Weeks ago, at the AlphaPoms and Pomskies kennel in Canton, Georgia, my wife, Cheryl and I stood outside a white playpen and marveled at the double litter of puppies sprawled drowsily across a ceramic tile floor.  In the playpen, a small tray of milk and kibble, bunched up blankets, a medium crate, and in a corner, covering about a sixth of the floor, a litter box strewn with paper pellets, free of puppy business.  No smells, no barks.  The air punctuated, every so often, with soft yips, shivers, and shakes.  Puppy dreamland.

Days ago, my wife had attended a wine-tasting, socially distanced I was assured, with a friend and two friends of the friend.  A person’s taste in wine can tell you a bit about them.  A person’s taste in dogs, too.  Sipping a flight of California sauvignon blancs (of which my wife was disappointed – she, an unyielding devotee of New Zealand), one of the newly minted acquaintances, upon hearing my wife relay her excitement regarding the arrival of our new Pomsky puppy, spit into a decanter and said, “Oh gawd, a designer dog.”

We were in a room just off the kennel owner’s large, modern kitchen.  In most homes, you could imagine this room a den.  The owner, Lisa, blonde bob, elaborately tattooed, 40-ish, wore jeans and a black tank top with the kennel name in white script.  Matching black tank on her daughter, who leaned against the wall, smiling, jean shorts rolled up her tattooed thighs.  After dabbing a tiny puddle of clear urine with a crumpled tissue, Lisa said, “Take off your shoes, get in, mingle, if you want.”

A designer dog is defined as the offspring of purebred parents of different breed.  Designer dogs are bred for the desired traits of each parent: usually smaller, low shed, mild temperament, adorability.  Most of us know the labradoodle is a cross between a poodle and Lab.  A Pomsky comes courtesy of artificial insemination, a female husky by male Pomeranian.  Blame the recent pup craze on the pandemic.  Blame the designer dog craze on Australian Wally Conroy, father of the first labradoodle.  It’s ok, he blames himself too.  He bred the very first on request for a low shed, guide dog.  To his regret, he then encouraged the labradoodle’s marketing.  Wally is quoted only two years ago, saying some doodles are crazy and have health problems.  Sexual reproduction is like a box of chocolates.  First generation offspring have a 50/50 chance of inheriting the less desirable traits.

I sat in the pen barefoot, enough room for twelve of us if Cheryl stood and I kept my knees up.  Ten, four-week-old puppies were unperturbed, just fed, preferring slumber.  One puppy was awake and — black coat, smaller, a girl, thin white stripe from crown to nose — licked and licked my ankle.  Lisa’s daughter said, “That’s Cookies and Cream.”  Blue eyes.  Cheryl cradled a boy, a fluff-ball named Rocky Road, party eyes (speckled blue and brown), gray and white mask like a bandit.

Critics opposed to designer dogs warn of the day when public appetite wanes.  What happens to unwanted offspring then?  Aren’t there enough rescues waiting for adoption?  At the wine-tasting, Cheryl’s friend’s friend said she was into boxer rescue.  This was news to me, that rescue people could splinter by breed. “And what did you pay for the dog?” she’d asked.

Cheryl’s down payment awarded us ninth pick of fifteen.  By my math, there should’ve been seven puppies to choose from, not ten.  Somehow, we’d moved up three, now picking sixth. Improved odds of getting what we want. A good thing, one would think.

Cheryl’s brother-in-law, Scott, a Siberian husky and Alaskan malamute enthusiast, tells a story of Oreo, RIP, his husky escape artist who’d once traveled a gauntlet of home fencing to arrive at the neighbor’s free-range chicken pen.  It was a weekday.  Scott is a police officer and got the call from Animal Control while on duty.  He arrived at his neighbor’s backyard in uniform to find a grisly scene: Under an innocent blue sky, Oreo had dispatched ten of the neighbor’s twenty chickens to bloody chicken heaven.  We can probably agree this is no way to go for any chicken, but at least they had a 50/50 chance.  And, I presume, a good life right up until that fateful day, that existential moment when the doomed birds caught a glimpse of the mission in those ruthless, cold husky eyes — those chickens had lived a peaceful, easy, hen-zen sort of life.  (Of his neighbors, Scott felt bad, said, “They liked their eggs.”)  Contrast that fowl end-of-life story to the dark, poorly ventilated, overcrowded pens, the restricted, overfed lives of those processed, neatly packaged chickens we purchase by the tasteless pound.  As for Oreo, he was simply expressing an unvanquished genetic legacy.  If a dog’s life flashes before a dog’s eyes, one might imagine, in Oreo’s last moments, a most fond, lupine vision of the ultimate hunt, the great chicken massacre, possibly the greatest day of his otherwise domesticated, fenced-in life.

Cheryl’s dog worldview pointed to the future.  She fell for one of the honey-coated pups, “She’s so cute I can’t stand it.  Want to hold her?”  Cradling Vanilla Bean in my palm, I brought her to my nose.  She smelled like a spice.

Pomeranians are smart, energetic, chewers.  Pomerania is a region spanning northeastern Germany and northwestern Poland.  Cheryl and I are childless.  We own immaculate furniture imported from Germany and Poland.

Two puppies are blue merles.  Cheryl knows because she’s seen them on the AlphaPoms facebook page.  They are not in the pen.  Lisa said, “Everyone wants the small Husky look and coloring.”  Cheryl kept asking what each puppy would look like grown.  Aside from fur color, their puppy faces were indistinguishable.

Remember from biology class, Punnett squares?  All you need to know is each parent contributes half the offspring’s DNA and that the genes get passed down in generally predictable ways.  So, the ideal Pomsky, would receive the Pomeranian’s sociability, smaller size, and intelligence and the Husky’s coat, lupine snout, and lazy watchdog manner, i.e., little barking.  But it’s a crapshoot when you’re looking at the whole litter.  Statistically speaking, you’re just as likely to get a Pomsky cursed with a Pomeranian’s unrelenting yappiness and cutesy lion’s mane, crossed with a stubborn Husky’s penchant for digging and excessive shedding.

Luna, Luna, Luna.  It’s all I hear.  Cheryl loves Luna.  Probably carved in a heart shape on the pin oak in our yard.  The neighbor’s dog, Luna, has the Husky look and coloring.  Small and adorable.  Luna is the origin story of our puppy quest.  Luna came from the prior litter at AlphaPoms.  On our morning walks, it sits, alert blue eyes, at the end of the neighbor’s driveway, tail-flapping, begging us to approach.  Cheryl speaks to Luna in a baby voice.  Luna drops her front legs, lies, rolls over.  Cheryl rubs her belly.  Luna, Luna, Luna.  This is what I want, Cheryl says.  Luna never barks. A dream dog.

Four weeks from bringing our puppy home, we have a problem.  We cannot know what we have inherited. It could be a Luna, the silent, submissive beauty.  Or it could be an Oreo, slaughterer of free-range chickens.  But we’re not snobs, we will love our dog in whatever flavor it comes.

Won’t we?