that had tamsins of every color... and they were freebies. Wanting to know what all the fuss was all about, I asked for a blue one, and I got him. I certainly liked him alright, but I wasn't all that crazy about the look, so I figured one was probably enough.



Fast-forward to when I was in college and getting back into Petz--this was probably around 2008-ish. A lot of sites have grabbag features, where you just ask for a grabbag and they'll send you ten or so random Petz. Well, I got me a grabbag, and amongst all the other wonderful Petz I had in there... I had these two. :) I fell in love with Sprocket right away, being wire-haired and red and sexy as all get out and all. And, recognizing him as a tam, I immediately decided I needed to start breeding tamsins of my own. Only problem--I like for all of my mixie Dogz to be descended from Dana and Rufus, and none of their descendents, at that time, were tamsins... but I did happen to have one, a great-granddaughter of Xena and Rufus, who was fairly close. She has a lot of dalmatian in her, and while she's entirely solid-colored (dust), she has the dalmatian face and body. So I bred her with Sprocket. One of their puppies wasn't a tam... but one of them was. I then found her a tamsin mate, and my tamsin line took off. And the best part is that I pulled it off while keeping them all descended from my oldest Dogz!

(I mated Stalemate to a definitely non-tamsin Dogz. At the time, I was under the mistaken impression that a Dogz needed a chest patch to be considered a tam... but then I realized that not even every mutt has a chest-patch.)

So for this aside I just bred a few extra tams that I'll offer up as downloadable adoptions on my website eventually, hopefully. Here's the pairs I used: Garnet and South (Garnet being Sprocket's tamsin pup), Anemone and Lafayette (Lafayette is a child of Garnet and South, and yes, he does have hidden white patches), Nillat and Napoleon (Napoleon being another child of Garnet and South), Lydia and Chaplin (Lydia being a child of Nillat and Napoleon... obviously :D)...



...and for the fifth couple I just bred Gandalf and Stalemate together, just to see what would happen.



Yes, the white ones have mutt patches; I checked. In fact, you can see that the third one has sort of double-dipped feet. That's a cool look, and it's the first Petz I've bred to have that look, I believe. Must... not... keep... puppy... ^^;

The end is in sight... up next are Siamese and dachshunds. :)